IDW - Bumblebee #4

Title: From Cybertron with Love

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Andrew Griffith

Colours by: Priscilla Tramontano

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Editor: David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

Bee and his secret agent friends are surrounded by Malignus' Decepticons, where the leader discloses that his plan is to disrupt Earth by causing a nuclear war, thus allowing him to raid the planet of it's ancient Cybertronian artefacts. Before they can do anything though, Lux reveals that she secretly converted Bee's homing beacon, that he placed on Diabla, into a bomb, which she detonates.

Bee grabs his friends and transforms, deploying some submarine attachments and dives into the Sharkticon tank, he deploys his oil slick, darkening the water and blinding the Sharkticons. Bee escapes the water where he comes across Diabla, who shoots one of the Sharkticons, who was about to attack Bee, leading to Bee all-but confirming her loyalty to him.

Malignus, seeing this, sets Dead End, a cannibal, upon the Decepticons to teach them to not betray him. Diabla pushes Runabout in the way, leading to him being killed by Dead End. Bee thanks his old friend, but she reveals that she is working for EIDOLON, an evil human group and shoots Bee in revenge for him killing Wildrider on their last mission against the villainous team.

Malignus begins launching his missile, in order for it to spark an all-out war between various nations. Blitzwing orders Astrotrain to take out Diabla, but he decides that he's had enough and takes off alone. Lux takes on Malignus, and due to his small size, she manages to plant one of Bee's homing beacon bombs into him, and destroys the tiny Decepticon.

Diabla flies after the missile, as it is headed towards the Soviet Union, the homeland of her new Human allies, she manages to redirect the missile back down towards the Decepticon's base, allowing Bee and his friends to escape, whilst Blitzwing uses Dead End as a shield.

As the missile hits, Bee dives into the nearby ocean and shoots after Blitzwing as he escapes. Bee soon finds one of Diabla's wheels, and whilst the Humans take this to mean that she has died, Bee still has hope, but does vow to take down Blitzwing if he cannot find Diabla, since he still believes that he dragged her into the Decepticons.

Over time, Bumblebee continues to chase Blitzwing, eventually leaving his Human allies and one day finds him...and prepares to battle him....

Characters

Autobot

Bumblebee - Aston Martin

Decepticon

Malignus Killed by Diana Lux

Blitzwing - Fighter Jet/Tank

Diabla - Lamborghini Islero Possibly Killed in Missile Explosion

Astrotrain - Space Shuttle/Train

Dead End - Porsche 365 Killed by Blitzwing

Runabout - Rolls Royce Limo Killed by Dead End

Sharkticons

Wildrider - Shelby Cobra (Mentioned) Dead

Human

Agent David Reeve

Agent Diana Lux

P.R.O.G.R.A.M.M.E. (Mentioned)

E.I.D.O.L.O.N. (Mentioned)

Notes

• Malignus mentions that Earth is home to a large cache of Cybertronian artefacts. This is quite true! Look at the Allspark, Star Harvester, Matric of Leadership, Staff of Merlin, UNICRON, and others just for a starter!
• Bumblebee is shown to be able to convert his car mode into a submarine (though not in a triple-changer manner)
• Diabla is revealed to be working with humans as well, but not the good guys, revealing that the original intel given to Reeve was correct, in that some Decepticons ARE working with Humans.
• Astrotrain escaping with his life in this issue leads to his later return in the Dark of the Moon prequel comics