Title: Sardines
Written by: James Roberts
Art by: Alex Milne
Colours by: Joana LaFuente
Letters by Tom B. Long
Editor: David Mariotte with Carlos Guzman
Publisher: Greg Goldstein
Plot
Fort Max and the rest of the Luna-1 crew arrive on Necroworld and find the Decepticons there having overrun the place, killing most of the Autobot residents and ransacking the planet. Outrigger is chased by Fangry whilst he is doing his travel blog, but the blogger is saved by Fort Max, whilst Cerebros and Red Alert kill the other Decepticons, rescuing some Autobots, like Scrounge, along the way.
After a while they locate Kaput's work station and find out that Tailgate was locked inside an isolation chamber under the ground, they hook Beak up to the monitors to use his x-ray optics to see inside, and they are horrified...
Far away from there, Team Rodimus are starting to get stir-crazy from the cramped conditions inside the dead Decepticon, Skip, with Swerve and Anode passing the time by having a prank war.
Swerve manages to convince Velocity to tell Anode that she has a vestigial sentient head in her ass, only for Swerve to laugh at her panic.
Meanwhile in the midsection of the shuttle, the Autobots are relaxing and having some down time, whilst Drift annoys Ratchet by staring at his "aura" again, but Drift just explains that Ratchet looks off today, as Ratchet's hands begin to shake again...
In the recharge suite, Swerve is resting when he wakes up and catches Anode trying to spray him with magnetizing spray, so he'll stick to the recharge slot. Suddenly however the slab overheats and the sprinklers are set off, drenching the both of them. Ten enters the suite, looking disappointed in his boss, but Swerve suddenly feels very weak and starts collapsing.
Swerve is taken to see Ratchet, where he discovers a bomb in Swerve's head, which is connected to his vocal synthesizer, and is counting down to zero every time he speaks, leaving him with just 400 words left. Swerve starts to panic however when Ratchet turns totally grey, as if he had just died!
Back in the midsection, Ultra Magnus comes to sit next to Cyclonus, who has been sitting by the window since they set off, as Magnus wants to work on planning his paperwork for when they reach Cyberutopia, and also plans to work on a book he is writing on the terms of peace so another war doesn't happen. Cyclonus begins to open up with Magnus about how he is unsure what to do on Cyberutopia as he always wanted to be there with Tailgate, but their relationship has been ended by Tailgate. Magnus leaves, since he doesn't do well with emotions, and heads somewhere else to continue his work.
Ratchet returns to the midsection where Drift tells him that his aura is no longer there, further implying that he is indeed somehow dead!
In the cockpit of the shuttle, Roller is reporting Chromedome and Rewind to Rodimus for "canoodling" inside his truck mode. Rodimus however doesn't care since the tracker they had on the Lost Light has vanished. Suddenly a voice comes from nowhere, which Rodimus at first believes is Skip speaking to them, but it is instead Fort Max, reporting his findings from Necroworld to him...much to Rodimus' distress...
Back in the Midsection, Swerve sparingly tells Anode to go speak to Magnus, when suddenly she is magnetically attracted to the larger robot. Swerve explains, sacrificing most of his remaining words in the process, that he left the spray can for her to find AFTER he filled the sprinklers with the magnetizing spray and coated himself in the repellent for the spray.
In the cockpit, Cyclonus is informed by Rodimus that Tailgate seems to have died in a spontaneous spark combustion explosion, vaporizing him in the process. He tries to console him by assuring him that it would have been a quick and painless death, but Cyclonus angrily screams in pain, for the entire shuttle to hear.
Cyclonus stalks out of the cockpit in anger, just as Lug manages to fling Anode off of Magnus, sending her flying into Cyclonus, causing him to try and kill her with his sword out of rage. Swerve shouts for her to move, despite him using the last of his words, and Rewind is accidentally slashed in the fuel line instead. Velocity immediately starts working on him, as Chromedome goes after Cyclonus, claiming that he did it on purpose because he is jealous of him and Rewind, unaware of what just happened with Tailgate. Ratchet tries to get between the two fighters, but Chromedome is able to punch right through him, as he is now intangible.
Nearby, Anodes thanks Swerve for warning her about the sword, despite it costing him his last few words of life. Swerve acknowledges the thanks, but suddenly realizes that Anode knows about the bomb somehow, to which she admits to having had Whirl plant the FAKE bomb and timer in his head when he was asleep, and only pretended to fall for his other pranks. The evil genius!
Whirl breaks up the fight and asks Cyclonus if something happened to Tailgate, to which the hardened warrior is reduced to collapsing in his frenemy's arms in grief.
Suddenly Ratchet notices that he is sinking through the floor of the ship, as Roller notices that the ship is getting smaller. Rodimus realises that the Mass Displacement Override is failing, and everyone starts to panic as they are about to be crushed. Drift is trying to keep Ratchet from falling out of the shuttle, and Chromedome is further panicking that Rewind's wound isn't getting any better, all whilst Swerve is furious with Anode for messing with his head.
All of this stops however when Ten starts talking and tells them that they need to do exactly what he tells them to do so they can save themselves and the universe itself!
Characters
Autobot
Rodimus - Car
Ultra Magnus - Vehicle Transport
Drift - Car
Ratchet - Ambulance Turned Grey and Intangible
Velocity - Race Car
Swerve - Van
Whirl - Osprey Helicopter
Chromedome - Car
Rewind - Data Slug Accidentally Slashed by Cyclonus' Sword
Brainstorm - Jet
Nautica - Submarine
Rung - Photonic Crystal Generator
Nightbeat - Car
Fortress Maximus - Tank
Cerebros - Truck
Red Alert - Emergency Vehicle
Scrounge - Wheel
Kaput Dead
Megatron - Tank (Voice Recording)
Optimus Prime - Truck Cab (Voice Recording)
Skids - Van (Name on Statue) Dead
Tailgate - Car (Mentioned) Seemingly died from Spontaneous Spark Combustion
Pyro - Truck (Mentioned) Dead
Getaway - Car (Mentioned)
Decepticon
Skip - Space Shuttle Dead, Body used by Team Rodimus
Fangry - Winged Wolf Knocked Out by Fortress Maximus
Rapidfire - SUV Killed by Red Alert
Disappeared Decepticons Killed by Red Alert and Cerebros
Deathsaurus' Troops Several Dead on Necroworld Battlefield
Zooka (Mentioned) Dead
Guncons (Mentioned) Dead
Decepticon Justice Division (Mentioned) Dead
Killmaster (Mentioned) Trapped in Pocket Dimension
Nautilator - Lobster (Mentioned)
Other Cybertronian
Anode - Bi-Plane
Lug - Backpack Equipment
Roller - Truck
Cyclonus - Jet
Ten
Outrigger - Crane
Beak - Bird
Primus (Mentioned)
Knights of Cybertron (Mentioned)
Necrobot (Mentioned) Dead
Other
Galactic Council (Mentioned)
Black Block Consortia (Mentioned)
Notes
Oh hey! Alex Milne is back for this issue. That was a nice surprise!
Hey...didn't Outrigger and Beak leave for (presumably) Cybertron at the end of the Titans Return tie-ins? Why are they a part of the Luna-1 crew here?
Red Alert was trying to locate the origin point of the Last Will message from Rodimus and his crew back in the Titans Return tie-in. Looks like he did it at last!!
So...apparently after Rodimus and his group left Necroworld, Fangry and the other Decepticons went wild and killed most of the Autobots/Neutrals on the planet...good to know the Necrobots hard work of rescuing all those missing people will end up being pointless now!
OMG! Scrounge!! He was last seen plunged into a viewscreen in Spotlight: Metroplex, seemingly killed by Sixshot, looks like he was rescued instead. Now we can have him join the main cast of the comic huzzah!!
The Necrobot's cap is shown to be an actual live feed of sorts to the Benzene Cluster rather than just a printing. I think with all the mentions lately we'll be getting out season finale there before long...
Fort Max now has Rodimus' contact information and knowledge on who has survived in his group...will he pass this information on to Optimus and the others who haven't even mentioned the seemingly betrayed and dead crew of his friends since they seemingly died....
The prank war that is going on as the main plot for this issue began when Swerve made Anode complete a survey after waking up from stasis in issue 1...this issue goes to show us how petty she is...
Lug seems to get annoyed when the imaginary second head on Anode is referred to as male...why? Pretty much every natural born Cybertronian from Cybertron are male, including Anode originally before her transition, so a conjoined twin would likely have been male too.
Skip is shown to have at least four main compartments in his vehicle mode, the engine room (being doubled up as a med-bay), a midsection (doubled as a mess hall), the dead locker (fitted with a recharge slab) and the cockpit (doubled up as Rodimus' quarters). This goes to show us that Transformers do become fully functional and fitted vehicles in their alternate modes, which when scaled up (through mass displacement for example) can be used as a full-on vehicle
Rung and Roller are shown resting in their alternate modes in the midsection. Rung makes sense since he turns into a very slender object that can be stored pretty much anywhere, but Roller turns into a giant truck...does he just want to take up all the space in the ship?!
Brainstorm is shown to have rebuilt his Early Early Warning Device, this time with famous voices doing quotes, though Nautica mis-attributes them to others who just sound like the actually famous Cybertronians.
It's subtle, but Ratchet is shown getting a bit fainter in colour in each of his scenes before the full-on depigmentation.
Cyclonus is shown with the same scratch markings he was making on himself at the end of issue 7, when he was upset with Tailgate "dumping" him
Lug appears to be reporting something to Rung in a background shot in this issue...is she going to be his assistant or something?
Swerve tells Ten to get either Velocity or Ratchet to help him, he goes straight to Ratchet. This is a nice little nod to Ratchet being shown as one of his "favourites" in the past.
The process of Cybertronians turning grey when they die is named as "Aggressive Depigmentation" here.
Yes...this is the issue where the "canoodling" meme began. In case you aren't familiar with the term, canoodling refers to sexualized touching or even making love...I'm assuming this is just referring to touching here, since robots do not have sexual organs. That...or they were building canoes in his trailer? I dunno....
Also...EW!!! You were messing around INSIDE ROLLER'S BODY!!! You sick fucks!!
Rodimus is concerned that the Lost Light's signal has vanished. This likely is due to them being in the "Warren" network of space-tunnels
So apparently Tailgate died when his spark exploded inside the isolation chamber. I'm just going to say this now...I do not for a moment believe he is actually dead. He's going to return in the finale or with the Scavengers next issue.
Ten...can....talk? Swerve had better hope he doesn't tell anyone his secrets!!!
