Three Monologues
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| "Three Monologues" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | August 7, 2013 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | August 2013 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | John Barber | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Andrew Griffith | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Priscilla Tramontano | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Shawn Lee | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Carlos Guzman | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | IDW continuity | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | Current era (2013) | ||||||||||||
A blackout, a do-gooder and an opportunist which are all more than they appear make Starscream's first night leading Iacon a difficult one, as the former Decepticon finds that the only way he can speak without being reproached at every turn is to speak to those who cannot talk back.
Synopsis
1: Long Night
As Metalhawk's remains lie in state, Starscream visits his once and former friend to thank him for all the advice he gave him during their tumultuous attempts to forge a government alongside Bumblebee, and apologizes for killing him. He laments the lack of friends he has had in his life, but remarks that he knew Metalhawk would not have been any better at leading than Bumblebee was; now, Cybertron's destiny lies in the hands of someone who can and will do something.
Starscream ventures to the wrecked Maccadam's Old Oil House and petitions owner Blurr to use the bar as a meeting place to connect with the common Cybertronian. Blurr laughs in his face: as far as he is concerned, he did not pick Starscream as his leader, but merely chose not to be part of the war anymore, and wants nothing to do with the former Decepticons. Just as he is kicking Starscream out, the entire city is blanketed in darkness as a blackout knocks out power across the polity.
Circuit broadcasts a special report from the med-center on Scoop and his Construction Patrol, who are working diligently to help repair the damage caused by the previous night's battle and are now endeavoring to solve the blackout problem. Starscream drops in, more than a little miffed to see his spotlight being stolen away; medic Flatline assumes he's come to check on the status of the new body he's working on, but he's actually come to see Dirge, hoping the Seeker will stand at his side. Instead, Dirge slugs him good and hard. Starscream turns on his former subordinate, whispering threats of death, until he realizes that privacy is a thing of the past for him: Circuit is filming him, and he spins a quick lie. Power suddenly returns thanks to Scoop's efforts, and Circuit hands his broadcast off to Cloudraker, who is interviewing the hero of the hour. A sulking Starscream is them approached by Rattrap, a stinky little former Autobot who has previous experience with Scoop and has always distrusted him, calling him jealous and greedy. Rattrap shows Starscream the damaged power coupling responsible for the blackout, and points out the phosphex burn that makes it clear the power loss was no accident: it was sabotage.
2: Young Evening
Starscream gives himself a pick-me-up by visiting Megatron, still held immobile in the forcefield that was responsible for his defeat. He gloats over his victory and the new horizons he will lead the people towards, and then, feeling suitably reinvigorated, heads out to the city's comm array, which Scoop's team are about to start fixing, finally restoring Cybertron's communication with the galaxy. Rattrap points out Scoop's suspicious, ever-present toolbox, which he and Starscream figure would be a good place to stash anything incriminating, so Starscream calls Scoop over before he climbs the array... only to be suitably taken aback when Scoop dramatically genuflects before him. The engineer expresses his disillusionment in his former Autobot brothers, and his new faith in Starscream born of the words of the Metrotitan, leading Starscream to realize that the Construticon Patrol are actually following him because they're religious fanatics. Decidedly disarmed, Starscream can stall Scoop no longer and he leaves to head up the array, but his words prompt a line of inquiry from Circuit, who chats with Starscream about the divided opinion on his first few hours of leadership. In short order, Scoop has repaired the array, but as he descends, Rattrap deliberately gets under his feet and causes him to drop his toolbox, which spills its contents for all to see... including a canister of phosphex. As Circuit broadcasts live, Starscream reveals Scoop's deception and has him carted away for incarceration, assuring the viewers that he, at least, will not let them down.
3: Early Dawn
Some time later, as Rattrap returns to the dingy little den he calls him, he finds Starscream waiting for him. Being a professional liar, Starscream calmly explains, means he can also spot a liar quite easily. Scoop was no liar—he genuinely wanted to do good. Rattrap is the prevaricator here, the one who was always jealous of other 'bots, and the one responsible for the sabotage and for planting the phosphex on Scoop. Rattrap wants to know what this means for him: a self-serving, out-for-number-one reponse that Starscream applauds. With a grin, he offers Rattrap a job in his government.
Later still, Starscream retires to a tower elsewhere in the city and watches as the sun begins to rise, even if it does feel a little early. He speaks to an unseen listener, ruminating on the lessons he has learned about the nature of power, and the fact that, really, the people are just looking for someone to blame. What, he wonders, will the listener do when he is better, free of the CR chamber in which he now heals? Starscream hopes he'll stand with him, since he trusted him when they began the city. But for now... Starscream bids Wheeljack good night.
Featured characters
For this list and all others going forward, we are assuming that anyone who has stayed in Iacon of their own free will has discarded their faction in the process, as per Starscream's decree. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"I'm not... I wasn't used to having friends. Accomplices, and people in my way, sure. But there have not been many friends of Starscream."
- —Starscream sets the ovaries of fangirls far and wide tingling
"I need somebody I can trust. I mean, even if you hate me, you're still a Seeker, right?"
"You know what?"
(Dirge decks Starscream with a mighty POW!)
"Huh. I thought you'd at least give me a snazzy one-liner. 'Seek this,' or something."
- —Starscream and Dirge
"Altruism is unpredictable."
- —Starscream
Notes
- This is the first issue of Robots in Disguise to not feature narration in the form of an internal character monologue delivered through caption boxes. Instead, Starscream—the one character who is so rarely legitimately truthful when interacting with others—gets to actually speak his true thoughts aloud, without being suspected, rebuked or second-guessed, but only by talking to the dead, the paralyzed, and the comatose. He mighta killed that dude, but it's actually sort of tragic.
Continuity notes
- Scoop has made a brief entry into IDW continuity before now, appearing as a member of the Wreckers in Stormbringer.
- Mentioned in passing in issue #18, Flatline makes an on-panel appearance this issue. Artist Andrew Griffith designed him as a retool of the Generations Skids toy, but did so on his own initiative without instruction from Hasbro, so don't get too excited.
- Phosphex is the primary chemical component of the assorted variations of glass gas; "cold phosphex" was mentioned in Last Stand of the Wreckers #4, while "Bullets" gave us "black phosphex".
- Starscream references his disastrous previous attempt at leading the Decepticon, as seen during the 2009-2011 ongoing series.
- Wheeljack appeared to die back in issue #14. He lives! Yaay!
Transformers references
- Scoop's got a new Generations toy coming up soon, hence his slightly surprising prominent role here, alongside his fellow "Double" Targetmasters Quickmix and Landfill. His Targetmaster partners Holepunch and Tracer don't appear in the story despite coming with the toy, though Quickmix's partners Boomer and Ricochet do. Presumably they're just small Cybertronians here, rather than Nebulans.
- Speaking of small Cybertronians, Scoop's "Construction Patrol" is rounded out with two members of the original Micromaster Construction Patrol, Groundpounder and Takedown. Like Fixit before them, they appear in the pages of Robots in Disguise as merely somewhat short, rather than dinky Micromaster-size. However, see "Errors", below.
Errors
- Blurr is still wearing his Autobot symbol when he should have abandoned it if he was staying Iacon. However, given that every single other character is devoid of a symbol, and Blurr appears consistently with his symbol in every panel he appears in, coupled with his comments about staying and allegiance, this might not actually be a mistake.
- Groundpounder and Takedown appear as Cybertronians, when they were previously among the Micromaster creations of Jhiaxus, made from the populace of Gorlam Prime, in Spotlight: Hardhead. IDW has largely avoided use of the characters who appeared among the Gorlamite Micromasters in the current era, presumably to avoid awkward quandaries like the one we now face; the aforementioned Fixit was not one of Gorlamites. This problem did occur with Tailwind, however, who was among the Gorlamites and briefly showed up in More than Meets the Eye #12, leading the wiki to reclassify the Gorlamite Micromaster as Windrim out of necessity. We're not sure what to make of these two right now.
Covers (3)
- Cover A: Starscream stands over Metalhawk's remains, by Andrew Griffith and Josh Perez
- Cover B: Starscream (with crown) poses dramatically, while Scoop and Rattrap hang back in the shadows, by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente
- Cover RI: Starscream by Livio Ramondelli, in the first part of a three-part image formed with the RI covers of issues #21 and #22
