Plan for Everything

« The Transformers: Robots in Disguise #15 » Combiner Wars #7
"Plan for Everything"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	March 27, 2013
Cover date	March 2013
Written by	John Barber
Pencils by	Andrew Griffith
Inks by	Brian Shearer
Colors by	Josh Perez
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Editor	Carlos Guzman
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2013)

As the new Devastator tears through the city, old friends return to join the fight, and Arcee at last reveals where her true loyalties lie.

Synopsis

At the Iacon med-center, Fixit attempts to raise the command center on the comm-net, but gives up when there is no response, turning his attention back to his patients, regardless of faction. Jazz bursts in, carrying a wounded Mirage, and urges everyone to clear out, but before they can, the reason for Jazz's distress makes itself apparent: Devastator, with Prowl as his new head, rips the roof off the med-center. Jazz instructs Fixit and Sky-Byte to get the wounded to safety; Sky-Byte wants to stay and help his musical partner, but Jazz insists that he go. Things go from bad to worse when Turmoil's forces arrive to help take down this last bastion of Autobot resistance, felling Hipotank and others, but just as they close in to finish off Jazz's team... Slag bursts through the smoke and takes Needlenose down! Ironhide and the other Dinobots follow quick on Slag's heels, and battle is renewed, with the titanic clash of Superion and the Bombshell-controlled Devastator at the centre of it all.

Back in the Black Room, Megatron laughs off both the appearance of Superion—a brain-damaged prototype in comparison to Devastator—and (the still-living) Bumblebee's claim that Optimus Prime will soon return to stop him—since he knows that Prime is currently occupied chasing Jhiaxus thanks to the efforts of Shockwave, who has disappeared from the room. Grudgingly accepting that Megatron does seem to have all the bases covered, Bee turns to Arcee to ask how she fits into the scheme, as he is unable to figure out why she would side with anyone whose ranks included her oldest nemesis, Jhiaxus. She casually explains that she had a lot of time to think, and came to an important conclusion—she really hates Decepticons. She punctuates this declaration by suddenly stabbing Bombshell through the head, taking out Devastator's controller and causing the combiner to shut down, and calling on Sideswipe to open fire. Having merely been pinned to the wall by her sword rather than slain, Sideswipe had caught on to her deception and played dead, and a firefight suddenly explodes into life in the Black Room as weapons flare. Arcee explains that she has always been on the Autobots' side, but that she had been unable to act before now: she had long known that Prowl was under Bombshell's control, but destroying him would accomplish nothing since Devastator's new modular design would have allowed the Decepticons to continue their plan with a replacement 'bot, forcing her to wait until she could take out Bombshell himself. Starscream mocks the failure of Megatron's plan, but is dragged away by his former leader with a fearsome revelation ringing in his ears: Prowl was only ever a test subject, and Megatron himself will soon take his place as Devastator's head to finish the battle. Now seeing the genuineness of Starscream's desire to make Cybertron better through discourse rather than destruction, Metalhawk urges Bumblebee to go after him, and Dirge elects to stand by their side.

Out in the city, Superion lays out the unconscious Devastator, but the Decepticons, though shaken by the loss of their trump card, still try to press their attack. They rally behind Frenzy, who turns his upgraded sonic battle-cry on the Autobots, but Ironhide strides through the sonic onslaught and pistol-whips the little punk into submission. Skywarp cuts out, and the tables appear to be turning... but Devastator soon begins to stir. From within the gestalt, Prowl has watched the battle, helpless to do anything but remember the chain of events that brought him here: the way the new experiences he had on Earth led him to think he could change his path in life... and the way Spike Witwicky shattered that dream by serving as a mirror that reminded him of his own past, mired in shades of grey. And it is to Spike Witwicky that Prowl's thoughts now turn... to the human that all the other Constructicons hate just as much as he does, for his murder of Scrapper. In this terrible moment, all six minds are united as one in their shared hatred, and Devastator is truly born: a unique, independent entity with his own mind, free of Bombshell's control. Approaching Superion from behind, Devastator tears the Autobot combiner to shreds with the chilling vow that he will never allow himself to be controlled by anyone again.

To be concluded!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	NAILs
Fixit (1) Streetwise (5) Scattershot (7) Jazz (8) Mirage (9) Prowl/Devastator (10) Sideswipe (19) Bumblebee (23) Wheeljack (24) Slag (25) Ironhide (26) Superion (27) Swoop (29) Snarl (33) Tracks (39) Cliffjumper (40) Sizzle (41) Sludge (42)	Tankor (4) Devastator/Prowl (10) Turmoil (12) Needlenose (13) Megatron (14) Soundwave (15) Bombshell (16) Astrotrain (20) Blitzwing (21) Starscream (22) Apeface (28) Buzzsaw (30) Laserbeak (31) Ravage (32) Rumble (34) Frenzy (35) Skywarp (36) Acid Storm (37) Slugslinger (38) Dirge (43)	Tappet (2) Zetca (3) Hipotank (8) Sky-Byte (11) Arcee (17) Metalhawk (18)

Quotes

"Y—tzzzk—you're not gonna get away with this. Optimus Prime will come back. He'll destroy you, even if we all fall."
"'Get away with this' indeed, little Bumblebee. Did I crush your cliché inhibitor along with your face?"

—Bumblebee and Megatron

Bumblebee: "Jhiaxus destroyed you, Arcee. He ruined your life Why would you side with his team? No one in their right mind would—"
Arcee: "That's it, isn't it? You think I'm crazy."
Bumblebee: "The thought had crossed my mind."
Arcee: "I was trapped with Jhiaxus in some kind of magic cave that kept him alive. So I took the opportunity to kill him over and over. For years. I killed him in every way I can imagine—and I can imagine a lot of ways. I had time to think. About the world, about myself. I'm not crazy. And with that in mind, with that self-awareness, I thought about your Autobots and Decepticons in a way that I hadn't before. I thought about what you were. What you did. And I realized that deep down, all the way to my spark—"
(Arcee stabs Bombshell in the face.)
Arcee: "—I really, really hate Decepticons."

"Sideswipe... you know what I've done. And I remember everything you did to me—but the time has come to put that aside. I know it's Starscream, but even if we have to shoot our way through hundreds of Decepticons, I can't turn—"
"Stop, stop. You had me at 'shoot our way through hundreds of Decepticons.'"

—Dirge and Sideswipe

"When I feel doubt creeping in... I think about Spike Witwicky. I tried to tell myself I couldn't be what Spike was. That I can't do what he did. That creature isn't me anymore. But Bombshell took the choice away. Now... Now I am the device. But Bombshell doesn't control me. Prowl doesn't control me. I am not Prowl. I am Devastator. And nothing will control me."

Notes

Continuity notes

• Prowl states that Devastator is "mass-displaced", confirming what has been implicit for a long time, given the size of the combiner versus his components. IDW was one of the first continuities to actually address the concept of mass displacement in a Transformer story, way back in Escalation #3.
• Sky-Byte remarks that he and Jazz are "partners on stage", referring to their double-act seen in issue #7.
• Jazz counters that with the claim that he has always been a killer, hearkening back to his bloodstained past as a special operations agent, alluded to in All Hail Megatron #6, and more recently, his unfortunate killing of the human John Powell in issue #17 of the ongoing series.
• Prowl notes that he can "track over 800 objects and calculate their trajectories", a specific ability of his described in his original Universe profile, which has been mentioned a few times over in issues #1 and #10 of sister title More than Meets the Eye.
• Turmoil makes reference to Ardurian rocs, which were originally name-dropped back in Spotlight: Hardhead and made their only actual appearance in issue #6 of this series, in which they displayed the cowering trait Turmoil here highlights.
• Prowl's narration for the issue, relating how his experiences with Spike Witwicky back on Earth during the "Police Action" storyline in the final stage of the ongoing series caused him to re-evaluate himself, was also the subject of his last bout of internal narration, back in issue #4. His final complete line before Devastator deactivates—"When I feel doubt creeping in?"—was, verbatim, the penultimate line of his narration from issue #4. Any readers who remembered his final line from that issue may have seen the ending of this issue being foreshadowed, as he then speaks it as Devastator reawakens: "I think about Spike Witwicky."
• Just how long has Arcee known about Prowl? Well, back in issue #5, she told him she "knew his secret"—that was the issue right after Bombshell took control of him, so that's how long!
• When Superion is ripped in half, Silverbolt's upper-chest and head, complete with an aware, shocked face, can be seen hanging from his upper bisected half.

Real-world references

• In page 1, panel 2, the tube on the next to Tappet contains a patient colored by Josh Perez after Twig from The Bots Master.

Errors

• As in the previous issue, all the Decepticons are wearing the narrower, diamond-eyed Decepticon insignia usually found on movieverse Decepticons.

Edits

Similar to the pack-in versions of various other existing IDW comics, the version of this issue available with the Combiner Wars Deluxe Class Air Raid toy was also subject to some changes:

• On page 1, Scattershot's first speech bubble in panel 3 has an asterisk added after the word "NAILs", with an additional caption clarifying that the term stands for "neutral Cybertronians".
• On page 3, Prowl's first caption in panel 1 (the third caption for the large double-page panel) has "mass-displaced killing machine" changed to "mass-displaced war machine".
• On page 4, Jazz's first speech bubble in panel 1 is shortened from "All I ever been's a stone-cold killer." to simply "All I ever been's stone-cold."
• On page 5, Turmoil's second speech bubble in panel 1 is changed from "I believe I shall kill them, my lord." to "I believe I shall destroy them, my lord.", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
• On page 6, Jazz's first speech bubble in panel 4 has "Turmoil, even you can't kill the facts" changed to "Turmoil, even you can't change the facts", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
• On page 8, Prowl's caption in panel 2 omits the second sentence, "To stop killers.", reducing it to only "I wanted to stop criminals.", with the caption itself resized accordingly.
• On page 9, Prowl's first caption in panel 1 is shortened from "Then I found myself in a world where everyone was a killer. A criminal." to simply "Then I found myself in a world where everyone was a criminal.", with the caption itself resized accordingly.
• On page 13, Arcee's first speech bubble in panel 3 has "So I took the opportunity to kill him over and over." changed to "So I took the opportunity to destroy him over and over." On the other hand, her third speech bubble in the same panel leaves "I killed him in every way I can imagine" completely unchanged.
• On page 15, Sideswipe's speech bubble in panel 3 has "soon as you pinned me to the wall and I wasn't dead" changed to "soon as you pinned me to the wall and I was still alive".
• Three edits on page 19: Arcee's first speech bubble in panel 2 has "I'm sorry so many of your friends died." changed to "I'm sorry so many of your friends fell."; Starscream's first speech bubble in panel 4 has "your big guy's brain dead" changed to "your big guy's down", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly; and Arcee's third speech bubble in panel 5 has "If you kill one component" changed to "If you take out one component".
• On page 21, Bumblebee's second speech bubble in panel 5 has "And we kill Megatron." changed to "And we destroy Megatron.", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly. On the other hand, Megatron's second speech bubble in panel 4 on the same page leaves "doom themselves to die at the hand of a Devastator" completely unchanged.

Foreign localization

Japanese

• Title: "Shūtōnaru Keikaku" (周到なる計画, "Thorough Planning")

Covers (4)

• Cover A: Arcee leaping into action, as Bumblebee and Megatron's heads look off into the middle distance, by Andrew Griffith and Joana Lafuente.
• Cover B: Megatron throttling Starscream and Bumblebee, by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente
• Cover RI: Monochrome red bust shot of Starscream by Marcelo Matere, continuing the previous two months' "bust" theme for the RI covers, paralleling the RI cover to More than Meets the Eye #15.
• Hasbro exclusive cover: Artwork of Air Raid, based on his Combiner Wars Deluxe Class toy, exclusively available with said toy in the United States, Australia, and Asia. Rebranded as Combiner Wars #7. Art by Ken Christiansen and Volta.

• 
  Arcee slices stuff up. Been there, done that.
• 
  Megatron proves his badassery.
• 
  Starscream!
• 
  Air Raid toy cover.

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Reprints

• The Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 4 (September 18, 2013) ISBN 1613777655 / ISBN 978-1613777657
  • Collects Robots in Disguise issues #12–16.
  • Bonus material includes a cover gallery.
  • Trade paperback format.

• Transformers: Robots in Disguise Box Set (December 2, 2015) ISBN 1631404261 / ISBN 978-1631404269
  • Collects Robots in Disguise Volumes 1–5.
  • Bonus material unknown at this time.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 4 (October 12, 2016) ISBN 1631407155 / ISBN 978-1631407154
  • Collects Monstrosity issues #1–12, Robots in Disguise issues #12–16 & #17–18, and More than Meets the Eye issues #14–16.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 58: Shockpoint (May 15, 2019)
  • Collects Robots in Disguise issues #15–22.
  • Bonus material includes a 2-page history of IDW Shockwave's history-setting plans.
  • Hardcover format.

• 
  Robots in Disguise Volume 4 – cover art by Andrew Griffith and Josh Perez
• 
  Robots in Disguise Box Set – cover art by ???
• 
  The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 4 – cover art by Marcelo Matere and Tom B. Long
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 58: Shockpoint – cover art by Don Figueroa (Monstructor) and Livio Ramondelli