City on Fire

« The Transformers: Robots in Disguise #12 » Combiner Wars #4
"City on Fire"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	December 12, 2012
Cover date	December 2012
Written by	John Barber
Art by	Andrew Griffith
Colors by	Josh Perez
Letters by	Shawn Lee
Editor	Carlos Guzman
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2012)

Megatron returns—and everything falls apart!

Synopsis

At Bumblebee's request, Wheeljack reports to Iacon's med-center, where Fixit informs him that Prowl is in stable condition following the injuries he sustained in the explosion of the Decepticon pen. Far more important matters suddenly make themselves known to the scientist, however, when Starscream bursts in with alarming news: Megatron is back! Wheeljack joins Starscream and the other Autobots in massing at the edge of the city to meet the former Decepticon leader as he approaches and shocks all assembled with the declaration that he comes in peace. Unsurprisingly, nobody is buying it, and Bumblebee orders the Autobots to all open fire. A torrent of firepower rips into Megatron, blasting his already-damaged frame down to nearly a skeleton, before a mob of Decepticons fronted by Needlenose, remembering Megatron's heroic actions during the Chaos Event and already sour over the destruction of their pen, appear and force the Autobots to stop. Bumblebee begrudgingly acquiesces, and arranges for Megatron to be taken into custody and examined by Wheeljack while Needlenose heads up the search for survivors in the pen wreckage.

A little later, after Wheeljack confirms Megatron's identity, and Bumblebee has refused to engage him in dialogue, remembering how Optimus Prime's "talk" with Megatron went, Metalhawk warns that in the wake of these events, things are going to go wrong. For once, Bumblebee agrees, and as he, Metalhawk and Wheeljack talk, they start to feel as if the major players taken out on both the Autobot and Decepticon sides in recent months point to strategic elimination of their forces by a third party. Metalhawk suspects Starscream, given that he has risen to power beyond his station in the midst of all this, and they attempt to call him in. When he does not answer his comm, Wheeljack heads over to the Decepticon pen, where the Decepticons have discovered there are no survivors in the wreckage and have formed a mob intending to march on High Command. Wheeljack arrives just after Starscream has given a rousing speech in an attempt to quell their desire for violence and re-affirm himself as the choice for a new and better future... which has fallen completely on its face. Disheartened by both this and the news that even Metalhawk, the only being he considered his friend, is starting to distrust him, Starscream leaves in a funk, headed for the detention center to confront Megatron. Before Wheeljack can go after him, a call from Fixit summons him to the med-center, where he learns that Prowl has vanished from his regeneration chamber. Checking to see if he has returned to his quarters, Wheeljack discovers that Prowl's living space does not show up on the city's surveillance network and goes to investigate.

As the Decepticon mob moves through the city streets, Blurr battens down the hatches at Maccadam's Old Oil House, holing up with a few Autobots, NAILs and even a few rational Decepticons with Jazz to protect them. As he boards up the door, some unexpected help suddenly descends from the ceiling ducts: Arcee is here to make a deal!

Wheeljack, meanwhile, runs afoul of a group of particularly angry Decepticons led by Cindersaur, who refutes Wheeljack's claim that they can live in peace. The sickening realization dawns on Wheeljack that his presence in the middle of the mob, his being in the wrong place at the wrong time, is the spark that is going to trigger a full-scale riot... and trigger it, it does. As tensions spill over and makeshift bombs are thrown, Wheeljack is attacked and downed by Cindersaur and Staxx, but just as they are planning to take Wheeljack to the prison as a gift for Turmoil while they free Megatron, a powerful energy beam blows Staxx to bits. Prowl is back, armed to the teeth... and he is angry.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Everyone, wait a minute. Think about what you're doing. This has been a terrible night... we have lost some of our best and brightest, but we can carry on... if we don't lose sight of what we fought for. Our cause was just. Our war was for equality. We fought for so long, and we stared defeat in the eye... and we didn't look away. Now we stand on the precipice of victory. We've lost allies, we've lost leaders... but change has always been our way. We must leave behind our destructive past. Violence is the old way—Megatron is the old way. I am the new—when I'm elected leader, this will be a victory for us, and for all Cybertronians—because we'll prove we were right. Not through the superiority of our firepower... but through the superiority of our ideas. A validation not for the methods that long tarnished the Decepticon dream, but for the dream itself. Victory is at hand—and it is ours to lose. Will you stand with me?"
"Blow it out your sprocket, 'Chosen One.'"

—Starscream gets rather spectacularly shut down by Acid Storm

"What are you doing here?"
"You weren't answering your comm. Metalhawk suggested you might be... well, up to no good."
"Oh, did he? It's so nice to have friends. I can see why you people have so many."

—Starscream and Wheeljack

"Decepticons—you are all under arrest. I invite you to resist."

—Prowl

Notes

• Onslaught appears in a crowd scene for the first time since "International Incident", a little over two years prior to the publication of this issue. Like fellow Combaticon Blast Off, he is sporting his Fall of Cybertron design.
• Wheeljack's forcefield-sphere first appeared back in issue #7.
• The "talk" between Optimus Prime and Megatron that Bumblebee recalls took place in "Chaos Theory Part 1".

We'd like to stress the "liberally" part of "liberally based on".

• A Seeker appears in the first panel of page 16, with a body-type that is somewhere between the War for Cybertron design Starscream and co. are using and the classic Seeker look. Colorist Josh Perez opted to render him in a tan and teal color scheme, inspired by two examples of generic Decepticon jets from the original The Transformers cartoon—the brown Conehead from "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1" (third in the top row), and the the jet erroneously given Onslaught's color scheme in "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4" (second along the bottom row).^[1] Fan Dave "Zobovor" Edwards coined the name "Slaughterhouse" for that second guy years and years ago, and frankly, we think that's too cool a name not to make use of here.
• Wheeljack drives past Snarler, Octopunch, Submarauder, and Stranglehold, all making their first appearance in the IDW continuity. All appear only as normal robots without their Pretender shells, since that tech is not at all widespread in the IDW universe; it stands out for Snarler, Ock, and Strangles in particular, as in all their past fictional appearances, they're very rarely seen without their shells!
• Speaking of Stranglehold, he's colored in the bright yellow and teal shades of his toy's package art, rather than the orange and green that the toy actually is.
• Bluestreak is called Bluestreak again for the first time in a while, having gone by the name Silverstreak throughout his appearances in the 2009-2011 ongoing and Ironhide miniseries.
• Staxx seems to take particular umbrage at Wheeljack's capture of Turmoil from issue #7; that'd likely be because he was one of Turmoil's troops, as seen back in Drift #1.

Errors

• Battletrap's helmet is grey instead of blue throughout the issue.
• Cutthroat's yellow parts are coloured off-white, which makes him look like Wingspan and Pounce's lost triplet.
• When Wheeljack rips the datapad out of Fixit’s hands on page 15, two of the surveillance feeds depict scenes from later in the same issue. The feed above the blank screen where Prowl's quarters should be shows the group shot at Maccadam's on the following page (with "Tankor", Hipotank and Tappet inside the image frame, plus Zetca's left arm and Jazz's legs), which doesn't occur until Wheeljack drives right past Maccadam's, and the feed below the blank screen depicts the Decepticon crowd from page 19 (with Razorclaw and Slugslinger inside the image frame). The frame is conveniently cropped to keep Wheeljack himself, whom the crowd is reacting to in that panel, out of view.

Real-world references

• Wheeljack quotes Bill Murray in Ghostbusters when he warns Cindersaur: "Back off, man—I'm a scientist."

Edits

Similar to the pack-in versions of various other existing IDW comics, the version of this issue available with the Generations Combiner Wars Deluxe Class Dragstrip and Swindle toys was also subject to some changes:

• On page 3, Bumblebee's speech bubble in panel 3 is changed from "Autobots—kill him." to "Autobots—blast him.", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
• On page 6, Bumblebee's speech bubble in panel 3 is shortened from "What the hell are you doing, Needlenose?" to simply "What are you doing, Needlenose?"
• On page 7, Bumblebee's second speech bubble in panel 4 is shortened from "See how many bodies we should be looking for." to simply "See how many we should be looking for."
• On page 9, Wheeljack's first caption in panel 1 is changed from "I mean, how many deaths is Megatron responsible for?" to "I mean, how much destruction is Megatron responsible for?", with the caption itself resized accordingly.
• On page 10, Metalhawk's second speech bubble in panel 1 is changed from "My people are going to die." to "My people are going to hurt."
• Two edits on page 11: Needlenose's third speech bubble in panel 2 has "They're mad and all their leaders are dead or… well, you." changed to "They're mad and all their leaders are gone or… well, you."; and his first speech bubble in panel 3 has "I don't think they're going to stop ontil they have Megatron giving them orders to kill Autobots again." shortened to "I don't think they're going to stop ontil they have Megatron giving them orders again.", resulting in a slightly empty lower portion of the speech bubble.
• On page 14, Starscream's first speech bubble in panel 4, which consists of the expletive "Damn.", is omitted entirely.
• On page 19, Cindersaur's second speech bubble in panel 4 has "You stand by when Prowl kills us one by one" changed to "You stand by when Prowl silences us one by one".

Foreign localization

Japanese

• Title: "Moyuru Machi" (燃ゆる街, "Town Ablaze")

Covers (5)

• Cover A: Megatron under fire, by Andrew Griffith and Josh Perez.
• Cover B: The Autobots doing the aforementioned firing, by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente.
• Cover RI: Arcee on a street corner, in homage to the cover of the David Bowie album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente. Part of a theme with More than Meets the Eye #12, which also features an incentive cover based on a famous album.
• Hasbro exclusive cover A: Artwork of Drag Strip from the Transformers Legends mobile game, exclusively available with Generations Deluxe Dragstrip. Rebranded as Combiner Wars #4.
• Hasbro exclusive cover B: Artwork of Swindle, exclusively available with Generations Deluxe Swindle. Rebranded as Combiner Wars #4.

• 

  Battle Damaged version.

• 

  For those about to rock - FIRE!

• 

  Arcee and the Spiders from Mars.

• 

  Drag Strip toy cover

• 

  Swindle toy cover

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Reprints

• The Transformers: Robots in Disguise Volume 4 (September 18, 2013) ISBN 1613777655 / ISBN 978-1613777657
  • Collects Robots in Disguise issues #12–16.
  • Bonus material includes a cover gallery.
  • Trade paperback format.

• Transformers: Robots in Disguise Box Set (December 2, 2015) ISBN 1631404261 / ISBN 978-1631404269
  • Collects Robots in Disguise Volumes 1–5.
  • Bonus material unknown at this time.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 4 (October 12, 2016) ISBN 1631407155 / ISBN 978-1631407154
  • Collects Monstrosity issues #1–12, Robots in Disguise issues #12–16 & #17–18, and More than Meets the Eye issues #14–16.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 56: City on Fire (October 2, 2019)
  • Collects Robots in Disguise #8-14 and Annual 2012.
  • Bonus material includes a cover gallery and an intro by Simon Furman.
  • Hardcover format.

• 

  Robots in Disguise Volume 4 – cover art by Andrew Griffith and Josh Perez

• 

  Robots in Disguise Box Set – cover art by ???

• 

  The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 4 – cover art by Marcelo Matere and Tom B. Long

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 56: City on Fire – cover art by Don Figueroa (Sludge) and Andrew Griffith (retro)

References