Infiltration issue 4

	; "Bumblebee Holding Giant-Ass Gun" #392
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	April 12, 2006
Cover date	March 2006
Written by	Simon Furman
Art by	E. J. Su
Colors by	John Rauch
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Edits by	Chris Ryall & Dan Taylor
Continuity	IDW continuity
Chronology	Infiltration

Ratchet and Bumblebee protect their human friends while a new player arrives on Earth.

Synopsis

A young Verity Carlo meets with a guidance counselor after running away from yet another foster home. The counselor dismisses Verity's tough facade, stating that all she sees is a young girl "in a world of hurt".

Verity, Hunter O'Nion, and Jimmy Pink explore the abandoned Decepticon Command Bunker in Nebraska on behalf of Ratchet and Bumblebee. The two Autobots are reluctant to risk the humans, but Bumblebee ultimately justifies the three as expendable at this point.

In Dallas, Texas, Drake meets with the leadership of the Machination at the Epsilon Holdings building. Drake is assigned a team and told to investigate the recent Decepticon activities and hunt down the robots. They desire to "appropriate" Cybertronian technology, and have discovered the location of Ark-19 under the lake via the SM-40's homing signal

At the Decepticon Command Bunker, Verity wanders around, discovering a stasis tube. Inside, she discovers a months-old human corpse in military uniform and almost has a nervous breakdown, but composes herself and moves on. Topside, the waiting Bumblebee and Ratchet are suddenly confronted by Skywarp and Blitzwing, who pay no heed to the Autobots and bomb the base. The Autobots order the humans to evacuate the base, but Verity ignores their concern and explores deeper into the base. Forced into battle, Bumblebee is able to shoot down Skywarp, his processor speed outmatching the Decepticon's, but Ratchet is taken out by Blitzwing in his tank mode.

Underground, Verity discovers that they are not alone in the Bunker as she comes face to face with Megatron himself.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Ratchet (4) Bumblebee (5)	Blitzwing (11) Skywarp (12) Megatron (13)	Verity Carlo (1) Hunter O'Nion (2) Jimmy Pink (3) Drake (6) Abraham Dante (7) Svenson (8) Jolly (9) Stoker (10)

Notes

Megatron is talking to Razorclaw. The full conversation appears in Stormbringer #3.
The Machination's plot and the purpose of the SM-40 is revealed in Devastation #1—a preview with the relevant pages is printed in "Spotlight: Optimus Prime".
The human corpse is that of a human abducted and replaced by a Decepticon facsimile construct; the pod it was in is a life support vessel, keeping it alive in case a new facsimile needs to be grown, but which was abandoned and allowed to fail. This is explained in Escalation #2.
This is the first issue to make it explicit that Verity is more emotionally vulnerable than she lets on.
The "Decepticomments" section featured mail answered by Chris Ryall and short ads for next month's issues: Infiltration #5, The Gathering #4, Generations #3.
Drake's team is assembled. None of them particularly resemble any of the members of the team as seen in Escalation.
Some of the binary on Bumblebee's windshield on page 17 reads 'idw', 't' and 'f'.

Errors

This issue has the same publish date as issue #3.

Covers (13)

Infiltration #4 cover A - Starscream shoots his shot... ewwww!
Infiltration #4 cover B - Skywarp likes it when bad things happen to Bumblebee. So do we!
Infiltration #4 cover C - Transformers equivalent of the Big Johnson shirt.
Infiltration #4 cover D - Hunter looks a little less goofy here.

Infiltration #4 cover A: Starscream by E. J. Su, would later become part of the wraparound cover RI-A for issue #5.
Infiltration #4 cover B: Bumblebee on Blitzwing's turret, by Guido Guidi.
Infiltration #4 cover C: Bumblebee with giant-ass gun, by Andrew Wildman.
Infiltration #4 cover D: Humans, by James Raiz.

Infiltration #4 cover RI-A - Very Freudian
Infiltration #4 cover RI-B - Trigger crotch, yeessssss!
Infiltration #4 cover RI-C - Top o'the mornin' to ya!
Infiltration #4 cover RE-A - What are Prime and Megs doing? I don't think I want to know!

Infiltration #4 cover RI-A: Foil stamp of cover C, without the background.
Infiltration #4 cover RI-B: (Mostly) toy-accurate Megatron, by Guido Guidi.
Infiltration #4 cover RI-C: Saluting Bumblebee, by Guido Guidi (includes 3 mini-prints).
Infiltration #4 cover RE-A: Megatron and Optimus Prime, by Andrew Wildman (drawtheworldtogether.com exclusive).