Windblade issue 3

« The Transformers: Windblade #3 »
Windblade stumbles upon a Transformers "Romance" fan-fiction
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	June 25, 2014
Cover date	June 2014
Written by	Mairghread Scott
Art by	Saren Stone
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Editor	John Barber
Assistant editor	Rebecca Huard
Continuity	IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2014)

Windblade and the others battle the Terrorcons, but there is more to Metroplex's mystery than there seems.

Synopsis

Deep within Metroplex, Windblade and her allies are confronted by three of the Terrorcons. As the monstrous Decepticons taunt them, Blurr cautions Windblade to reign herself in, but she cannot: though once deemed "too centred" to be a Cityspeaker, she is fiercely protective of Metroplex, and hurls herself into action to protect him. Taking to the air in jet mode, she is caught off-guard by Cutthroat, not having expected him to be able to fly, prompting Chromia to abandon the others in favour of aiding her friend. Though chagrined, Blurr is quick to organize the rest of the group, ordering Tall Tankor to help Windblade in the air while he tackles Sinnertwin and Slug engages Rippersnapper. At Circuit's urging, Longtooth films the ensuing fracas, which goes poorly for the Autobots; Slug is laid out, and Blurr is sent crashing into the luckless Waspinator, and although Windblade is able to take down Cutthroat, she herself is then knocked from the sky by Starscream, who arrests her for crimes against Cybertron. Rattrap cuffs the rest of the group, but Chromia manages to slip away in the confusion.

Later, in an undisclosed prison, Starscream introduces Blurr and the others to the "Badgeless", Starscream's new police force, whose identities are hidden by masks to protect them against public aggression. Dismissing his enforcers, Starscream threatens the rest of the group with imprisonment and execution, professing that he can justify it by claiming they were helping Windblade damage Metroplex's systems in order to help her stage a coup. Longtooth unwisely speaks up to say that he has video evidence proving that is untrue, but Starscream calmly and menacingly points out that he can remove that from the equation by simply killing him. With Longtooth silenced, he invites the incarcerated 'bots to ensure their own liberation by siding with him in his mission to remove Windblade from her position of power. Blurr spits his offer back in his face, but Starscream doubts that all those imprisoned will sacrifice their freedom and possibly their lives for an alien they don't even really know...

Elsewhere in the prison, Windblade is tortured by Rattrap for information on the location of Chromia and the "real" reason she was sent to Cybertron. Presently, Starscream arrives, and with the torture having yielded no information, he instead elects to undo her bonds, doubting she will cause much trouble. He is entirely wrong, as she immediately lunges for him and tries to tear his head off, but he quickly overpowers her. Though he admits to tampering with Metroplex's filters in pursuit of the Regenesis ores in his system, Starscream refutes Windblade's accusation that he was attempting to kill the Titan; then, when she blames him for the bomb that nearly killed her, his look of confusion is punctuated by the baffled Rattrap, who starts to say that they weren't responsible for the blast, until Starscream silences him and orders him to take Windblade back to her cell.

Returned to the cells with her allies, Windblade thinks over the revelations from the torture session until Chromia bursts in with Sky-Byte and Swindle in a daring escape attempt. While Blurr and the others remain behind to distract Starscream and his guards, Chromia and Windblade race off to Metroplex's brain. Chromia is stunned when Windblade reveals that Starscream has not been behind all the trouble plaguing Metroplex, but someone else instead...

...someone who has been rerouting the power drained from throughout Metroplex to reactivate the Titan's spacebridge!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Chromia (4) Windblade (5) Slug (11) Metroplex's brain (17)	Sinnertwin (1) Cutthroat (2) Rippersnapper (3)	Blurr (6) Tall Tankor (7) Circuit (8) Longtooth (9) Waspinator (10) Starscream (12) Rattrap (13) Fat Tankor (14) The Badgeless (15) Sky-Byte (16)

Quotes

Blurr: "Chromia, wait!"
Chromia: "I have to save her."
Blurr: "What about us?!"
Chromia: "What about you?!"
Slug: "Buuurn."

"But... I've got everything on film. I can prove we weren't the ones damaging Metroplex."
"Even Wazzpinator not dumb enough to say that."

—Longtooth and Waspinator

"I do not know the codes for this facility and anyone who suggests otherwise will have a problem."

—Swindle, while flawlessly entering the codes for this facility

"Wait for it, Dinobot. Primus, I hate saying 'wait.' Just an awful word."

—Blurr

Notes

Continuity notes

• Of the absent members of the Terrorcons, Hun-Grr was last seen attempting to orchestrate a jailbreak in More than Meets the Eye #30, which likely landed him in some hot water, and Blot has been MIA since he was apparently killed by Arcee back in Robots in Disguise #11 (though writer John Barber has noted that he might not actually be dead).

Transformers references

• Starscream silences Rattrap with the order "Shut up, Rattrap", a frequent catchphrase from the Beast Wars cartoon.

Errors

• When Sinnertwin replies to Rippersnapper, he mistakenly refers to him as Cutthroat.

Other trivia

• A little more insight is offered into Camien society this issue; it is revealed that they do not use ranged weaponry, as they consider it wasteful, an attitude that has been exemplified in Chromia and Windblade's signature weapons, an axe and a sword, respectively.
• Rattrap's been generally portrayed as far less of a nice guy in IDW continuity than his Beast Wars self was, but don't allow yourself to believe the sight of him torturing Windblade is that big a departure: Rattrap revealed he was an advocate of torturing prisoners in the Beast Wars episode "Chain of Command".

Covers (3)

• Standard cover: Windblade, by Saren Stone.
• Subscription cover: Windblade, by Alex Milne and Joana Lafuente.
• 30th Anniversary cover: Starscream stands over a fallen Megatron, by Guido Guidi and John-Paul Bove. Part of a series of "30th Anniversary" covers from the June 2014 Transformers titles that commemorate scenes from the original The Transformers cartoon, though this one doesn't seem to be of any specific event from the show.

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• Windblade #4
• Robots in Disguise #30
• More than Meets the Eye #30
• Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
• IDW: Getting Into Your Head for 15 Years (back cover)

Reprints

• The Transformers: Windblade TPB: (October 1, 2014) ISBN 1631400525 / ISBN 978-1-63140-052-0

• Collects issues #1 to #4.
• Bonus material includes a cover gallery.

• The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 6 (October 18, 2017) ISBN 1684050855 / ISBN 978-1684050857

• Contains issues #1 to #4 (Windblade volume 1), as well as Dark Cybertron Chapter 1, Robots in Disguise issues #23 to #27, More than Meets the Eye #23 to #27 and The Transformers: Dark Cybertron Finale.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 64: Windblade (August 9, 2017)

• Collects issues #1 to #4 of the first volume, along with issues #35 to #38 of The Transformers vol. 2.
• Includes a bio for Windblade, an overview of her conception, pictures of her Thrilling 30 toy, and early design sketches by Hasbro.

• Transformers Windblade: The Last City (February 14, 2018) ISBN 978-1684052240

• Contains all 11 issues from both volumes of Windblade... but not the alternating chapters of Combiner Wars from The Transformers vol. 2 needed to complete the story. Um.
• Bonus content includes covers of each issue.

• 
  The Transformers: Windblade TPB; cover art by Saren Stone
• 
  The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 6 HC; cover art by Marcelo Matere and Tom B. Long
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Vol. 64: Windblade HC; cover art by Guido Guidi and Saren Stone
• 
  Transformers Windblade: The Last City TPB; cover art by Sara Pitre-Durocher