Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism

« The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #10
"Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	October 31, 2012
Cover date	October 2012
Story by	James Roberts
Art by	Alex Milne
Colors by	Josh Burcham
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2012)

As Rewind's tale of the past continues, the senator murders lead Chromedome and Prowl to uncover the truth behind an urban legend, and Orion Pax to discover just how deep the corruption in the Senate runs.

Synopsis

On Cybertron, before the war, Roller flips between the latest news bulletins covering the murder of Senator Sherma and the death of Nominus Prime. Tensions are high as the deadline date for "Proteus's Promise" draws near, the vow made by Senator Proteus that the Decepticons will be recognised as a legitimate political party if 10,000 sign up with the Decepticon Registration Act. Then, an update on the missing Pious Maximus is interrupted by breaking news of a high-speed pursuit in Translucentica Heights...

In the present day, said pursuit is now the subject Rewind's story, with Chromedome describing how he followed the killer of Senator Momus in an aerial chase, which ended when the murderer collided with one of the reinforced glass walls of the region and exploded against a billboard. On his way back to the crime scene, Chromedome met the warden of Translucentica Heights, Red Alert, who was able to provide evidence that Momus was not killed by Decepticons—he was killed because he secretly was a Decepticon. Prowl's study of the crime scene quickly determined the involvement of a second killer, who then made himself known by opening fire. Pinned down and with Prowl never having seen combat before, the trio seemed doomed until the surprise appearance of Orion Pax, who brought the killer down, only for his Spark to collapse before he could be questioned.

Elsewhere on the Lost Light, Rodimus has turned Perceptor's lab into an interrogation room, where Drift is presently trying to get a confession out of Cyclonus for the attack on Red Alert, who's spark is faint but still pulsing. Ultra Magnus and Rodimus step in when the interrogation turns violent, at which point a communique from First Aid clears Cyclonus, as the medic reports that he has discerned the killer's identity.

Before handing the story over to Whirl, Rewind explains that the ex-watchmaker was, at the time, incarcerated in Garrus-1 on Luna 2. When Ratchet poins out that Whirl was in prison for assaulting Megatron, the event allegedly responsible for turning him "bad", Whirl furiously interrupts and quickly picks the story up, describing how he summoned Orion away from investigating the senator killings to give him a message. In hopes of revenge against the Senate for ruining his life, Whirl shared with Orion information from a cellmate about a Senate plot involving the death of Pax's senator friend and bomb "hidden in plain sight". Orion left to act upon this information (leaving Whirl to be viciously beaten by his new cellmate Impactor just a few minutes later), sending Ratchet and Roller to the Academy of Advanced Technology, where trainee theoretician Skids watched them take Orion's senator friend into protective custody.

Narration returns to Chromedome, who prepares to recount how he and Prowl investigated the nearest Relinquishment Clinic, suspecting that the killers had been using borrowed bodies. Rewind is dissatisfied at Chromedome's decision to preface this with a recollection of how he and Prowl stopped to watch a Decepticon protest and talk about what they would do if war broke out on the way, hurrying him along to the events that took place in the clinic itself. While waiting in its lobby, Chromedome remembers how the pair saw a news report based on their findings that cleared the Decepticons of the murders, which left Prowl frustrated as the results were only preliminary. They were then met by clinic tech Trepan, who they easily pegged as squirrelly and promptly cuffed so they could investigate. The pair eventually found a secret facility beneath the clinic that Chromedome was horrified to realize was The Institute—a state-sponsored brainwashing facility that was supposedly just urban legend. Accessing its mainframe and verifying it as the source of the bodies their killers were using, the pair took the data and absconded without incident, prompting Rewind to resume the position of storyteller and sum up how the pair met back up with Orion, Ratchet, Roller and the senator in Rodion. Putting all their evidence together, Pax realized that Proteus arranged the murders so that the Decepticons could expressly not be found guilty, thereby demonstrating his fairness and leading to a surge in registrants. The bomb mentioned by Whirl would then be pinned on the Decepticons as supposed proof of their "true colors", giving Proteus and Sentinel the excuse needed to use The Institute to brainwash all those registered. Chromedome lamented their lack of knowledge at the bomb's location, but a new report immediately provided the answer: it was the fake Matrix of Leadership in the chest of the deceased Nominus Prime, whose body was to be lain in state the next day. The course of action for Orion's team was clear: they had to steal the Matrix!

Featured characters

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

Autobots	Others
Roller (1) Nominus Prime (3) Pious Maximus (4) Slamdance (5) Chromedome (7) Swerve (8) Tailgate (9) Prowl (10) Red Alert (11) ? (13) Rad (14) Rollout (15) Gears (16) Slapdash? (17) Ultra Magnus (18) Rodimus (19) Drift (21) First Aid (22) Ambulon (23) Orion Pax (24) Whirl (25) Rewind (26) Skids (27) Rung (28) Ratchet (29) Impactor (32)	Proteus (2) "Fallout" (6) "Streaker" (12) Cyclonus (20) Garrus-1 warden (30) Empurata? (31) Unnamed senator (33) Trepan (34)

Notes

• "Proteus's Promise" has been referenced in issues #8 and #9; here, we finally learn what it was.
• The robot speaking out against Nominus's policies at the J.A.A.T. Lectures on page 1 appears to be the placard-carrying NAIL protester from "The Death of Optimus Prime", who transformed himself to death in issue #1 of this series.
• Fallout's alternate mode is a Thunderbolt fighter from Babylon 5.
• The classic Generation 1 "tetrajet"—Cybertronian alternate mode of the Seekers in the Generation 1 cartoon—can be seen on the billboard "Fallout" crashes into.
• One of the Decepticon tracts Red Alert finds is titled "The Illusion of Progress: Revisited", evidently a sequel to Megatron's earlier work, "Nominus Prime and the Illusion of Progress", mentioned in "Chaos Theory".
• Prowl's ability to "observe 800 moving objects and compute their direction of travel" is, verbatim, an ability from his original Transformers Universe profile.
• First Aid is seen working on a Diagnostic Drone, likely the same one that watched Red Alert visit Rung in issue #6.
• Whirl's cellmate is the agent of the Senate who appeared in his flashback in issue #6. Presumably, this is the robot that issue's dialogue identified as Empurata.
• Whirl's brutalization of Megatron was previously chronicled in the first part of "Chaos Theory". Left unsaid in the comic itself, the fact that Impactor immediately beats Whirl up upon meeting him is obviously because of the fact that Impactor and Megatron were once friends.
• The helmet the nervous-looking orange robot in the background is wearing in the scene of Roller and Ratchet arriving at the academy is Doc Brown's brain-wave analyzer from Back to the Future.
• Prowl's pacifism, and his promised attempt to leave Cybertron to escape a potential war, were alluded to back in "The Death of Optimus Prime", where it was revealed that he did try to leave, but didn't make it.
• The Institute has been referred to several times in Roberts's work, stretching back to "Chaos Theory". At last, the mystery revealed!

Covers (3)

• Cover A: Chromedome riding a sky-dart, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
• Cover B: Chromedome and Prowl, by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente
• Cover RI: Orion Pax and Ratchet, by Marcelo Matere and Joana Lafuente

• 
• 
• 

Advertisements

• Robots in Disguise #10
• Regeneration One #84
• Magic: The Gathering - Path of Vengeance
• The Real Ghostbusters 100 Page Spooktacular
• IDW My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comic