Sins of the Wreckers issue 1

« The Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers #1 »
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	November 25, 2015
Cover date	November 2015
Written by	Nick Roche
Art by	Nick Roche
Colors by	Josh Burcham
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2015)

When Prowl reappears on Earth, only to vanish again immediately, Arcee suspects Verity Carlo is involved while Kup follows Prowl's last wishes and calls in the Wreckers to take on the case.

Synopsis

A proximity transponder alerts Arcee—aboard the Ark-7, in orbit above Earth—to the sudden, unexplained appearance of Prowl on the planet below, only for him to then disappear just as suddenly. Seeking access to Prowl's quarters in search of an explanation, Arcee goes looking for security chief Kup, who she finds floating in space following a blackout while doing some riveting work on the ship's hull. After being dragged inside and woken up, Kup is reluctant to open Prowl's quarters, which only serves to further Arcee's suspicions that his blackout was not coincidental...

On Debris, the space station headquarters of the Wreckers, Impactor sits in grim silence and listens as his former partner Guzzle pounds relentlessly on the walls of his windowless cell, screaming obscenities at his jailer. Presently, Roadbuster arrives, having completed another day of reading to the comatose body of Springer in the station's med-bay, and he and Impactor lament the current state of the Wreckers, who no longer serve a real purpose now that peace has fallen over the Cybertronian race. All they do now is take out small Decepticon resistance cells; it was on such a mission that Guzzle recently went over the edge, massacring a defeated Decepticon unit and earning himself the cell he now resides in. Impactor sorrowfully recalls how hard it was not to simply join in the slaughter, but Roadbuster sees it as a sign of strength—Impactor is helping his comrade, and doing so will help him to grow and change, just as caring for Springer has changed Roadbuster himself.

Arcee's suspicions grow as Kup proves inexplicably capable of getting them into Prowl's quarters with alarming ease, but bigger concerns soon emerge when they discover messages on Prowl's computer from the Autobots' old human ally Verity Carlo. Verity, it turns out, has been blackmailing Prowl with a secondary copy of the data from the Aequitas trials, entrusted to her by Ironfist before his death, leading Arcee to believe that Prowl was on Earth to meet with her. An automatic recording of Prowl's then plays, left in the event that he became compromised, requesting that one specific Autobot be called in to help rescue him from whatever fate has befallen him: Springer. Kup immediately reaches for a communicator, hoping that this news of this mission will be the magic words to wake Springer from his coma, but Arcee, frustrated that Prowl would choose someone else for the mission over herself, knocks Kup out and takes off for Verity's last known location: Nome, Alaska.

In an unknown location, Prowl awakens in a barren, metal room. Hesitantly staggering out the unlocked door, he finds himself in a kaleidoscopic landscape that assaults his senses and brings him to his knees. The last thing he sees before passing out is a shadowed figure welcoming him to "the Noisemaze"...

In the snowy wastes of Nome, the sick and exhausted Verity Carlo attempts to outrun a polar bear, but looks as though she is about to meet her end at its claws until Stakeout arrives to rescue her. A deputy of the Tyrest Accord assigned to work with Verity by Ultra Magnus years ago, Stakeout parted ways with Verity some time ago for her own safety, but has been brought to her aid now by the message she left him, detailing her plans to blackmail Prowl. Verity seeks justice for the dead, but Stakeout insists that if she releases the Aequitas data, she will shatter the fragile peace of the newly unified Cybertron. Verity tries to argue further, but her ailing body is suddenly racked with pain... at which point Stakeout is blasted off the road by Arcee, who abducts Verity at sword-point.

Back on the Ark-7, Kup recovers and makes his call to Debris, speaking directly to Springer. He recounts his time trapped in the Dead Universe and the sadness he felt knowing that his prolonged captivity meant that Springer had never revived, since he would have come to rescue him if he had. Kup explains Prowl's request, and barks an order for Springer to wake up... but silence is all that is heard on the other hand of the comm channel.

On Debris, Impactor and Roadbuster stroll through the room containing grave markers for the fallen members of the Wreckers, including a pre-emptive gravestone for Impactor himself. Impactor's thoughts turn to Springer, and the idea of allowing him to die with some dignity instead of being hooked up to machines—a notion that raises Roadbuster's considerable ire. Before they can start arguing too vociferously, they are interrupted by Hubcap, the station administrator, a smirking little communications buff who has arrived to tell them that Guzzle is fifteen minutes away from melting his way out of his cell. Even this news is not quite enough to change the topic of discussion, though, and Impactor asks Hubcap for his opinion on Springer's plight... at which point, an alarm begins ringing, signifying that Springer's life signs have ceased. The trio sprint to the med-bay, where they find that the alarm has sounded not because Springer has died... but because he is gone...

Back on Earth, Arcee has taken Verity to a deserted pier warehouse for questioning, but the human claims to have no knowledge of Prowl's whereabouts and is happy at the thought of his finally suffering for his machinations and manipulations. Arcee does not believe her and threatens to destroy the Aequitas data slug, but as Verity convulses in pain once more, Kup arrives with the assembled forces of the Wreckers—Impactor, Roadbuster, Hubcap, Guzzle, Stakeout, and the hale and hearty Springer!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"The Wreckers are dead. Peace killed us."

—Impactor

"All this search is telling us is that Prowl's even shadier than we suspected and it's making me want to stab."

—Arcee

"Dammit, he deserves it. I deserve it. No—the dead deserve it."
"No—they deserve not to have died for nothing. Verity, if you leak this data, this half-peace between the Autobots and Decepticons falls apart. I know you're hurting, but if this gets out, how many more innocents die?"
"You're totally going to get off on this, but sometimes you're so Ultra Magnus."

—Verity and Stakeout

"Imagine it. Imagine being trapped, locked inside yourself, any freedom you have stolen from you as you're kept around on the whim of someone else."
"Imagine talking about Springer instead of yourself."

—Impactor and Roadbuster

"We're the Wreckers. And we're here to make things better."

—Springer

Notes

Continuity notes

• This issue does not offer a precise chronological placement for Sins of the Wreckers, but it appears to fall after Arcee's visit to Cybertron (seen in Combiner Hunters and The Transformers #44) but before The Transformers #45. In the latter issue, Arcee and Kup are shown returning to the Ark-7, with Jetfire commenting that it was "about time [they] got back", indicating that they are returning from the adventure that Sins is going to send them on.
• Kup was subconsciously placed under Prowl's influence in All Hail Megatron #15, and that connection is alluded to throughout the issue, with Kup having unconscious knowledge of a lot of Prowl's security and protocols. As such, his passing out at the moment of Prowl's disappearance cannot be coincidence.
• Prowl's plight comes on the heels of his final falling out with Optimus Prime in The Transformers #42. He disappeared at the end of that issue, but was shown to have simply been spirited away to safety by Rattrap; his reappearance on Earth, then subsequent re-disappearance, at the start of this issue is separate from that. He's still missing his left eye, after his last escapade as Devastator's head back in volume 2, issue 2 of the Windblade miniseries.
• Kup uses the same model of rivet gun that Swerve used in More than Meets the Eye #6.
• Prowl's desk has hand indentations from way back when he flipped it in More than Meets the Eye #1.
• Debris has been mentioned several times in past stories but this is its first "on-screen" appearance. Though it did appear over in Regeneration One, in that continuity it was a barracks on Cybertron rather than a space station.
• Guzzle and Impactor went off adventuring together at the end of Last Stand of the Wreckers. The short story "Escape", published in the hardcover collection of Last Stand, explored how Guzzle was growing increasingly unstable, which has culminated in his situation at the beginning of this story.
• Springer has been offline since the end of Last Stand. The prose story "Zero Point", also published in the Last Stand hardcover, detailed how Roadbuster has watched over his unconscious body and read to him.
• Verity was revealed to have a second copy of the Aequitas data in "In Word and Deed", another short story included in the Last Stand hardcover. This plot point was originally going to be part of the Last Stand mini-series, with Verity's data slug appearing on the last page of the final issue, but it got cut out.
• Stakeout could be glimpsed on the final page of Last Stand of the Wreckers #5, sitting in vehicle mode outside the cafe Verity was in at the time. There was nothing that particularly suggested this police car had any greater significance in the issue, until a note in the Last Stand hardcover made a point of singling it out, and stressing that it was "not Prowl or Streetwise". This issue marks the debut of his robot mode, as well as the revelation of his standard Cybertronian status as opposed to being a Micromaster in this universe.
• Kup recounts the time he was trapped in the Dead Universe in The Transformers: Infestation #2. He was eventually rescued during Dark Cybertron.
• When Roadbuster lists off past leaders of the Wreckers, he names Crest and Hyperion, who were first mentioned in the prose story "Bullets" from the Last Stand hardcover, and later received pictorial appearances in the early issues of More than Meets the Eye. A new character, Threnody, is also included in the list.
• Grave markers are seen for Rotorstorm and Pyro, who both died during the original Last Stand mini-series; Rack, whose passing (along with his brother Ruin) was alluded to in "Dead Men's Boots" (a Transformers: Mosaic strip canonized when it was printed in the Last Stand hardcover); and Hyperion, who died in More than Meets the Eye #2.
• Hubcap makes his first present-day appearance in IDW continuity with this issue, having shown up before in Megatron: Origin and the flashback story "Old Ways". He was most recently mentioned in More than Meets the Eye #15 as being an old friend of the now-deceased Pipes.
• The symbol on the medibay door on Debris is a green version of the normally red cross-like "it's not a Red Cross, we swear" stand-in symbol seen on characters such as First Aid and Pharma over in More than Meets the Eye.
• Verity notes that "a third of [her] life" has been ruined by the Transformers' war—a stark reminder of the march of time. A year-and-a-half before this issue's publication, Robots in Disguise #29 established that eight years had passed since All Hail Megatron, which itself took place a year after Verity's original adventures with the Autobots during Simon Furman's "-Ations" tenure. That's right: Verity, who we originally met while she was still in her teens, is now in her late twenties.
• Guzzle got BUFF. Appearing only on the last page of the issue, having spent the rest of it locked up in a box without windows, he is now terrifyingly huge, standing taller and wider than Roadbuster, when previously, he was the shortest member of the team. His Autopedia profile, published in Last Stand of the Wreckers #5, noted that he had previously undergone body augmentation so that he would be deemed fit for combat; looks like he got a taste for it. Either that or he is in some sort of mechsuit (even Nick Roche doesn't know!).

Transformers references

• The Noisemaze takes its name from the Japanese name of Cybertron Sideways.
• The inclusion of a polar bear, not to mention the other animals glimpsed in the opening page, would seem to be a nod by Nick Roche to seminal Transformers writer Simon Furman and his own love of the animals (Furman's fondness for polar bears saw them appear several times during the "Earthforce" run of stories in the Marvel UK series). But this is the world of the Transformers, where nothing IS what it seems!

Real-world references

• In-keeping with the fondness she displayed for giving the Transformers various colorful nicknames in Last Stand, Verity gives Arcee several epithets drawn from the musical Grease, calling her both "Pink Lady", from the all-female gang from the movie the Pink Ladies, and "Rizzo", the name of the gang's leader.
• Confirmed by Roche's commentary in the series TPB, Springer's return is blatantly styled as an analog to the resurrection of Jesus—an empty "tomb", walking back into the story flanked by his followers, and with the telegraph poles in the last page's background resembling the crucifixes of Calgary. He said he definitely "wasn't going for subtlety this time."

Errors

• Stakeout's line "But I insist on an explanation for your actions" is missing punctuation.

Other notes

• The story is followed by a letter from Nick Roche to the audience about the making of the comic.
• Stakeout typically appears as a Micromaster in his appearances. In this series, he is instead a normal-sized Cybertronian.

Production

Like the previous series the trade collection recounts various elements from earlier drafts that were cut or changed for the final story.

• Originally the issue opened with a page of a comatose Spinger on life support. The Wrecker would have been at the bottom, above him a mess of overlapping captions and nightmarish memories from the events of Garrus 9. It would visualize Springer being crushed by the weight of his personal history.
• Stakeout originally exposited that he and Verity have spent the last five years protecting Earth. This included two years infiltrating Skywatch, and five months 'dealing with a potential Insecticon outbreak in Borneo'.
• Similarly an early draft mentions that before before Verity became sick, the pair were in the process of creating a false identity for her to go under cover at the Earth Defense Command (the anti-Transformers human group from the second half of the Transformers ongoing series).

Soundtrack

Jokingly remarking that he had been "Twitter-shamed" into compiling a soundtrack for this issue,^[1] akin to those posted by James Roberts for each issue of More than Meets the Eye, Nick Roche offered these tunes and pieces of commentary:

• "Bliss" by Tori Amos^[2]
• "A Forest" by Bat for Lashes^[3]
• "Last of Our Kind" by The Darkness^[4]

Covers (3)

• Regular cover: A montage of our heroes, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham
• Subscription cover: A shadowed Impactor stands before a row of Autobot graves, by Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire
• Retailer incentive cover: The Wreckers line-up circa Pova leaps down from on high, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez

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Reprints

Other than reprints of the full series

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References

External links

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