Drift - Empire of Stone issue 3

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|- {{#if: IDW Publishing | |Publisher || IDW Publishing}} |- {{#if: | |Published by || }} |- {{#if: | |Imprint || }} |- {{#if: | |Published in || }} |- {{#if: January 21, 2015 (UK)
January 28, 2015 (rest of world) | |First published || January 21, 2015 (UK)
January 28, 2015 (rest of world)}} |- {{#if: | |Shipping date || }} |- {{#if: | |On-sale date || }} |- {{#if: January 2015 | |Cover date || January 2015}} |- {{#if: | |Credits || }} |- {{#if: | |By || }} |- {{#if: | |Manga || }} |- {{#if: | |Manga by || }} |- {{#if: | |Original story || }} |- {{#if: | |Story & art by || }} |- {{#if: | |Story and color art || }} |- {{#if: | |Story || }} |- {{#if: | |Story by || }} |- {{#if: | |Story consultants || }} |- {{#if: | |Story concept || }} |- {{#if: | |Screenplay by || }} |- {{#if: | |Screenplay || }} |- {{#if: | |Adaptation by || }} |- {{#if: | |Adapted by || }} |- {{#if: | |Adaptation || }} |- {{#if: | |Based on || }} |- {{#if: | |Writer || }} |- {{#if: | |Writers || }} |- {{#if: | |Writing || }} |- {{#if: Shane McCarthy | |Written by || Shane McCarthy}} |- {{#if: | |Written & art || }} |- {{#if: | |Plotter || }} |- {{#if: | |Plotters || }} |- {{#if: | |Plot || }} |- {{#if: | |Plot by || }} |- {{#if: | |Plot/Script || }} |- {{#if: | |Scripter || }} |- {{#if: | |Scripters || }} |- {{#if: | |Script || }} |- {{#if: | |Scripting || }} |- {{#if: | |Script by || }} |- {{#if: | |Script and art || }} |- {{#if: | |Sript [sic] consultant || }} |- {{#if: | |Translation by || }} |- {{#if: | |Artist || }} |- {{#if: | |Comic artist || }} |- {{#if: | |Artists || }} |- {{#if: | |Art || }} |- {{#if: Guido Guidi | |Art by || Guido Guidi}} |- {{#if: | |Additional art by || }} |- {{#if: | |Flashback art by || }} |- {{#if: | |Art assistant || }} |- {{#if: | |Art assist by || }} |- {{#if: | |Line-art || }} |- {{#if: | |Line-art by || }} |- {{#if: | |Line art by || }} |- {{#if: | |Penciller || }} |- {{#if: | |Pencillers || }} |- {{#if: | |Penciler || }} |- {{#if: | |Pencilers || }} |- {{#if: | |Pencil art || }} |- {{#if: | |Pencils || }} |- {{#if: | |Pencils by || }} |- {{#if: | |Penciled by || }} |- {{#if: | |Penciling || }} |- {{#if: | |Guest penciler || }} |- {{#if: | |Layouts || }} |- {{#if: | |Pencil breakdowns || }} |- {{#if: | |Breakdowns || }} |- {{#if: | |Breakdowns by || }} |- {{#if: | |Illustration || }} |- {{#if: | |Illustrations || }} |- {{#if: | |Illustrator || }} |- {{#if: | |Illustrated by || }} |- {{#if: | |Illustration by || }} |- {{#if: | |Illustrations by || }} |- {{#if: | |Finished pencils || }} |- {{#if: | |Finishes || }} |- {{#if: | |Finished art || }} |- {{#if: | |Finishes by || }} |- {{#if: | |Inker || }} |- {{#if: | |Guest inker || }} |- {{#if: | |Inkers || }} |- {{#if: | |Inks || }} |- {{#if: Stephen Baskerville | |Inks by || Stephen Baskerville}} |- {{#if: | |Ink finishes || }} |- {{#if: | |Ink assist by || }} |- {{#if: | |Additional inks || }} |- {{#if: | |Inking || }} |- {{#if: | |Backgrounds || }} |- {{#if: | |Backgrounds by || }} |- {{#if: | |Colorist || }} |- {{#if: | |Colorists || }} |- {{#if: | |Colourist || }} |- {{#if: | |Colourists || }} |- {{#if: | |Color || }} |- {{#if: | |Colors || }} |- {{#if: | |Color art || }} |- {{#if: | |Colour || }} |- {{#if: | |Colours || }} |- {{#if: | |Colored by || }} |- {{#if: | |Color by || }} |- {{#if: John-Paul Bove | |Colors by || John-Paul Bove}} |- {{#if: | |Color art by || }} |- {{#if: | |Colors assist by || }} |- {{#if: | |Color assists || }} |- {{#if: | |Color assistance by || }} |- {{#if: | |Additional colors || }} |- {{#if: | |Additional colors by || }} |- {{#if: | |Color assist by || }} |- {{#if: | |Colour/Computer FX || }} |- {{#if: | |Computer coloring/effects || }} |- {{#if: | |Color Reconstruction || }} |- {{#if: | |Flats || }} |- {{#if: | |Flats by || }} |- {{#if: | |MTMTE Profiles || }} |- {{#if: | |Letterer || }} |- {{#if: | |Letterers || }} |- {{#if: | |Lettering || }} |- {{#if: | |Letters || }} |- {{#if: Tom B. Long | |Letters by || Tom B. Long}} |- {{#if: | |Lettered by || }} |- {{#if: | |Lettering|Production || }} |- {{#if: | |Special Thanks{{#if: | To}} || }} |- {{#if: | |Collaborators || }} |- {{#if: | |Contributors || }} |- {{#if: John Barber | |Editor || John Barber}} |- {{#if: | |Editors || }} |- {{#if: | |Editing || }} |- {{#if: | |Edits by || }} |- {{#if: | |Compiled and Edited by || }} |- {{#if: | |Original series editor || }} |- {{#if: | |Original Edits by || }} |- {{#if: | |Deputy editor || }} |- {{#if: | |Assistant editor || }} |- {{#if: | |Editorial assistant{{#if: |s}} || }} |- {{#if: | |Editorial Assistance
provided by || }} |- {{#if: | |Senior editor || }} |- {{#if: | |Associate editor || }} |- {{#if: | |Story consultant || }} |- {{#if: | |Project manager || }} |- {{#if: | |Production by || }} |- {{#if: | |Designer || }} |- {{#if: | |Design by || }} |- {{#if: | |Designed by || }} |- {{#if: | |Design/editorial || }} |- {{#if: | |Book design by || }} |- {{#if: | |Collection designer || }} |- {{#if: | |Collection editor || }} |- {{#if: | |Collection Edits by || }} |- {{#if: | |Graphic design || }} |- {{#if: | |Graphic design by || }} |- {{#if: | |Collection Design by || }} |- {{#if: | |Creative Director{{#if: | / Layout}} || }} |- {{#if: | |Contributing editors || }} |- {{#if: | |Research editor{{#if: |s}} || }} |- {{#if: | |Managing editor || }} |- {{#if: | |{{#if: |Editor-in-chief|Editor in chief}} || }} |- {{#if: | |Editorial consultant || }} |- {{#if: | |Dinosaur consultant || }} |- {{#if: | |Publishing manager || }} |- {{#if: | |Cover || }} |- {{#if: | |Cover art{{#if: |ist}}{{#if: | by}} || }} |- {{#if: | |Cover Design {{#if: |and Elements }}by || }} |- {{#if: | |Inside cover || }} |- {{#if: | |Apologies to || }} |- {{#if: 2005 IDW continuity | |Continuity || 2005 IDW continuity}} |- {{#if: Current era | |Chronology || Current era}} |- {{#if: | |ISBN || }} |- {{#if: | |TPB ISBN || ISBN }} |- {{#if: | |UPC || }} |- {{#if: | |Page count || }} |- {{#if: | |Price || }} |- {{#if: | |Packaged with || }} |- {{#if: | |Printed in || }} |- {{#if: | |Animation || }} |- {{#if: | |Music || }} |}{{#switch:{{#sub:xx|2|14}}|dark cybertron=}} With Hellbat's treachery revealed, Drift, Ratchet, and Grit must fight their way through the Stone Army to forge an alliance with Gigatron.

Synopsis

With Drift and Ratchet held at gunpoint by his goons, Hellbat explains that he has kept the location of the Stone Army a secret from Gigatron in order to experiment upon them. With the stone monks who used to guard the citadel long dead, the secret of how to revive the army is lost, so Hellbat has been cannibalizing wounded Autobots and Decepticons for parts, splicing Cybertronian biology with the stone beings, converting a small number that he can activate and command. Drift demands to know his reasons, and Hellbat dryly explains that his goal is to kill everything—convinced of the pointlessness of not just the Transformers' war, but the apparent purposelessness of their very existence, he has chosen to fully embrace the only thing he has ever believed his race is good at: killing. Drift rejects this notion, pointing out that he has vowed never to kill again, but Hellbat scoffs, highlighting the small piles of rubble that litter the fortress as proof of Drift's true nature—the remains of the monks, slain by Drift and Turmoil centuries ago.

As Hellbat concludes his rant, one of his goons suddenly explodes, shot from behind by Grit, who has arrived to take his revenge. Battle breaks out, with Grit tackling Hellbat and Drift sword fighting with Hellbat's talented subordinate Vanquish. Unable to wrest himself free of Grit's grip, Hellbat calls out for help, and Vanquish breaks off his fight with Drift to come to his boss's rescue, allowing Hellbat to make a dash for the control console that will allow him to bring the converted stone warriors online. A barrage of fire from Ratchet forces him away from the control, but Vanquish comes to the rescue again: he hurls Grit off the balcony, prompting Drift to dive off after him, in turn forcing Ratchet to break off his attack and save them both with a grappling hook attached to one of Hellbat's fallen minions. With all three 'bots' weight on the grapple-line, the ledge holding the fallen Decepticon's body breaks, but after a tense moment, the trio snag the edge of another ledge below and pull themselves to safety. Unfortunately, the gambit has allowed Hellbat the time to successfully activate the stone army.

Drift, Ratchet, and Grit race out of the army's chamber; Ratchet advocates alerting Cybertron of the threat, but Drift insists that they must defeat the army here and now, even if that means allying with Gigatron. The three 'bots make for the Decepticon warlord's throne room, with the stone warriors hot on their heels, and quickly manage to convince Gigatron that Hellbat has betrayed him. The furious Gigatron transforms to dragon mode and reduces the soldiers to pebbles with his flame breath. Drift then faces Gigatron down, and confidently orders him to ally with them, take down the army, and stop Hellbat for good.

Featured characters

{{#if:* Ratchet (4)| {{#if:* Ratchet (4)|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |

Ratchet (4) }}{{#if:* Grit (3)
Vanquish (5)
Hellbat (6)
Gigatron (7)|

Autobots }}{{#if:* Grit (3)

Vanquish (5)
Hellbat (6)
Gigatron (7)|

Decepticons }}{{#if:|

Humans }}{{#if:* Deadlock/Drift (1)

Stone Army soldiers (2)|

Others }}{{#if:|

Misc }}{{#if:|

Misc }}

Grit (3)
Vanquish (5)
Hellbat (6)
Gigatron (7) }}{{#if:|

}}{{#if:* Deadlock/Drift (1)

Stone Army soldiers (2)|

Deadlock/Drift (1)
Stone Army soldiers (2) }}{{#if:|

}}{{#if:|

}}

Quotes

"How long have you lived? A million years? More? What are we? We can alter our bodies... Overcome, adapt. We hardly age, or get sick... I've watched races die. I've watched civilizations, cultures, whole worlds die. And here I am, still living. Eternal. What do we do? What is the point of us? We don't reproduce. We don't create. What are we? Millions of years and what have we done? Kill. Our own kind... others... That is what we are. That is why we're here. Machines of war, of death. These hands... I have killed countless beings with these hands. All those lives I've taken, I remember every single one of them. Centuries of killing as though it was yesterday."

—Hellbat sums up his insanity.

"Ratchet!"
"What?!"
"Grapple hook!"
"What—SERIOUSLY?!"

—Drift comes up with a truly insane plan.

"Hellbat's crazy, but he's right. I've been running the whole time. Running from who I am, from what I've done. Punishing myself. There's a side of me that scares me. Like you wouldn't believe. I've tried to hide from it... loner one day, spiritualist the next... but it's just eating away at me. Maybe I'll never be forgiven for what I've done, maybe I don't deserve it... but maybe that doesn't matter. I don't know, but maybe what matters is I'm trying to make a difference. Maybe that's enough. It's time to stop running."

—Drift reflects on himself as he leaps to save Grit, and Ratchet leaps to save HIM.

"Your second in command, who by the way is spectacularly out of his mind, has known the whereabouts of the army all along. And is about to use it to wipe you out. That's not going to happen. What is going to happen is you and I joining forces. We're going to fight our way back down there, past his freakish horde and all the way up to his smug bat face. And then we're both going to put an end to his madness forever. Any questions?"

—Drift proposes an alliance with Gigatron.

Notes

Continuity notes

With this issue, Vanquish is finally referred to by name, and furthermore, transforms on his own into a functional jet mode, so it looks like his appearance as a Micromaster Combiner in Windblade #4, which was already incongruous with this story, is being completely ignored here. Perhaps his colonist appearance in Windblade #4 is actually that of his Autobot Return of Convoy counterpart?

Other notes

This issue was originally intended for release on January 21, but delays that struck several IDW titles that month caused it to slip to the following week. However, the issue still made it to the United Kingdom on time, where it went on sale a week ahead of the rest of the world.
Hellbat becomes the mouthpiece for Shane McCarthy's usual "statement" on the Transformers' ongoing war: that the conflict has descended into pointlessness.

Errors

On the third panel of page 2, the comma in Hellbat's speech bubble should be a semicolon.
On page 16, Drift says "Any minute now we're going to be drowning those things"; presumably, it should say "drowning in those things."
During his rant, Hellbat claims that Cybertronians don't reproduce. In the IDW continuity alone, there are at least two different methods of Transformer reproduction that have been repeatedly alluded to (and occasionally shown on-panel). He might be referring to biological methods of procreation or something, or he might just be totally crazy, but it still doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.

Covers (2)

Regular cover: Drift and Gigatron, by Guido Guidi and John-Paul Bove
Subscription cover: Ratchet by Saren Stone; links up with the subscription cover to issue #4 to form a larger image

Reprints

Other than reprints of the full series

N/A

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