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Before the Dawn

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« The Transformers: Robots in Disguise#14 »
Combiner Wars#6
RID14 cvrA.jpg
"Before the Dawn"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published February 27,2013
Cover date February 2013
Written by John Barber
Pencils by Andrew Griffith
Inks by Brian Shearer
Colors by Josh Perez
Letters by Shawn Lee
Editor Carlos Guzman
Continuity 2005 IDW continuity
Chronology Current era (2012)

The depth of Megatron's scheme is revealed, and it proves...devastating.

Contents

Synopsis

Metalhawk's broadcast to the denizens ofIaconis cut short asCircuitdeparts to cover a "bigger story", and moments later,Bumblebeecontacts Metalhawk to let him know exactly what that story is: theDecepticonmob has stormed the prison whereMegatronwas being held. Metalhawk fears thatStarscreamwas instrumental in this, but at that moment,Blurrarrives with evidence to the contrary—backed up by testimony fromDirge,he identifiesProwlas Megatron's co-conspirator. Bumblebee refuses to believe this, but the other Autobots begin to see the possibility as they think over Prowl's recent actions, and whenBroadsidediscovers that Prowl's quarters do not appear on the city's security network, they decide to confront Prowl directly.

Bumblebee, Blurr,Sideswipe,Dirge, andSwindlemeet up with Metalhawk en route to Prowl's quarters, only to be suddenly attacked byAstrotrain,Blitzwing,andSoundwave's cassettes. Metalhawk is wounded, and he, Bumblebee and Sideswipe are herded to Prowl's quarters, where a most unwelcome sight greets them: Prowl, side by side with a small army of Decepticons believed dead, withWheeljackand Starscream kneeling before him, gun barrels pressed to their heads. Wheeljack attempts to remind Bumblebee of "what's most important", prompting Prowl to pull the trigger, reducing the scientist's head to particles. Horrified and furious, Bumblebee demands an explanation, and Metalhawk opines that Prowl has been working against them from within all along, preventing them from working together and forming a functional community. Prowl refutes the claim: everything they did, orfailedto do, was of their own making. All he and the Decepticons did was make sure they stayed together, through the mysterious signal that caused madness in those who left Iacon. At that moment, Megatron enters, now outfitted with a new body, carrying the remains of his old stealth bomber form as a visual aid for the explanation he proceeds to deliver to his captive audience...

The combined properties ofOre-13and thespace bridgetechnology within his old body allowed Megatron to harness the energies from withinCybertronthat theD-Voidused tobriefly fuse the Decepticons together,seeing in them the way to perfect thegestaltprocess via the total elimination of individual will. When theAerialbotsleft Iacon, Megatron found them and experimented upon them with the energies, successfully combining them, but at the cost of their sanity. The information gleaned from this, however, allowedBombshellto perfect the process through experimentation onSunstorm,at which point he took himself off the radar so he could work in secret by having Prowl fake both his death and those of theConstructicons.However, the return of theMetrotitanto Cybertron forced the Decepticons' hand, requiring them to act before Starscream gained enough of a public foothold to undo their plan. The stunned Bumblebee asks why Prowl, of all 'bots has sided with the Decepticons, and the last penny drops: Prowl has been under the control of Bombshell since their confrontation in the tunnels beneath the city.

Explanations done, Bombshell briefly releases Prowl from his control so that the other Autobots can say goodbye to him. The police-bot plaintively wonders how Bumblebee could not have realized that he was not himself all this time... but no time is given for the issue to be discussed, as Megatron issues a terrifying command to both the Constructicons and Prowl: "become one". Mind and body transfigured by the energies Megatron commanded, Prowl merges with the Constructicons into a new version ofDevastator,with the Autobot as his head, which immediately embarks on a rampage throughout Iacon, tearingAutobot High Commandasunder as the Decepticons mass together underTurmoilandSkywarpfor the big push that will claim them victory. As Devastator heads off to eliminate the Autobots gathered inFixit's med-center, Bumblebee demands to know what Megatron plans to do with them... and Megatron responds by seizing the little yellow 'bot and crushing his head.

And outside the city, watching as a beacon flares up and projects the Decepticoninsigniaagainst themoon...Ironhide,theDinobots,andSuperionget ready to fight back.

Featured characters

(Characters listed initalic textappear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons NAILs Others

Quotes

"Remember what's most important..."

—Wheeljack's enigmatic last words

Notes

  • This issue was accidentally released through iBooks a week early, at the discounted price of $1.99 no less, before quickly being taken down.
  • Dirge finally gets his moment in the sun and tells Bumblebee and the others about what Prowl has been up to. Except... he tells them about his alliance with Megatron and the assassination ofRatbat,which arenotthe secrets Dirge has been living with up until now (it was the apparent deaths of Bombshell and the Constructicons he was privy to). Presumably Arcee shared these far more salient facts with him in between grabbing him and dropping him off with Blurr in Maccadam's.
  • Megatron's body is evocative of his pre-Earth forms fromMegatron: OriginandStormbringer,but is otherwise a new design.
  • Megatron mentions that the space bridge technology in his old body was derived from the Metrotitans, a factoid just recently revealed earlier in the same month inSpotlight: Megatron.
  • In addition to many images taken from previous issues ofRobots in Disguise,the illustrations for the Decepticons' pages of evil exposition include the Deceptigod fromongoing #31,Monstructor from theRobots in Disguiseannual,Devastator fromAll Hail Megatron#2and Menasor fromongoing #6.
  • Shockwave and Bombshell are credited with giving the Constructicons the ability to combine, which they first displayed without in-depth explanation inAll Hail Megatron#2. This probably supports the idea that Shockwave was indeed the "new favourite" of Megatron's mentioned inSpotlight: Orion Paxwho was involved with the technology.
  • Megatron describes the "Decepticon way" as "infiltrate, hide in plain sight, and conquer" —the essential basics of the long-abandonedinfiltration protocolfrom way back when.
  • Soundwave's beefed-up new body has obviously come with a repaired voicebox, as he is speaking again after having lost the ability thanks to Optimus Prime shooting him in the face back inthe ongoing issue #17.
  • It is mentioned that Prowl was particularly open to being manipulated by Bombshell because his memories were "already damaged".What's going on there, hmn?
  • Bombshell's eyes flash yellow as he releases Prowl from his control, and Prowl's eyes do the same in response, harkening back toissue #4,in which his victims all had yellow eyes while controlled. Though the spottiness of the coloring made it hard to tell if it was on purpose at the time, the Dinobots' eyes all turned yellowish while out in the wilderness in issuesissue #8and#9,an evident indicator of the fact the controlling energies involved were the same.
  • With Prowl as Devastator's new head, Hook takes the deceasedScrapper's role as the combiner's right leg.
  • Standing alongside Turmoil on page 18 is a new face: a blue and teal Decepticon who's clearly a recolored version of Megatron's IDW stealth bomber bodyform. His colours and obviousalternate modemark him as that three-in-one villain that's chillin' himself,Generation 2Dreadwing;given the announcement of aGenerationstoy for IDW Megatron atToy Fair 2013a few weeks before this comic's release, this seemed to be an implicit confirmation of aplanned redecofor the figure, one that did indeed happen. His standing by Turmoil is likely no coincidence, either, since Dreadwing was shown to be under his command in his sole previous IDW continuity appearance inDrift#1.
  • Megatron remarks that he hoped Starscream would one day lead the Decepticons, a sentiment he expressed back inAll Hail Megatron#11which... just sort of hasn't come back up since.
  • If you look closely on the last page, you can see that Sludge's dinosaur head has been crudely stapled back onto his neck. It had been chopped off back inissue #8.

Errors

  • On page 4, panel 5, Bombshell is missing the vents on his faceplate.
  • On page 5,Autobot'sshould instead beAutobots'.
  • On page 17, Broadside is supposed to be calling Fixit at the med-center, but the art shows Circuit in the Autobot medic's place, and outside, to boot. Jazz, Sky-Byte, Tappet and Zetca are still present in the background, though, having been noted to be on their way to the med-center earlier in the issue. This is somewhat amended in the trade, by removing Broadside calling him by name and changing Circuit's dialogue to reference Fixit in the third person, but it still seems likely that Fixit was originally intended to be in this scene.
  • Throughout this issue, the Decepticons are wearing the narrower, diamond-eyed Decepticon insignia usually found onmovieverseDecepticons. Cover A of this issue depicts Megatron with the more traditional triangle-eyed insignia. This might not be an error for those who have recently upgraded their bodies, but characters like Turmoil, Apeface, and Needlenose have not upgraded recently, and were previously shown with the G1 insignia.
  • On page 20, a "they" is spelled as "the".

Edits

Similar to thepack-inversions of various other existing IDW comics, the version of this issue available with theGenerationsCombiner WarsDeluxe ClassOffroadtoy was also subject to some changes:

  • On page 2, Bumblebee's first speech bubble in panel 4 is changed from "Have you gonecrazy,Blurr? "to" Have you gone bonkers, Blurr? ", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
  • Two edits on page 3: Dirge's speech bubble in panel 1 has "Shut up,Swindle "changed to"Quiet,Swindle ", and his first speech bubble in panel 2 has" since he hadRatbatkilled "changed to" since he hadRatbatdestroyed ", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
  • Two edits on page 7: Sideswipe's speech bubble in panel 1 omits the expletive "Dammit!", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly; and his second speech bubble in panel 2 is changed from "He died when theDecepticon penblew up! "to" He was inside when theDecepticon penblew up! ", also with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
  • On page 8, Bumblebee's speech bubble in panel 4 is changed from "You—you alldied!"to" You—you all weredestroyed!"
  • Two edits on page 9: Bumblebee's speech bubble in panel 3 has "murderers" changed to "monsters", and Metalhawk's second speech bubble in the same panel has "He probably killed Rodimus and the others…" changed to "He probably blew up Rodimus and the others…"
  • Two edits on page 11: Shockwave's first speech bubble in panel 2 omits the sentence "Still they wentinsane."entirely, with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly; and Megatron's second speech bubble in panel 6 has" They arequite dead,now… "changed to" They aregone,now… ", with the speech bubble itself ever-so-slightly resized. On the other hand, the sentence" As expected, the process drove themmad."from Megatron's first speech bubble in panel 6 remains unchanged.
  • On page 12, Bombshell's speech bubble in panel 6 has "dead" changed to "destroyed", again with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
  • On page 20, Bumblebee's speech bubble in panel 3 has "You didn't tell us all that just tokillus, did you? "changed to" You didn't tell us all that just todestroyus, did you? ", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
  • Two edits on page 21: Megatron's speech bubble in panel 1 is changed from "Killing youisexactlywhat I should do. "to"Destroying youisexactlywhat I should do. ", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly; and his speech bubble in panel 2 is changed from"Executethem all. "to"Blastthem all. "

Transformers references

  • Shockwave mentions Swindle's failed "Stunticon job," which is the name of theBotCon 2011story.

Real-world references

  • In response to Bumblebee's startled cry that all of the Decepticons in the Black Room had died, Bombshell says, "Somewhat...exaggerated,reports were, "a variation of a quote attributed toMark Twain.

Foreign localization

Japanese

  • Title:"Yoake Mae"( dạ minh け tiền," Before Dawn ")

Covers (4)

  • (thumbnail)

    The Prick and his mentor.

  • (thumbnail)

    Want half?

  • (thumbnail)

    Pointy prick.

  • (thumbnail)

    Offroad toy cover.

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Reprints

  • (thumbnail)

    Robots in Disguise Volume 4– cover art byAndrew GriffithandJosh Perez

  • (thumbnail)

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

  • (thumbnail)

    The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 4– cover art byMarcelo MatereandTom B. Long

  • (thumbnail)

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

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