Natural Selection, Part Two

« The Transformers: Regeneration One #87 »
"Gimme a kiss!"
"Natural Selection, Part Two"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	January 9, 2013
Cover date	January 2013
Writer	Simon Furman
Penciler	Andrew Wildman
Inker	Stephen Baskerville
Colorist	John-Paul Bove
Letterer	Chris Mowry
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

Hot Rod departs on a quest into the depths of Cybertron just as Grimlock returns and begins spreading the effect of Scorponok's Gene Key.

Synopsis

On Nebulos, Scorponok subjects Brainstorm, Highbrow, and Hardhead to the effects of his Gene Key, re-writing their CNA to activate what he terms their "warrior gene", altering their morality to transform the three into Decepticons of a sort. The trio's new attitudes are on full display as they emerge from their capsules and immediately turn on Grimlock, but the new Nucleon-free, fully-transformable body that the Dinobot leader has been granted by Scorponok allows him to easily take down his three attackers. Scorponok quells the fighting, and orders them to depart for Cybertron.

On the Transformers' home planet, acting commander Hot Rod receives a report from Lightspeed on an excavation project that has, at last, successfully located the tunnels once used by Grimlock, Jazz and Bumblebee to access the chamber of Primus. Hot Rod's buoyed spirits are sadly almost immediately deflated by the arrival of Crosshairs, bearing news that Grimlock has returned. Rodimus gathers the Autobot Targetmasters and the Triggerbots at the Cybertropolis spaceport with intent to apprehend Grimlock, who has had a warrant out for his arrest since his disappearance years before, but the Dinobot's renewed ability to transform briefly startles them into inaction, and he shoulders past, heading for the Nursery. Regaining his wits, Hot Rod has the Autobots restrain Grimlock and lock him up, but the young Autobot senses something is not right about the whole scenario.

Meanwhile, on Earth, the brain-damaged Starscream manages to sneak into the Ark, only to be confronted by Galvatron, who demands to know what he is doing there. Realizing that Starscream is unable to speak, he instead orders him to lead him to the reason he has returned to the downed craft. These two Decepticons are not the only Transformers still on Earth: elsewhere, Optimus Prime informs the departing Ultra Magnus that he will be staying on Earth to help humanity rebuild, despite the humans' wishes that all the Autobots leave. Prime believes his resurrection at the hands of the Last Autobot was a mistake, and that it is time for Hot Rod to take leadership and leave Prime to undo the damage his inaction has caused to Earth.

Back on Cybertron at the Senate Forum, Hot Rod charges Siren, Grapple, Perceptor and Hosehead with overseeing Grimlock while he heads out to help in the excavation of the recently discovered tunnels. Not long after he has left, however, a second ship containing Highbrow, Hardhead and Brainstorm sets down in the Badlands, and the three genetically modified Autobots immediately make for the Iacon Civil Defense Hub. Slapdash greets them with shock, thinking Brainstorm and Highbrow dead, but Highbrow coldly murders him with a direct shot to the face. They then enter the building, quickly disposing of the three guards who stand in their way, opening the way for Scorponok. Simultaneously, Perceptor examines Grimlock, deducing the origin of his new body, but when the scientist's guard is down, Grimlock apologizes for what he's about to do, and hits Perceptor with the Gene Key. Precisely none of this is seen by the inattentive guard Kick-Off, who Perceptor then sinisterly summons to Grimlock's cell...

Elsewhere on Cybertron, Hot Rod arrives at the excavation point, and heads down into the tunnels in an elevator, unaware that the excavation party has been attacked by a swarm of Demons, and that he is heading right into their midst!

And back on Earth, Starscream leads Galvatron to the deactivated computer core of the Ark. Galvatron blasts the wall-sized databanks open, and everything becomes clear as he peers inside to see a partially-dismembered Shockwave wired into the ship's systems!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Highbrow (1) Brainstorm (2) Hardhead (3) Grimlock (4) Hot Rod (6) Lightspeed (7) Nosecone (8) Crosshairs (10) Sureshot (11) Override (12) Dogfight (13) Backstreet (14) Optimus Prime (17) Ultra Magnus (18) Siren (19) Grapple (20) Perceptor (21) Hosehead (22) Kick-Off (23) Slapdash (24)	Scorponok (5) Starscream (15) Galvatron (16) Shockwave (26)	Primus (9) Demons (25)

Quotes

"It - It's really you! But ... how? You're back..."
"From the dead? Here, Slapdash... you try!"
DZOW
"Nope. Hasn't got the knack."

- Highbrow executes Slapdash

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

• Brainstorm now has a mouth, while Hardhead has a mouthplate, in contrast to their Marvel character models (though Hardhead's toy was similarly mouth-plated, while Brainstorm spontaneously grew a mouth for the Headmasters animated series). Brainstorm even had his proper mouth-plate design in issue #81! The intent, according to colorist John-Paul Bove, is that Brainstorm's mouthplate was removed when Scorponok restored him; the stubble-like swathe of brownish-yellow covering the bottom half of his face this issue is supposed to be discoloration to visually suggest the plate's removal.
• Beyond that, though, Brainstorm's a real mess this issue, as it's really only his color scheme and the use of his name that lets readers know it's him. He doesn't look anything like himself except in the most basic of ways, and the specifics of his body design fluctuate all through the issue.
• Hardhead's gets it a little better, as the only other bit of discontinuity with him is that his shoulder cannon is on his left shoulder as opposed to his right, where it sits on his toy and in all his fictional appearances.
• Crosshairs is colored blue and grey as he stands next to Hot Rod on page 7. He's drawn with his original toy's head design, instead of the Floro Dery character model's mouthplated-version that he sported in all previous Marvel appearances.
• An excessively literal interpretation of Perceptor's original Marvel character model—which colored him as if he had his toy's mouth-plate, with a splash of blue across the bottom half of his face, like Brainstorm in this issue—results in the lineart actually rendering him with a line horizontally bisecting his subsequently-dual-colored face. This is made clearer in #91 as something similar to Beast Wars Blackarachnia's cowl, with the grey top half shinier and the blue lower half recessed slightly.

Continuity errors

• Hosehead was last seen as a wrecked corpse in issue #76. His not-being-dead-ness is probably not the biggest error in the world, though, since the planet was reshaped by the Last Autobot in the interim, and he had the power to bring Transformers back from the dead.

Continuity notes

• Hot Rod had a vision of a demon—prototypical creations of Primus from the original Marvel series—in issue #84, which looks close to coming true.

Other trivia

• This issue was accidentally released early through digital retailer Comixology, on January 2nd. It was taken down after about an hour and released properly the following week.

Transformers references

• Grimlock touches down in Cybertropolis, a Cybertronian city introduced in the Beast Machines cartoon.
• Hot Rod threatens to put Grimlock in a variable voltage harness, an implement of torture that Grimlock himself was quite fond of in the original Marvel series, first appearing in issue #35, and often brought up in the UK comic's letters page.

Furminated

• Slapdash takes a shot in the face from a gene-keyed Highbrow.
• Four generics at the Civil Defense Hub, taken out by Highbrow & co.
• Lightspeed, Nosecone and a team of generics seem to have been taken out by the Demons.

Covers (3)

• 
• 
  Me board shuttle when me feel like it!
• 

• Cover A: Galvatron reaches for Starscream, by Andrew Wildman and Jason Cardy.
• Cover B: Hot Rod "greets" the returning Grimlock, by Guido Guidi.
• Cover RI: Severely off-model Hardhead, Brainstorm and Highbrow on the rampage, by Geoff Senior and Josh Burcham.

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External links

• Simon Furman's Script (W)rap