The Transgressors

« The Transformers vol. 2 #44 »
Tracks is an idiot, isn't he?
"The Transgressors"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 5, 2015
Cover date	August 2015
Written by	John Barber
Art by	Andrew Griffith
Colors by	Josh Perez
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	Carlos Guzman
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era

As Arcee visits Cybertron, bad blood between Tracks and Needlenose boils over.

Synopsis

On Cybertron, before the war, brothers Tracks and Needlenose are in business together, selling Needlenose's "Chic Chips". Needlenose dislikes the fact that the chips he designed for everyone are being marketed and priced by Tracks for only the higher classes, and so finds himself intrigued by the anti-class Decepticon rhetoric that his new friend Horri-Bull espouses. When Tracks makes fun of him for it, a furious Needlenose dissolves their partnership and leaves to join the Decepticons...

In the present day, a small group of new Camien immigrants to Cybertron are handing out religious pamphlets about Optimus Prime in the Decepticon ghetto, which causes ructions among the inhabitants. Some are willing to let them be, but others are not happy to see the 'bot who led the opposite side for millions of years' worth of war being deified. Needlenose, having just returned to the planet from Earth with Brawl and joined by Dreadwing, steps into the middle of the argument, disgusted to see how the Decepticons remain second-class citizens despite the end of the war. Snatching a pamphlet, Needlenose tells the Camiens that the Decepticons genuinely desire equality and welcome any newcomers... except, he adds menacingly as he rips the pamphlet up, followers of a Prime.

The Decepticons are not the only returnees to Cybertron; Arcee has used the spacebridge to drop in for a visit. After secretly checking up on Starscream—whom she finds holding a heated conversation with himself—she heads for the spaceport, where Optimus Prime and Tracks have just seen Mirage and the Protectobots off on their way back to the Lost Light. Arcee chastizes Prime for not keeping her up-to-date on current events, but warns him all the same that Needlenose and Brawl are rabble-rousing; while Prime promises to take the information to Starscream, Tracks is angry to hear what his little brother is up to. When Arcee questions how he can still be so mad about something that happened millions of years ago, Tracks's curt response that she doesn't know what it's like to lose anyone prompts her to head outside the city to her old contemplation spot to reflect.

Needlenose, Brawl, and Dreadwing relax in a bar and discuss Galvatron and Soundwave's plans on Earth, which ends with Brawl flipping the table in a rage at the idea the Decepticons have to be "allowed" to do anything by anybody. Tracks enters the bar and approaches Needlenose, accusing him and the Decepticons of insurgency, but Needlenose refutes the idea, blaming Tracks and the Autobots for allying with other worlds that worship Primes, keeping the Decepticons down, just like the lower classes they grew out of eons beforehand. Alas, the embittered brothers' terse discussion soon escalates into violence, when Tracks balls his fist and decks Needlenose. A bar's worth of patrons unholster their weapons and aim them at Tracks, but just then, one of Starscream's Badgeless officers bursts in to arrest them all unless they hand over Needlenose, Brawl, and Dreadwing. Fortunately, before anyone has to actually make the fateful decision, Arcee strikes, slashing off the officer's arms. Telling the Decepticons to inform Galvatron that he owes her, she orders Tracks to leave with her.

In Starscream's throne room, the other party in the conversation he is carrying on is revealed: the imaginary figure of Bumblebee, all in Starscream's head, who constantly questions the stability of the former Decepticon's power, and by his very existence, the instability of his mind. Arcee arrives with the Badgeless, whom she then kills in front of Starscream; she does not like "secret police", she warns, and if Starscream persists with such duplicitous activities, keeping his people policed rather than happy, his empire will crumble around him. Arcee leaves, still thinking about Tracks's words from earlier, and how she did lose someone: Hardhead. But in her jumbled mind, Arcee still struggles to make emotional connections to others, and can't really equate the experience to Tracks and Needlenose... but when she looks on the fresh, new, hopeful faces that populate Cybertron today, even if she cannot be sure she or Hardhead were ever that happy and optimistic, she is dedicated to making sure these newcomers will never become like her.

And elsewhere, Needlenose looks wistfully at a chest full of Chic Chips, which he has kept all this time... before crushing a handful, and stepping out on stage to address a throng of Decepticons assembled before him.

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Tracks (1) Metroplex (5) Prowl (wanted poster, 15) Arcee (19) Optimus Prime (21) Mirage (22) First Aid (23) Hot Spot (24) Groove (25) Streetwise (26) Blades (27) Bumblebee (hallucination, 31)	Needlenose (2) Horri-Bull (3) Squeezeplay (6) Submarauder (7) Sinnertwin (8) Acid Storm (9) Onslaught (10) Cindersaur (11) Sparkstalker (12) Brawl (17) Dreadwing (18) G'nur (28) Dauros (29)	Quark (4) Swift (13) Aileron (14) Sterling (16) Starscream (20) Badgeless officer (30)

Quotes

"I vouch for these Camiens. They gave us a fair shake back on their planet. Didn't care what symbol we wore, just cared who we are. I say let 'em be."
"I'm very disappointed in you, Sparkstalker... if treating us like people is all it takes to win your loyalty—raise your standards."

—Sparkstalker and Needlenose

"You didn't tell me you'd been elected space messiah."

—Arcee, on Optimus

Brawl: "[Galvatron]'s the leader we shoulda always had."
Dreadwing: "The kind that leaves a fella in the middle of Ex-ticons."
Needlenose: "Middle of what?"
Dreadwing: "Ex-Decepticons."
Needlenose: "You trying to make that a thing?"

"Well, you did it. You found a worse crowd."

—Tracks voices his opinion on Needlenose's current friends

"Don't patronize me. The people are disenfranchised. Again! And you're out making truces with far-away lands that just happen to serve the Primes. Four million years, and we're back where we started. All I've ever wanted is for things to change."
"You had your chance. When Bumblebee was in charge, he tried to get everybody together—he did his best."
"Bumblebee executed Horri-Bull in front of me! You think I'd stand with an Autobot who killed the one 'bot I've ever loved?"
"FAMILY COMES FIRST!"
"Only family you cared about was the one in the mirror. You never asked what I thought. Just squeezed until you got what you wanted."

—Needlenose and Tracks

"Tracks—give your Prime a message. We don't want to fight you... but we won't let you rule us."

—Needlenose

"Arcee?! Don't Ratbat me!"

—Starscream

"You have something to lose, now. Work to keep it."

—Arcee, to Starscream

Notes

Continuity notes

Where have I seen this before?

• Needlenose and Horri-Bull were a double-act all the way back in issue #1, in which Bumblebee killed Horri-Bull with his I/D chip. Though Needlenose denies that Horri-Bull is his Conjunx Endura when Tracks jokingly uses the term in the flashback that opens the issue, Needlenose later calls him "the one 'bot he ever loved."
• Chic Chips were part of Needlenose's backstory as provided in his original Transformers Universe profile. He previously mentioned them in IDW in issue #21.
• Sparkstalker is happy to let the Camiens be; he'd be a bit hypocritical if he didn't, since he's currently dating one—Lightbright—as seen over in Windblade vol. 2 #4.
• Starscream was previously seen ranting to himself in issue #33. A later scene in the issue made it seem that he had simply been speaking through a communicator to the off-panel Scoop, but here we see that, no, all is not well within Starscream's head.
• Arcee spends the whole issue in her "stealth" colors (based on her "Combiner Hunters" toy), introduced in issue #42.
• Tracks has taken over the running of the spaceport from Broadside, who had the job in the pre-Dark Cybertron era. He's off on the Lost Light these days.
• We saw Arcee at her "private spot"—a sharp peak out in the wilderness overlooking the city—back in issue #3.
• Dreadwing is a bit miffed that he got left on Cybertron when the other Decepticons went to Earth; he was shown escaping the collapse of Shockwave's lab alongside Galvatron back in the final chapter of Dark Cybertron, but hasn't reappeared until now.
• Needlenose highlights (quoted above) how he would never side with the 'bot that killed Horri-Bull. Weeell... while issue #1 made it appear that Bumblebee was responsible (and certainly, 'Bee intended to kill him when he pressed the button), we found out in issue #2 that the I/D chips were actually no longer in the Autobots' control, and that Soundwave had remotely detonated Horri-Bull's chip, so Bumblebee would not find out. What happens when Needlenose finds out...?
• Starscream begs Arcee "Don't Ratbat me!", referring to her assassination of the Decepticons' then-leader back in issue #2.
• Arcee refers to her time spent with Hardhead on Gorlam Prime, between Spotlight: Sideswipe and Heart of Darkness. Hardhead died in More than Meets the Eye #25, and Arcee lampshades the unfortunately dismissive nature with which the story handled his death by remarking that "everyone just kept on going".
• Optimus recalls his brief time as a combiner while bidding farewell to Mirage.

Transformers references

• The idea to make Tracks and Needlenose brothers probably stems from that slitted "knight's visor" detail-thing they both have on their foreheads/helmets, a sort of "familial insignia" not unlike moustaches and the House of Ambus. In-fiction, that detail has never been very pronounced on Tracks; it was part of his original Generation 1 toy, but it didn't get translated to his original character model back in the 80s, and that has fed into it being downplayed in modern Tracks designs. Even in this issue, he looks more like he's got a bunch of slots cut in a forehead-crest, rather than a visor.
• Several generic Decepticons populate the crowd scenes this issue, including ones colored like Action Master Thundercracker and Generation 2 Ramjet on page 12. On page 10, there's also one colored like this guy! The one-eyed empurata-style 'con and the bartender (named G'nur by the colorist), both also on this page, are colored with the inverted palettes of Whirl and Rung, respectively.
• Standing between "Thundercracker" and Brawl on page 12 is a Decepticon colored in homage to Secret Shield version of Buzzer-Bot.
• There's a 'bot who looks like inner-robot Skullgrin sitting at the bar, who tells Needlenose to "handle it". Whilst Skullgrin got blown up way back in Stormbringer and hasn't been seen since, Punishment recently established that the Masterforce Pretenders exist as separate characters in this universe who resemble their original robot forms. As such, this is most likely Skullgrin's Japanese counterpart, Dauros.
• The final page of this issue, as Needlenose addresses a crowd of Decepticons, is a recreation of Rodimus's speech from the first panel of More than Meets the Eye #1, with Brawl and Dreadwing taking up the positions and poses of Ultra Magnus and Drift.

Real-world references

• As with the previous two issues, this story is named after a Jim Thompson novel.
• Camien flier-hander-outer Aileron is colored to resemble Crasher of GoBots fame. Her companions, a green helicopter and a red-and-blue 'bot who are named as Swift and Sterling in issue #46, have their color schemes based on the Rapid Assault Light Attack E-Frame from Exosquad and Solardyn of the Commandrons, respectively.
• In panel 1 of page 11, the Decepticon standing behind and to the left of Dauros is loosely colored in homage to Blayde from Z-Bots.

Other notes

• Horri-Bull's yellow color scheme was chosen for this series, but technically in the opening scene, he should have his classic blue deco, as seen in Drift #1.
• When this issue was originally plotted, Tracks and Needlenose were planned to be a couple, rather than siblings. Why was it changed? Not even Andrew Griffith knows!
• A generic Decepticon (possibly a Seeker?) appears on page 10 in an ugly brown color scheme, whom Josh Perez jokingly nicknamed "Shitstorm" or "Wastemaker".

Covers (3)

• Regular cover: Tracks takes a selfie with Needlenose, by Andrew Griffith and Josh Perez
• Subscription cover: Arcee in her Combiner Hunters colors, by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente; Arcee is drawn with the design of her Generations/Combiner Hunters toy, rather than the body-design she has in-story
• Retailer incentive cover: Arcee separates an arguing Optimus Prime and Soundwave; one of a series of super-deformed covers by Agnes Garbowska that make up the Retailer Incentive covers on IDW's August Transformers titles.

• 
  How will you smile when you have no mouth?
• 
  Black in black.
• 
  Toys, Japan?

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• The Transformers #45
• More than Meets the Eye #44
• Windblade #5
• Robots in Disguise #2
• Transformers vs. G.I. Joe #8
• IDW Transformers' graphic novel library
• Uncle Scrooge Vol. 1 TPB (back cover)

Reprints

• The Transformers Volume 8 (March 16, 2016) ISBN 1631405853 / ISBN 978-1631405853
  • Collects The Transformers (2012) issues #42–45.
  • Bonus material includes covers from each issue.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 67: Conquerors (July 24, 2019)
  • Collects The Transformers (2012) issues #43–49, and Combiner Hunters #1.
  • Bonus material includes development art by Andrew Griffith, a cover gallery and an intro by Simon Furman.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 10 (January 1, 2020) ISBN 1684055849 / ISBN 978-1684055845
  • Collects Windblade (2015) issues #6–7, The Transformers (2012) issues #44–45, Combiner Hunters #1, Sins of the Wreckers issues #1–5, More than Meets the Eye issues #45–47 & #48–49, The Transformers Holiday Special: "Choose Me" & "The Thirteenth Day of Christmas".

• 
  Volume 8 – cover art by Andrew Griffith and Josh Perez
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 67: Conquerors – cover art by Don Figueroa and Andrew Griffith
• 
  The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 10 – cover art by Marcelo Matere

External links

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