Before & After

[arbre_rieur]

The mission's a success, but some of the Autobots sustain pretty serious injuries along the way. Among the less fortunate is Rewind:



While waiting to see how Rewind is responding to the treatment, Chromedome gets into a conversation with Tailgate.



And so, How Rewind Met Chromedome:





The outlook is grim: Turns out Chromedome's spark is "low yield," so it's not up to the task of jumpstarting Rewind. His only chance now is if they can find someone else in the crew who's a compatible donor, as unlikely as that is.

Fortunately, they do.





If you're wondering about the time stamps in the upper left hand corners, they're there because the issue's plot is told in non-chronological order, alternating between scenes set before and set after a certain, unspecified event during the mission. The timer shows how long till/since the event.

In the final pages of the issue, we finally find out what happened at zero seconds:





He locks the door.

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

They have to be keeping Cyclonus under some heavy surveillance. I can't fathom any other reason why he hasn't done Whirl in already.

[icon_uk]

Well yes there's a lot of surveillence, but he enjoys making Whirl squirm too, always worrying about WHEN it will happen.

[cainofdreaming]

Well, he'd better get a move on. Sooner or later Whirl will succeed in killing him with one of these stunts.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

I think it's less making Whirl squirm and more not having any opportunity to take the revenge he wants.

And if it is about making Whirl squirm, Cyclonus is an idiot. Whirl knocked him out in their first fight and would have killed him were it not for Tailgate and more importantly, Whirl is/was a long standing member of the Wreckers, an elite fighting force with a death rate of 43%. Just surviving as long as he has, Whirl has shown himself to be a bad ass.

[q99]

Whirl and Cyclonus are pretty close in combat level, I'd say.

And considering Cyclonus wants it long, yea. He *might* have had some opportunity for accidents, though even those were kinda iffy, but no true private time.

[glimmung]

So what is Cyclonus' deal? Does anyone one comment on his shielding Rewind?

[insolent_one]

I don't think anyone else knows about that particular detail yet. Only Rewind and Cyclonus know what happened in that closed room when the bomb went off and since Cyclonus probably won't tell anyone about his shielding attempt and Rewind wasn't fit yet to tell anyone about it yet, it's probably something that'll get addressed next issue (if it does at least).

[q99]

Cyclonus is... something of a jerk that can hold a grudge, but he does view himself as a warrior who protects, I think. He's an ancient Cybertronian who, when his boss was getting too evil, switched sides.

I don't think anyone commenting on his shielding Rewind because they don't know what happened inside. Rewind can't mention it and Cyclonus didn't bring it up. Whether it's because he doesn't like to toot his own horn or because it might not have been enough, it's hard to say.

[kamino_neko]

The end of that bit with Cyclonus and Tailgate was lovely.

I hope one TFWiki user's speculation on why Tailgate's energon is the wrong colour doesn't turn out to be accurate.

[beoweasel]

What's the speculation?

[kamino_neko]

I'm not entirely sure, as it was just implied by the old description of the scene on the wiki page (now it just points out that his Energon is green instead of pink), but the editor pointed out that Tailgate's Energon was the same colour as the Propex explosive, and implied he was knowingly trying to blow Cyclonus up, by connecting it to something he'd said before, and their (speculative) interpretation of the scene where he's disarming the bomb to paint him as sinister.

[silverxenomorph]

Fans have already asked the colourist that. He said it was a colouring mistake and Tailgate's inner most is supposed to be the normal colour.

It's on the artist's Twitter account somewhere, but as I don't have a twitter I can't find it. It's popped up on my Tumblr dash a few times and I'd spent an eternity trying to find it.

[kamino_neko]

Well, I'm glad to hear they're not planning something sinister with Tailgate, though I must say, I'm surprised such an obvious error was made and slipped past everybody.

[silverxenomorph]

Same. Tailgate and Cyclonus' interaction is so cute it's almost illegal.
I guess sometimes mistakes like that happen, just to confuse fans.

[kamino_neko]

They're kind of my second favourite 'ship in IDW's Transformers. (As opposed to my second favourite ship, which is totally the Metrotitan.)

The first is, of course, Rewind/Chromedome.

[arbre_rieur]

Both writer and colorist have chimed in on IDW's message board. Tailgate's energon being green is intentional. It being the same color as the propex, however, is unintentional.

http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=13135&start=465

[kamino_neko]

Hmm. That's more interesting than either of the other options.

Now we can begin speculating as to why it was different, while discounting 'trying to blow up Cyclonus'.

[silverxenomorph]

Happy to be corrected about the colour. All I knew was that there was a colouring mistake and assumed that it was the colour of the energon that was mis-coloured.

Oh geez, my post got attention? Even second hand? *dies*

[the_phantom]

GOD! I love that cover!

Whirl your such an Asshole and we love you for it.

and I hope thier is something behind the green but knowing this book im sure their is.

[deepspaceartist]

Man, screw Ultra Magnus. "Who's up for a fight?" is totally an adequate briefing.

[q99]

Ok, this post was awesome, but it also reminds me: We're going to have to do one on RID.