The Plotters' Club (Part 1): Full Circle

« The Transformers: Lost Light #10 »
Third homage’s the charm?
"The Plotters' Club (Part 1): Full Circle"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	October 18, 2017
Cover date	September 2017
Written by	James Roberts
Art by	Jack Lawrence
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	Carlos Guzman
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era

The Protectobots return to the Lost Light, but a lot has changed in their absence.

Synopsis

Mirage and the Protectobots are on course to return to the Lost Light—but it hasn't been a smooth flight, as their crippled shuttle is on the verge of going offline completely. The team manage a controlled crash-landing into one of the Lost Light's shuttle bays, but when they emerge from the wreck, they find themselves staring down the gun barrels of the ship's security team. Getaway appears and orders the security team to lower their weapons, then warmly embraces First Aid, welcoming him and the others back aboard. The returnees are quick to notice the absence of Rodimus and Megatron, and are gobsmacked to learn that Getaway is now in charge of the ship. Getaway is quick to dodge his way around their many questions, instead pointing out the injuries that Blades has sustained in the crash and suggesting First Aid deal with them first.

In the medibay, First Aid tends to Blades's wounds, and the pair conclude that something fishy is going on. Blades is a little addled from the crash and starts panicking about the possibility that a plague has killed off members of the crew in their absence, and First Aid can't even reassure him because it turns out the computer's medical files have been password protected. Instead, he runs a spark check on the ship, which confirms that there are significantly fewer 'bots on board than there were when the Protectobots left... and moreover, the nearest spark is in the medibay with them, on the other side of a locked door. Blades leaves to try and get answers from someone while First Aid sets to the door with a laser scalpel, whereupon Getaway enters and offers his help. The door opens at Getaway's touch—"wasn't even locked," the new captain claims—revealing that the 'bot on the other side is Thunderclash, comatose once more for reasons the acting medical officer, Hoist, has been unable to discern. Getaway strides off to "sort out" the problem with the medical files, but First Aid jogs along after him, demanding some proper answers. The pair stop outside the door to the ship's oil reservoir; Getaway subtly fingers the door controls as he asks First Aid if he can trust him, pulling his hand away when the medic responds affirmatively. Megatron and Rodimus, Getaway tells First Aid, "abandoned" the Lost Light due to their frustration at the crew's lack of progress, taking a team of close friends off to find a shortcut to Cyberutopia. Getaway claims he didn't tell First Aid this right away because he is upset at having been left behind, then quickly changes the subject, urging the medic to go find Hoist and get the information he needs about Thunderclash. First Aid heads off in the direction of Swerve's, but Getaway corrects him—that's not where the crew gathers to socialize anymore...

First Aid finds the rest of the crew in "Visages", Mirage's old cocktail lounge, where the once and former owner has already found his way back behind the bar. First Aid finds several fellow drinkers side-eyeing him until he is called over by Hoist to join him and some of the friendlier 'bots in attendance. Among the group is Hound, who First Aid is a little surprised did not become the new captain, but Hound observes that the security team being pro-Getaway ruled that out—and that he can't complain that much, since they've made incredible progress and are only weeks away from finding Cyberutopia (even if it has meant that they've ceased stopping to help others on their way). The group goes on to fill First Aid in on Rodimus and Megatron's "departure," listing off all the 'bots who went with them... but something about the list seems to unsettle First Aid, and he excuses himself for the night.

First Aid proceeds to break into the shuttered and locked Swerve's and calls Mirage and the other Protectobots to meet him there. Sitting in the dark, First Aid expresses his concerns to the team: the number of absentee crew members he ascertained earlier is much greater than the number who "deserted" with Rodimus and Megatron, meaning that multiple 'bots are unaccounted for. Mirage takes great offense at First Aid's insinuation that the rest of the crew is lying to them, and blames Megatron for everything—he should have been executed, Mirage insists, and he knows that's not a controversial position to take because Getaway and Atomizer had approached him about getting rid of Megatron in the past. The other Protectobots have no memory of being approached themselves, but First Aid does—and he came to regret telling Getaway he would side with him. No sooner have those words passed First Aid's lips than Riptide steps out the shadows, having been waiting for the right moment to make his entrance. He, too, has had second thoughts about the answer he gave Getaway when that same question was asked of him, and he now tells Mirage and the Protectobots the whole truth—Rodimus and company didn't desert; rather, Getaway staged a mutiny and exiled them. He starts to explain that Thunderclash is in a coma because he also disagreed with Getaway, but before he can say any more, Getaway himself, along with the ship's security team, casually struts into the bar. All pretense abandoned, Getaway takes up Riptide's story and explains that Thunderclash is not comatose; rather, he is trapped in a memory loop, unable to tell that he is living and re-living the same series of events over and over inside his mind. Just then, Streetwise finds the switch that turns on the lights... and the sight that comes into view as the bar is illuminated is a horrifying one: brain modules, torn from their bodies but still attached to their spinal columns, pocked with teeth-marks, floating preserved in the bar's vats of engex! Realizing the point of no return has been crossed, Getaway readies his gun... but is suddenly ambushed by the invisible Mirage, who smashes a glass across his face. As Riptide holds the security team off, Mirage and the Protectobots flip the bar's large central table and use it as a battering ram/shield to charge their way out of the room, then leg it for the shuttle bay, intending to escape the ship and alert Cybertron to what has transpired. Blades takes a bad hit as they flee, but the group makes it to their shuttle (which has been repaired with curious speed), and manages to blast off. In moments, however, a proton missile fired by the Lost Light cripples the shuttle, and a tractor beam starts pulling it back to the ship...

Mirage and the Protectobots are on course to return to the Lost Light—but it hasn't been a smooth flight, as their crippled shuttle is on the verge of going offline completely. The team manage a controlled crash-landing into one of the Lost Light's shuttle bays, but when they emerge from the wreck, they find themselves staring down the gun barrels of the ship's security team. Getaway appears and orders the security team to lower their weapons, then warmly embraces First Aid, welcoming him and the others back aboard... all of them completely unaware that, like Thunderclash, their minds are also trapped in a memory loop...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"D'you remember when [Rodimus] went door-to-door showing everyone his new roller-skates? Or the time he trod oil onto the bridge and Ultra Magnus had that seizure?"
"I remember his plan to win the hide-and-seek final by painting himself space color and standing in front of a window..."

—Blades and First Aid

"Question: Getaway. Do you like him?"
"Do I like him. Do I like him. Yeah. Yeah, he's okay. You?"
"I like him a lot. But I don't know if I trust him."

—First Aid and Blades

"Give me your least pretentious drink."

—First Aid doesn't think too highly of "Visages"

"Whirl? You're telling me Whirl was frustrated that you weren't making progress?"
"I think he was just frustrated. You know Whirl: he's got no idea what he wants, but he sure as hell knows he hasn't got it."

—First Aid and Mainframe

"Don't tell me: foul play — and everyone's implicated. Even you. Even me."
"You're not taking this seriously, Rook."
"Correct. Because locked doors and dodgy maths do not a conspiracy make."

—Rook and First Aid

"Bomp that."

—Mirage glasses Getaway

Notes

Continuity notes

• The Protectobots left the Lost Light in More than Meets the Eye #43 to take part in the Combiner Wars crossover, arriving in the story in-progress in The Transformers #40. During that story, in Windblade vol. 2 #2, Rook suddenly appeared among the team, despite being totally unmentioned in the script; the rather notorious result of a rushed production and error-riddled artwork. The recap page for this issue quietly smooths this away by explaining that he was a civilian Autobot who—we're not kidding—just happened to be standing near the Protectobots when they got merged into Defensor. Oof.
• We return to the Lost Light for the first time since More than Meets the Eye #50, published 18 months earlier, in which Getaway staged his mutiny and banished Megatron and his various "sympathizers" from the ship.
• Standing behind/above Getaway, right in the middle of page 3, is a character who has not appeared on-panel before. Given their bat-wing-like ear-fins, plus the pair of fully-sized wings on their back, they must be Aquabat, the triple-changing Hydrobot who transforms into a hovercraft and a "weird, winged creature," mentioned but once before in More than Meets the Eye #28.
• Blades calls to the idea of a plague sweeping the Lost Light as "Delphi: Mark 2," referring to the Red Rust virus that consumed the Autobot medical facility First Aid used to work at, as seen in More than Meets the Eye #4–5.
• Hoist is the acting medic; he was previously seen attempting (and presumably failing) to repair Tripodeca at a triage station set up in Swerve's bar during Overlord's rampage in issue #50's back-up strip.
• First Aid recalls the last time Thunderclash was in a coma, back in More than Meets the Eye #41–42.
• When listing off 'bots who "left" with Rodimus and Megatron, Getaway refers to Rung only as "the psychiatrist," the latest in a long line of instance of people being unable to remember his name.
• Getaway may be lying with the truth when he laments he thought he was in the 'Rod Squad'. He had been an 'inner circle' character for Remain in Light and Dark Cybertron, he'd been friendly with Nightbeat and old comrades with Skids (both of whom turned him down), and he had been angry at how he'd been treated, his limbs and voice stripped away, when he was arrested.
• First Aid remarks that he always thought Hound would be next-in-line for captaincy. Hound has taken charge of the ship a few times in the past, during the absence of Magnus and Rodimus in the Dark Cybertron crossover.
• Xaaron and Bluestreak refer to Magnus and Swerve, respectively, 'leaving' as a "blow"/"a shock". Xaaron and Magnus worked together in the law, and Bluestreak had been a friend of Swerve's and went to a lot of trouble trying to save him in "The One Where They Go to Earth". (That story had also established how everyone liked Swerve.) Mainframe, meanwhile, is positively gleeful when discussing how Whirl is gone, and it was him in More than Meets the Eye #50 that ensured Whirl was taken off the ship.
• Mirage tells the others how he was approached by Getaway and Atomizer before the Lost Light launched in the wake of Megatron's trial—something that we learned the two 'bots did to everyone from their own mouths in More than Meets the Eye #47. Groove, Streetwise, Hot Spot, and Blades believe they were not spoken to, but we can easily conclude that they were, that they said they wouldn't side with Getaway in the event of a mutiny, and don't remember because Getaway erased their memory of the conversation with his nudge gun.
• Riptide believes that Getaway "sent the Decepticon Justice Division" after Rodimus and company, which was the same misconception we as an audience labored under after More than Meets the Eye #50. As we know from issue #55, he actually sent the Galactic Council after them. Riptide's confusion over this would be explained in the next issue.
• Speaking of the DJD, "teethmarks in a brain module" certainly calls to mind DJD member Helex's method of torturing his victims, in which he placed their brain module in their own mouth (as described in More than Meets the Eye #31 and seen in issue #39), but Helex was killed by Megatron in More than Meets the Eye #55 so that's likely just a misdirect...
• Getaway notes that Thunderclash once carried the Matrix of Leadership, which was something we learned in More than Meets the Eye #22.
• First Aid calls the act of flipping a table "going Full Prowl," in reference to the Autobot security officer's penchant for doing the same, as originally introduced back in More than Meets the Eye #1 and reiterated several times since.
• The Lost Light fires a proton missile at the Protectobots' shuttle, a rare use of the arsenal the ship was equipped with in More than Meets the Eye #13.

Transformers references

• On page 9, Smokescreen and Inferno are seen having a very intense conversation with each other over a drink. In the Marvel UK comics, Smokescreen and Inferno were very very very very PLATONICALLY close, and in the Marvel G2 comics, Inferno essentially sacrifices himself once Smokescreen is killed in battle. Looks like that bond has hopped universes.
• Hound specifically notes that "Megatron took the cat"; Hound and Ravage have traditionally had something of a rivalry in Generation 1 media, with the two coming into conflict multiple times in the Marvel comics, and Hound famously deceiving Ravage in the cartoon's third episode. (Because they're a dog and a cat, geddit?)
• Riptide's warning to the Protectobots starts with the words "You're being deceived", one of IDW Megatron's rallying cries which formed the basis of the Decepticon movement. Hard to imagine that that line was chosen at random.

Real-life references

• The title of this three-parter is a reference to the 2001 Jonathan Coe novel, The Rotters' Club.

Other trivia

• Originally solicited for release in September, this issue arrived a few weeks late, in mid-October.
• Mirage mentions an unseen crewmember named "Tiretread" with whom he raced in the past.
• The time-loop the Protectobots are trapped in is illustrated by the story ending with a reprint of its first 4 pages, with a tweaked speech bubble in the final panel, the addition of the story title at the end, and curiously, the change of First Aid's "Oh." to an "Ah." These are in addition to the standard 20 story pages of the issue, meaning the story runs to 24 pages total.
• On a re-read it becomes apparent that some of the dialogue is pretty loaded with foreshadowing:
  • "Good to see you again, doctor." (page 3, Getaway to First Aid)
  • "It's our fault" (page 3, Atomizer, when Getaway asks about the crash)
  • "It's a long, circuitous story" (page 4, Getaway referring to how he became captain)
  • "We'll return to this conversation later." (page 5, conspicuously spread over a page break)
  • "We keep going around in circles." (page 7, Getaway, in regards to Thunderclash's 'treatment')
  • "I've seen him like this before." (page 7, First Aid, of Thunderclash)
  • "We'll come back and fix things!" (page 18, First Aid - a promise he might end up keeping sooner than he thinks...)
• Furthermore, the arm-and-shoulder injury Blades suffers on page 18 while escaping is the same injury he's sporting at the beginning on page 4. The time-loop makes it seem as if the injury occurred during the crash (Blades is deliberately obscured in the one panel he appears in before the crash).
• There's also quite a lot of whitespace at the bottom of page 4, because including the title this early would probably give the game away!

Crew manifest

• Exiled: Brainstorm, Chromedome, Cyclonus, Megatron, Minimus Ambus, Nautica, Nightbeat, Ravage, Rewind, Rodimus, Rung, Skids, Swerve, Tailgate, Ten, Velocity and Whirl were effectively removed from the crew by Getaway's mutiny; Ravage and Skids have since died; Megatron is trapped in the Functionist Universe; Tailgate is buried alive on Necroworld.
• Thunderclash: Comatose and trapped in a memory loop.
• Returned to the ship: the Protectobots (with the addition of new member Rook) and Mirage, also captured and trapped in a memory loop.
• Twenty-five bots: reduced to life cords floating in engex.

Soundtrack

• "A Lack of Understanding" by The Vaccines^[1]
• "Yes" by McAlmont and Butler^[2]
• "Introducing Angels" by Destroyer^[3]

Covers (4)

• Cover A: The mutineers act out another homage to Kevin Maguire's cover for 1987's Justice League #1, by Jack Lawrence and Joana Lafuente; this has become something of a series hallmark, with past homages featured as covers for More than Meets the Eye #1, #28, and #43
• Cover B: Getaway punches Thunderclash off the Lost Light and into space, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham
• Cover C: The mutineers versus the Protectobots, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
• Retailer incentive cover: Nautica by Marcelo Matere; one of retailer incentive variants done by Matere for September's Transformers titles

• 

  Oh shuttup, Getaway!

• 

  That's gonna leave a mark!

• 

  Less Filling - Tastes Great!

• 

  She's a beaut!

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Reprints

• Transformers: Lost Light Volume 2 (February 14, 2018) ISBN 1684051487 / ISBN 978-1684051489
  • Collects Lost Light issues #7–12.
  • Bonus material includes a cover gallery.
  • Trade paperback format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 79: Primeless (November 14, 2018)
  • Collects Optimus Prime issues #9–12, and Lost Light issues #9–12.
  • Bonus material includes information about the end of the IDW Universe, a cover gallery and an intro by Simon Furman.
  • Hardcover format.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Three: Volume 3 (September 27, 2022) ISBN 1684059070 / ISBN 978-1684059072
  • Collects Revolutionaries issues #5–8, Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #2: "Upgrade", Lost Light issues issues #8–9 & #10–12, Optimus Prime issues #7–8 & #9–10, Transformers Annual 2017, and Salvation.
  • Hardcover format.

• 

  Lost Light Volume 2 – cover art by Alex Milne and Josh Perez

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection Volume 79: Primeless – cover art by Don Figueroa and Livio Ramondelli

• 

  The IDW Collection Phase Three: Volume 3 – cover art by Sara Pitre-Durocher

References

External links

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