Sins of the Wreckers issue 4

« The Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers #4 »
You can practically hear the DOOM soundtrack playing already.
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	April 27, 2016
Cover date	April 2016
Written by	Nick Roche
Art by	Nick Roche
Colors by	Josh Burcham and Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2016)

The enemy within the Wreckers' own ranks is revealed, but a change of heart soon turns the tables on Tarantulas.

Synopsis

Impetus forces Roadbuster to relive a horrifying moment from his past: the time he murdered his own cadets and offered them up to the death-god Mortilus, whose voice he believed he could hear instructing him. The voice disappeared when Roadbuster was caught and incarcerated for his crimes... but as Tarantulas now reveals, Roadbuster was not insane. The voice was, in fact, Tarantulas himself, his Chimeracon body shrunk to unnoticeable size, whispering into Roadbuster's ear. Furthermore, it is revealed that Hubcap was the sole survivor among Roadbuster's cadets, and that he later learned that Prowl had released Roadbuster from custody after minimum rehab as a favour to Impactor. Disgusted and furious, Hubcap was approached by Tarantulas, who had him put his outlier signal-manipulating abilities to work digging up dirt on Prowl, in return for the promise of a new and powerful body. Prowl tries to reason with Hubcap, but Hubcap won't hear it; Prowl is dirty, and it takes brave people like him and Verity to do something about it. At the mention of her name, Verity emits a hollow laugh, and admits that "bravery" had nothing to do with her blackmailing Prowl: she is not merely ill, but dying, and used the blackmail threat merely as a way to get his attention in hopes of obtaining help. Tarantulas explains that her condition is the result of exposure to Cybertronian energy—specifically, as revealed by his own studies of her body, that of the Aequitas computer. Prowl wishes that the girl had simply asked him, but Verity says that she did what she did to maintain a measure of control and dignity, unable as she was to live up to Ironfist's noble ideals.

Tarantulas tries to forcibly connect Prowl to Impetus, but Prowl fights back. He offers to tell Tarantulas the truth about what happened to his creation Ostaros, claiming to have actually killed him himself that day in the lab, but even this is not enough to rob Tarantulas of his perverse need to have Prowl by his side. As Prowl is beaten by the spider-'bot, however, Kup's voice suddenly echoes in his head via their mind-link, alerting him to the fact that the other Wreckers are coming to the rescue—but only, he viciously adds, because Prowl is an valuable asset, not because they think he deserves saving. With that, an alert begins sounding inside the Tor, as Kup, Impactor, and Guzzle use their recovered gateway to teleport Debris itself, the Wreckers' space station, inside the Noisemaze, threatening to collapse its unstable structure entirely! Tarantulas contacts Carnivac and orders the forces of Mayhem to come to his aid via the Noisemaze gate inside Tidal Wave, then orders Hubcap to prepare to transmit the Aequitas data across the galaxy. Prowl begs Hubcap not to, warning of the consequences, and Hubcap—finally struck by second thoughts—instead releases Springer, Roadbuster, Verity, Arcee from Impetus. Eager for revenge, they gang up on Tarantulas, while Springer urges Prowl and Hubcap to escape. The team fares poorly against the powerful spider, however, so Roadbuster makes a sacrifice play, transforming to vehicle mode and slamming into Tarantulas, sending them both crashing through a window and down to the rocks below.

As Carnivac and his fellow Chimeracons arrive in the Noisemaze, they are immediately confronted by Impactor, Guzzle, and Kup. A much larger problem soon presents itself, however, when the stroppy Tidal Wave—incensed at being left out of the action—ignores Carnivac's every order and literally turns himself inside out so that he can force himself through his own Noisemaze gate and join the fight. Tidal Wave's sheer size further threatens the maze's collapse, and making matters worse for the villains, he kicks Impactor straight into the Tor—exactly where Impactor wants to be.

Hubcap leads Prowl through the Tor, aware that prison is in his future but happy to be free of the emotional burden he has carried for so long. Happy, that is, until he turns and sees Prowl aiming a gun right at him. Hubcap is too dangerous to live, Prowl reasons; loaded with harmful classified data, all it will take is one bad day for him to snap and release it all. Hubcap pleads for his life, arguing that killing him is only a continuation of the cycle of violence and secrecy that has resulted in their current situation, and that together, they can prevent such a thing from happening again. Prowl is swayed by Hubcap's logic and lowers his gun... but Impactor has other ideas, suddenly appearing behind Prowl and blasting Hubcap dead centre, sending his body toppling off the walkway and into the black depths below. Impactor has no guilt for his actions—he lost good 'bots on the mission to recover the Aequitas data, and the danger Hubcap posed threatened to make their sacrifice meaningless.

Outside, Roadbuster has survived his plunge, but Tarantulas has apparently disappeared. But then, a familiar voice begins speaking to Roadbuster once again. The shrunken Tarantulas has climbed within his head for one last, traumatizing whisper... before suddenly expanding to full size, exploding Roadbuster's brain from the inside out. Climbing out of the Wrecker's limp corpse, Tarantulas observes Tidal Wave attacking Debris nearby, and concludes that it is time to "close up shop."

Back inside the Tor, Springer's group catch up to Impactor and Prowl. They are keen to flee, Prowl insists that they must destroy all of Tarantulas's work—first by detonating explosives to destroy the Obtenteum and the Tor, then by having Carnivac to use his forced-conversion powers on Tidal Wave, causing a gravitational shift that will trigger the Noisemaze's complete collapse. They head for the Obtenteum chamber, but as they start setting explosives, Springer orders Prowl to get Verity to safety. Verity disagrees, announcing that she feels fine—which in turn causes her to realize that Tarantulas has done "something weird" to her while he was studying her. At that point, Tarantulas himself returns, and threatens to do "something weird" to everyone...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Hubcap?! You were one of my cadets? I don't remember you.
"No one does. You barely remember I live on the same space station as you. I'm the sort of 'bot people don't remember. Don't notice."

—Roadbuster and Hubcap

"Right then, I needed some control. Some dignity. Me and Ironfist had big plans for that data. Truth; justice: all the good stuff. But then I got sicker... and sicker. And Aequitas was all I had to buy my way out. Ironfist was dying that whole time, and he just stuck with the plan. Be a good Autobot—the best Autobot—and put saving the day ahead of your own butt. But I couldn't do that. I don't know what it's like for you guys, but on Earth, life is short and it feels it. I'm sorry, Ironfist."

—Verity

"We're coming to get you, Prowl. [...]But be certain to your spark that no one is doing this 'cos they want you to be okay... all you are to us—to anyone— is a valuable asset that needs to be secured. And what's what we do. We're only saving you because of what you are, not who you are."

—Kup

"Excuse me, I was wondering if you could help us... we've got violent tendencies and serious issues with guilt. Is this is the right room?"

—Arcee

"No factions, just truth. Imagine that scenario, and tell me why it can't be ours?"
"You don't know me well enough to start referring to things as "ours," pal. Maybe buy me an engex first."

—Carnivac and Impactor

"I don't want all that stuff that came out back there—the voices, the cadets, the... bad things—I don't want that to be how you remember me. When you think of me, all I want you to remember is... I was your friend."

—Roadbuster, to Springer

"Will it stop with me? Will my death be the end of small robots dying in dark corridors, erased from existence? After this one last horrible act, you flip the switch and tomorrow you're a heroic Autobot?"
"Why would you say that?"
"Because if you allow this cycle to continue, it won't be long before someone tries to tell the world about it. And succeeds. 'Bots like me are only this way—broken; scared; abused—because of 'bots like you. The weak can't change until the strong do. I'm scared, and I'm sorry. This huge mess has happened, and we can't do anything about it now... but can't we prevent it from happening again?"

—Hubcap and Prowl

"There'll always be guys like me who come along and pull the trigger when guys like you find they can't."

—Impactor, to Prowl

"You guys playing nice together is way scary."

—Verity

"By the time this is over, I'll have done something weird to everyone."

—Tarantulas, we missed you.

Notes

Continuity notes

• Roadbuster mentioned his cadets back in issue #1, comparing the "connection" he made with them to Impactor's incarceration of Guzzle, believing that both were ways of expressing how they "cared" for those they worked with. Oof.
• In that same issue, Impactor worried that Roadbuster might have been hearing the unconscious Springer "talk back" to him, a fear that makes more sense now that we know Roadbuster has a known history of "hearing voices."
• The murder of his cadets might be what Roadbuster was talking about at the end of last issue, when he talked about ending a group of young lives. Though he did say that he did that while they were sleeping, though...
• Tarantulas identifies Roadbuster's murder of his cadets as the "Roadbuster affair," an event originally mentioned in Last Stand of the Wreckers #1. (we'd previously believed this was his drug-fuelled massacre in More than Meets the Eye #46, but that was only done through implication and word-choice, while this is explicit, so, there ya go.) Since Ironfist refers to it in Last Stand as merely an interesting event and not a horrorshow, the real nature of the affair was probably hushed up.
• Note too that Roadbuster says this is how "I was trained" while he brutalises cadets and that he thinks this isn't so bad. Someone taught him bad lessons indeed before Tarantulas got anywhere near him.
• Verity was exposed to the energies of Aequitas when Ironfist downloaded its contents in Last Stand of the Wreckers #4. She's been visibly sick since issue #1 of this series, but did you spot the clues that indicated her illness was related to Cybertronian energy? In addition to comments made by Stakeout about how his presence near her was endangering her, she would have "attacks" every time a new Transformer appeared in her vicinity.
• Guzzle refers to Carpessa, the neutral city we learned about the destruction of last issue.
• The beginning of the message Kup uses when he contacts Prowl is word for word the same message Springer sent to Kup every night during the rescue missions in Spotlight: Kup.

Errors

• On page 8, Guzzle says that he, Kup, and Impactor have "enough explosives to make Carpessa feel like wax-job." That ought to be "a wax-job."
• On page 19, "thought" is misspelled "though." This is fixed in the trade paperback.

Other notes

• Following the January 2016 release of issue #3, family issues for Roche led to a two-month delay of issue #4. As the delay was known about in advance, the issue was not solicited for February (nor was #5 for March), only appearing in the solicitations for April, when it was then released on-time.

Production

• The idea of Roadbuster brutalizing the cadet's under his command, originated in Roche's outline for a Roadbuster Spotlight he worked on before deciding to focus on Spotlight: Kup.
• Originally the Tor would have been staffed by the reanimated corpses of Roadbuster's cadets after Tarantulas experimented on their remains. Roadbuster would have had a breakdown when he realized this. While these creatures (charmingly referred to by Roche as the 'Space Gonks') never made it into any of the final drafts, the idea that Tarantulas' could create new life would eventually evolve into Ostaros for the final story.
• The series early drafts featured Carrion, a former Decepticon sharpshooter, who abandoned the cause after his unit was blamed for the destruction of Carpessa (the city having actually been destroyed by Metholas as part of a false-flag operation). In the present day he's incredibly anti-Decepticon and punishes himself by forcing himself to watch footage of Decpeticon war crimes on loop. In this issue after 'renouncing his old ways' (presumably after learning the truth behind Carpessa) he would have been the one to kill Hubcap after Prowl decides to let him live, telling the Autobot 'Don't worry Prowl. You can tell everyone an Evil Decepticon did it".
• At one point Tarantulas would have continued to grow until he was the size of Tidal Wave. The two massive robots would fight each other, with the Decepticon winning and forcing Tarantulas to retreat. In this draft Impactor and Carnivac's duel would have taken place on top of Tidal Wave's shoulder.
• While describing Roadbuster's death to friends, Roche realized he'd forgotten to include it in the draft he submitted to IDW, and quickly added it for the resubmitted copy.

Soundtrack

• "Waters of Nazareth" by Justice^[1]
• "No Distance Left To Run" by Blur^[2]
• "The Last Supper" from Jesus Christ Superstar (1996 recording)^[3]

Covers (3)

• Regular cover: Hubcap reflected in Roadbuster's glowering visor, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham
• Subscription cover: Our heroes, by Jack Lawrence
• Retailer incentive cover: Prowl the chessmaster, with a Last Stand-era chessboard, by Josh Burcham

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• Sins of the Wreckers #5
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• IDW Transformers reading guide
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Other than reprints of the full series

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