Quest for Fire
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| "Quest for Fire" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | June 2014 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | 2014 | ||||||||||||
| Story by | John Barber | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Livio Ramondelli | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Tom B. Long | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | 2005 IDW continuity | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | Current era (2014) | ||||||||||||
| Price | Free (Windows 8 Madefire app, initial) ??? (Other digital platforms) | ||||||||||||
Evidence leads the Firecons to being the primary suspects of the Decepticon murders.
Synopsis
Optimus Prime, Sandstorm, and Windblade arrive back at the smoldering ruins of Gutcruncher's bar, with the proprietor himself burning in the middle. Sandstorm snaps, accusing Optimus of being responsible for killing all of his friends, but Optimus points out that Gutcruncher was on the line of fire for his illegal engex operations. After calming down, Sandstorm notes that the shell they found belongs to a specific ammunition called the infernus bullet. Reverse engineered from the Firecons on Varas Centralus by the Decepticons, it enters the circulatory system and overloads the spark, burning up a Transformer from the inside. Sandstorm was part of the Wreckers that made sure that it would never see the light of the day, so its current presence is a mystery.
Starscream soon arrives on the scene and, hearing Sandstorm's explanation, accuses the Firecons of causing all the recent trouble. Gathering together a team, both leaders decide to confront the Firecons. It turns for the worse when Slug decides to outright attack the Firecons, beginning a battle with the Dinobots and their associates against the Firecons. Optimus is too late to arrive as the Firecons are brutualized by the Dinobots and Sandstorm, who blames the trio for killing his friends. Flamefeather and Cindersaur are taken down by the Dinobots, but Sparkstalker is saved from Sandstorm's kill shot by Optimus, who internally berates the team for acting rashly and betraying Autobot principles.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
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*see "Errors", below
Quotes
"You know what they say—where there's smoke, there's Prime."
- —Starscream
"Calm down, I'm sure he's got other thing on his mind, Sparkstalker."
"I shot at Optimus Prime, and then somebody burned down his friend's favourite dive bar? Yeah, he's probably contemplating some classic cerebro-chess matches."
- —Flamefeather and Sparkstalker
Notes
Continuity notes
- Varas Centralus was introduced in Stormbringer #2. Optimus calls it a "hellhole"; Robots in Disguise #5 established that the planet was the site of wartime atrocities so extreme that even other Decepticons fled the war upon witnessing them.
- He doesn't appear on-panel, but Swindle is credited with providing the Firecons' location. Swindle hasn't been seen much since Robots in Disguise wrapped up its first "season", but he's fairly cozy with the establishment and a regular at Maccadam's in Windblade #1 and Robots in Disguise #33.
Real World References
- Curiously, this is the only issue of Punishment that does not take its title from an episode of the Generation 1 cartoon. Quest for Fire was a famous book and film about early human cultures.
Errors
- Though unnamed, Hot Spot and Streetwise appear; the former using his alternate mode to help to extinguish the blaze at Gutcruncher's, and the latter joining the hunt for the Firecons. Whilst both had been shown to be on Cybertron in Robots in Disguise issues prior to "Dark Cybertron", at this point, they and the other Protectobots should now all either be aboard the Lost Light, as seen in More than Meets the Eye #41, or on their way back to Cybertron, as depicted in The Transformers #40. They explicitly wouldn't arrive on Cybertron until Windblade #2, which (like the entirety of Combiner Wars) is set after the events of Punishment. Who knows, maybe Streetwise was actually supposed to be Grotusque? Or, given the prevalence of lookalike Japanese counterparts of Generation 1 characters throughout this story, maybe they're supposed to be a miscolored Fire Chief and Streetstar?
Covers (2)
- Digital cover: Optimus, Windblade, and Sandstorm survey Gutcruncher's flaming bar, from the issue's first page, by Livio Ramondelli
- Print cover: Optimus Prime and the Dinobots, by Ramondelli
Reprints
- The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 8 (December 19, 2018) ISBN 1684053722 / ISBN 978-1684053728
- Contains More than Meets the Eye #35 to #40, Robots in Disguise #35 to #38, The Transformers: Punishment and The Transformers: Drift - Empire of Stone.
