Twenty Plus One

« The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye#31 »
"Twenty Plus One"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	July 9,2014
Cover date	July 2014
Written by	James Roberts
Art by	Atilio Rojo
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Assistant editor	Vincent Kings
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2014)

Tensions run high as twentyLost Lighters find themselves stuffed into one small spaceship, and things only get worse when the lights start going out, and 'bots start disappearing...

Contents 1Synopsis 2Featured characters 3Quotes 4Notes 4.1Continuity notes 4.2Transformers references 4.3Real-life references 4.4Errors 4.5Crew manifest 4.6Soundtrack 4.7Other trivia 4.8Foreign Localization 4.9Covers (3) 4.10Advertisements 4.11Reprints 5References

Synopsis

Following the disappearance of theLost Lightand the evacuation of the crew, twenty 'bots cram themselves into theRodpod:Megatron,Crosscut,Skids,Gears,Blaster,Getaway,Nautica,Ammo,Huffer,Chromedome,Swerve,Hoist,Nightbeat,Riptide,Tailgate,Dipstick,Cyclonus,Hound,Ratchet,andHighbrow.When Nautica inquires as to the origins of the now-vanished ship, Riptide recounts how he,Pipes,andDriftpurchased the vessel from a pair ofchirolingualNAILsinIacon's religious quarter, naming it after theFestival of Lost Light,which was taking place there at the time. Though Megatron tries to make the group focus on their present predicament, Nautica persists with her train of thought, and highlights the abnormality of the ship and the power of itsquantum generators.At Ammo's request, she tries to explain to the befuddled crew how quantum engines are essentially powered by the improbability of their own function, concluding with the theory that the ship wassoadvanced that it "proved itself impossible." Megatron is less concerned with thehowof the ship's disappearance, but rather with what to do next; at that moment,Blasterreceives a transmission fromRodimuson a neighboring shuttle, informing them that they will be making for the nearby lectureworld ofOfsted XVIIinSector 113.

After a crew headcount,Crosscutis tellingCyclonusabout his latest play when the lights suddenly go out. When power returns a second later, Crosscut has vanished mid-sentence, andTailgate,full of false bravado after all the praise he has received lately, draws a gun on Megatron, blaming him for Crosscut's apparent death. Cyclonus and Ratchet try to talk the tiny 'bot down, but Megatron's reaction goes from bemusement to anger when Tailgate proposes locking him up, and he draws a weapon of his own. This prompts Riptide to add his weapon to the growing standoff, and when Cyclonus tries to calm everyone down, Huffer and Gears, never having trusted the ancient Cybertronian, both draw on him. Hound then appears to level his own weapon at Nautica, but it quickly becomes apparent that he is actually aiming at the lurkingRavage,who pounces from the shadows just as the lights go out once more. Megatron fires into the darkness and subdues the feline; as the lights flick back on, he claims not to know why Ravage is there, but whether that is true or not is called into question as he secretly communicates chirolinguistically with the cat-bot, telling him to play dead.

The discovery of Ravage defuses the standoff, but Nautica soon observes that more disappearances have taken place in the darkness: Gears, Blaster, Huffer, Chromedome, Hound, and Highbrow have now also vanished. Nightbeat dedicates himself to determining the pattern by which 'bots are being taken, and, reminded ofTyrestand his plan by Cyclonus, decides to begin by figuring out which of those present areconstructed cold,like himself, and which areforged.Megatron refuses to divulge that information, but a patternseemsto be emerging as Getaway, Dipstick, and Ammo reveal that they are "Made To Order soldiers" —second-generation constructed cold, created during wartime from thesparkstockpile—until Ratchet points out that he and several others present are forged, and several of the disappeared were constructed cold. As Nightbeat withdraws into detective mode, the others begin talking amongst themselves; after Ammo, Riptide, and Getaway tell Nautica about the "Ten-Step Program" that MTOs had to pass in order to be declared "world-ready" (which Riptidehated), Ratchet chimes in about the high percentage of MTOs who claim to have had mystical experiences, which he professes are neurological hallucinations that are a product of their virtually-newborn senses. Swerve takes offense, pointing out that faith isn't a new idea, but Skids counters that with a brief lecture on a condition known to affect robotic lifeforms known as "information creep"—the corruption of brain data that results in memories being unconsciously reinterpreted. Nautica is familiar with the condition, which was known onCaminusas "blurred data"; just as she is thinking of her friendsWindbladeandChromia,the lights go out once more.

This time, Ammo, Hoist, Dipstick, and Cyclonus have disappeared, but Cyclonus'sGreat Swordhas not vanished with him. As Nightbeat inspects it, he gets the feeling he is being watched, and turns to sees a gigantic eye staring down at him... though it quickly turns out that it belongs toUltra Magnus'sholomatteravatar, projected in from theLeading Light,albeit at accidentally gigantic scale. Magnus quickly adjusts its size, and informs the remaining crew that all the other occupants ofhiscraft have disappeared too, as have other shuttles. Tailgate peers out a porthole and notes that he can't see Magnus's shuttle anywhere; Magnus has but a moment to realise that he can't feel his body any more before his avatar fades out.

At the end of his rope, Nightbeat instructs Ratchet to write down every piece of information he knows about the crew from their medical files, but he barely has time to study the data before another blackout claims Swerve, Tailgate, and Ratchet... butnotRatchet's hands, which Skids points out used to belong toPharma.Riptide grins, having heard the whole story behind that from Swerve, and remarks that theLost Lighters sure did get up to some crazy stuff while they were away. Nightbeat asks him to expand, having believed that Riptide had been on theLost Lightfrom the outset, but theHydrobotexplains that he was not: after going back to get a receipt for the ship from the NAILs who sold it to them, he eavesdropped on them and learned they wereMortilusworshippers who had been keeping aSparkeaterin the basement, feeding it withturbofoxesthey had stolen from the crew of theAlchemy-Seven,and when an altercation ensued, he was knocked out, and missed theLost Lightlaunch. Nightbeat crows that he has solved the mystery: everyone who disappeared was a member of the originalLost Lightcrew, and all those remaining on the Rodpod (himself, Megatron, Skids, Nautica, Getaway, and Riptide) joined the crew after its launch. As Megatron angrily points out, though, his deduction solves absolutely nothing, since the detective was too slow to save anyone. Just then, Nautica informs them that they have reached Ofsted XVII, but that they are not the first to arrive... as outside, floating in the planet's orbit, is the shattered wreckage of the destroyedLost Light!

Featured characters

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

Quotes

"I didn't realize how hard it was to explain the science until Tailgate asked me how 'quanton technology' worked. I don't think you learned anything that afternoon, did you?"
"Just some new swear words..."

—RatchetandTailgate

"If I sit next to you too long, am I going to die ofsmartass poisoning?"

—Getawayon Nightbeat

"'I hope this puts paid to the notion that I ignore everything my" co-captain "says on the grounds that he's lazy, petulant and pathologically ill-suited to command...'"

—Megatronon Rodimus

"Cool it, guys! Cyclonus isn't the enemy!"
"He's not? Oh I'msorry.It must've been theotherCyclonus who murdered all those Autobots at Kimia—because if not, that makes you aMONUMENTAL FRIKKIN' HYPOCRITE!"

—TailgateandHuffer

"No one has a right to know how a fellow Cybertronian was created. There's a thin line between categorization and segregation, and I never want to see it crossed again."

—Megatron

"In the end, High Command decided they wanted their new troops to fight, not study, so they reduced the steps from ten to eight to three.Three steps,Nautica: 'Fromthaw to warin under an hour.' Because who cares whether or not awarborn knockoffwith a three-minute life expectancy can quoteDominus Ambusor notate theGrand Celestial Melody?So long as he can assemble a path-blaster with his brand-new eyes closed, everyone's happy. That'ssarcasm,by the way. I dabble. "

—Skids

"Mystery solved!"
"Well done."
"Thank you. Want to say it again and mean it?"
"You failed."
"What?"
"Youfailed.You solved the mystery, but only after everyone was taken. You were too slow to save them "
"Yes, but - at least I worked out what was happening. That has to count for something, doesn't it?....doesn't it?"

—NightbeatandMegatron

Notes

Continuity notes

• "Don't make me put my foot down," Drift says to Pipes, wickedly recalling (and, since this is a flashback, technically foreshadowing) Pipes's death at the hands—or rather, foot—ofOverlordinissue #15.
• A new face in the crowd, Ammo, was previously mentioned inissue #19.And he doesn't even die or anything!
• Crosscut refers to an earlier play of his namedMy Shovel, Your Face;Robots in Disguise#25taught us that Crosscut was known for liberatingPetrex"with wise words and a shovel".Info Creep,the working title of his new play, is a reference to the condition that affects Transformers, also introduced this issue.
• In what is likely no coincidence, there was a brief blackout on theLost Lightback inissue #28,just as the disappearances were starting. Perhaps it was during this blackout that thePyrobotsvanished.
• The pistol Megatron draws is one of the revolvers seen holstered inside his hip armor during the aforementioned previous blackout.
• The crew discover Ravage's presence, but the audience learned he was on the ship in issue #28.
• Remember Getaway praising Tailgate for messing with Megatron, as it'll come up againin #47.
• Getaway referred to himself as an "M.T.O." last issue; here we learn this stands for "Made To Order soldier", and refers to a 'bot constructed cold after the outbreak of the war, from the stockpile of sparks left over fromTyrest's bleeding of theMatrix.
• Hoist mentions having a friend namedScattergun.Assuming it's not a different 'bot with the same name (they do say all the good ones are taken), we previously heard of this fellow inissue #16,as one of Chromedome's former Conjunx Endurae. Scattergun was constructed cold for the FourthVorsk Offensive,a battle first mentioned in "Chaos Theory Part 1".
• Riptide was constructed cold to take part in the conflict onSimanzi,which has been mentioned several times throughout Roberts's work. He notes he was specifically created aHydrobotin response to something called the "Forced Flood".
• Ammo was constructed cold in response to Megatron's attack onK'th Kinsere,a region of Cybertron that is home toVaulted Heights(mentioned inissue #1) and a sect ofHigh Priests(namechecked inSpotlight: Orion Pax).
• Ratchet refers to theShimmer,a battlefield hallucination that plays a role in the prose story "Bullets",as well as theNecrobot,who made an alleged appearance back inissue #8.
• Ultra Magnus'sVerity Carloholomatteravatar fromissue #13reappears. Megatron recognizes the image of the girl, having encountered herwaaaayback inInfiltration#5(though he seemed deeply uninterested at the time). The panel of a giant Verity looming over Megatron is based on the dramatic reveal of that encounter, with the roles reversed.
• Hoist is noted to suffer from "feelings of isolation", which we learned about him in hisself-titledSpotlight.
• Highbrow is revealed to have been a former member of theMalware Brigade,an anti-Senateorganization mentioned in "Chaos Theory Part 2".
• The former owners of theLost Lightare worshippers ofMortilus,the death god of theGuiding Hand,introduced in the2012More than Meets the Eyeannual.They are hiding from the crew of theAlchemy-Seven,a NAIL ship first mentioned inThe Death of Optimus Prime.
• The sparkeater in the basement of theLost Light,and the fact that the ship's former owners had been feeding it turbofoxes, were introduced inissue #3.
• Of course, there have been other new additions to theLost Lightsince its launch beyond the 'bots left at the end of this issue (First Aid,for example, or any of the new 'bots who have joined up since "Dark Cybertron" );Issue #34would reveal that when their shuttles disappeared in the course of this issue's events,they were left floating in space. The reason the Rodpod does not disappear, on the other hand, is because it's anewRodpod, built last issue, following the original's destruction inRobots in Disguise#25.

Transformers references

• The number 1989 pops up in Nautica's equations, likely referring to theTime Wars of 1989/2009from the classic Marvel UK comics, or alternatively to the maddeningly-convoluted change in publication format that immediately followed and the ensuingcontinuity fun times.
• Sector 113 is, of course, another of Roberts's reference tothe number.
• Skids makes reference to thepathblaster,a weapon wielded byRoadbusterin "Time Wars". His rant about the lowering standards of the MTO education system may have even been a direct reference to Roadbuster who, according to "Zero Point",went millions of years before even learning how to read.
• Ammo hasCorrodia Gravis,a rusting disease introduced in the Marvel UKTransformers Annual 1990story "Destiny of the Dinobots!".
• Hoist is an Evolutionary Engineerist, the IDW version ofatechnogenesis:the belief that life came from "the naturally-occurring interaction of gears, levers, and pulleys", as foretold in#1 of the Marvel run.
• Hound is the one who catches Ravage, becauseofcourseheis.

Real-life references

• In televisual terms, this issue would be abottle episode:a story that primarily consists of dialogue, and takes place in one setting. Bottle episodes were originally conceived as a money-saving venture, but the potential for tension and character-driven interactions they inherently possess has given them more value as storytelling devices; obviously,More than Meets the Eyedoesn't save money by doing an issue this way!
• Having all the characters who were on theLost Lightfrom the outset disappear is a narrative trick in order to spend an issue or two developing and focusing on the newer characters whom the audience is unfamiliar with.
• The specific meaning of the Festival of Lost Light is not divulged here, but given its name, the fact that it involves the release of lanterns, and a song known as the "Hymn of the Disappeared", it seems to be a ceremony dedicated to remembering lost loved ones. In particular, it is evocative of Japan'sTōrō nagashiceremony, in which lanterns are released to light the way to the afterlife for the souls of the dead.
• Multiple references to the British education system here! Ofsted XVII gets the bulk of them. It's named afterOfsted,the British government department which oversees schools; it's labelled an "A Level" planet, in reference to the English academic qualification, theA-level;the imposition of tuition fees are a barbed jab at the tuition fees brought in, and jacked up, for universities; and the takeover and rebranding, with the "TM", by the "Academic" arm, may be a reference to the introduction of academy schools in the English system by the then-government. The reduced cultural curriculum for M.T.O.'s may also be references to the British educational system.

• Chromedome remarks that Ethics were Ofsted's "Specialist Subject", a term that, while generic-sounding, is almost certainly a reference to the British TV quiz showMastermind.Similarly, the tessellated hexagonal tiles on the subscription cover are extremely reminiscent of the British TV quiz showBlockbusters.
• The ten-step program borrows its term from theTwelve-step programused for substance addictions.
• "Information creep" is a term used by Wikipedia to describe the slow feed of information into an article that winds up shifting its perspective and/or readability over time.
• Dipstick was constructed cold to take part in "Operation: Doom Patrol", a reference to the DC Comics superhero team, theDoom Patrol.
• Among the assorted types of Spark the crew are shown to have, only Nautica has an "estriol-positive" one.Estriolis one of the three main estrogens produced by the human body, indicating that being afemale Transformeris not just about the shape of your chassis, but goes all the way to the Spark. Belatedly realizing the potentially offensive connotations of defining female Transformers in this way (casting them as an "abnormality", and reinforcing a binary gender system), Roberts requested that this be removed in the trade paperback collection, which instead lists her as "ferrum-positive." He later said that he also thought it was lazy writing to have gender be down to sparktypes and to use a feminine name.^[1]

Errors

• Thescaleof many bots is off this issue - Tailgate is shown to come up to Ratchet's shoulder, for instance.
• On page 2, when Drift says "Of course...! This is the Hymn for the Disappeared.)", it should have a parentheses at the start of the phrase, like how his aside was in the previous panel.
• On page 4, Ammo is drawn without his cannon on his left arm, where on page 5 he has it on the left forearm. Considering how he still has it on his left arm in page 14, this is probably an artistic error.
• On page 11, Megatron channels his inner Grimlock, saying of Ravage "He unconscious" rather than "He's unconscious". This was fixed in the trade paperback.
• On page 12, as Megatron communicates with Ravage chirolinguistically, the cassette's name is misspelled "Ravege". This was fixed in the trade paperback.
• On page 15, the word "discovered" is split over two lines into "discove red" in Getaway's speech bubble, but there's no connecting hyphen, nor is it split where a hyphen would be allowed to divide the word in the first place. This was fixed in the trade paperback.
• On page 16, when Nightbeat is attempting to find out Megatron's method of construction "It seems" is written as "I seems". This was fixed in the trade paperback.

Crew manifest

• It is revealed that Riptide wassupposedto be on the ship when it departed originally, but was waylaid.
• If Nightbeat's deductions are correct, the disappearance of the Pyrobots in#28means they were part of the original crew.
  • Confirmed previous crew: Ammo, Huffer, Gears
    • At least 33/79 original crew still on board, 2 departed
  • Confirmed new arrivals: none this issue
    • At least 17 new crew members since second launch

Soundtrack

• "S (Studio Version)"byLabradford^[2]
• "Lost Property"byThe Divine Comedy^[3]

Other trivia

• A preliminary title for this issue was "Murder in the Dark".
• When Nautica explains how thequantum generatorswork usingimprobability,you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a deliberate nod to theInfinite Improbability DrivefromDouglas Adams'sThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.In actuality, James Roberts has never read the series, and came up with the idea entirely independently.^[4]
• Four "Meet the Crew" -style cast lists are sprinkled throughout the issue as a means of cataloguing who disappears, with each vanished crewmember being greyed out. Each lists also provide for the audience an assortment of information about the characters as Nightbeat requests it in-story. These pages do not count towards the 22-page total of the story itself, so there are noticeably fewer ad pages in the back of the comic. All those extra pages are kept for the trade paperback.
• A quick forged/constructed cold checklist from this issue:
  • Forged: Crosscut, Skids, Nautica, Huffer, Swerve, Hoist, Tailgate, Cyclonus, Hound, Ratchet
  • Constructed cold (first wave): Gears, Blaster, Chromedome, Nightbeat
  • Constructed cold (second wave): Getaway, Ammo, Riptide, Dipstick
• While he actively protests revealing his origin, Megatron's status as aPoint One Percenterconfirms him as being forged.Or does it?
• Highbrow is listed as constructed cold but his wave is not given, presumably because Ratchet doesn't know it. (Although Highbrow is listed as a member of the pre-warMalware Brigade,the group hypotheticallycouldhave still been active post-war.)
• We likewise learn the names of a number of Sparktypes; there are at least seven, presumably eight:
  • Vitreous-Positive: Chromedome, Riptide (a type shared by Rewind and Whirl, as we learned back inissue #12.)
  • Vitreous-Negative: Crosscut, Skids, Ammo
  • Isomeric-Positive: Blaster, Getaway, Nightbeat
  • Isomeric-Negative: Gears, Hoist, Dipstick, Ratchet, Highbrow
  • Ferrum-Positive: Huffer, Hound, Swerve, Nautica (in trade collection)
  • Ferrum-Negative: Cyclonus, Tailgate
  • Estriol-Positive: Nautica (retconned away for the trade)

• Other intriguing character points revealed on these cast pages include: Crosscut has a phobia ofNanocons;Getaway has shown purported signs of affinity for the Matrix; Nautica is a possibleoutlier;Ammo is aMonoformer;Swerve is a practisingAdaptusianand has been diagnosed withlogorrhea;Riptide has an unreliabletransformation cog;Dipstick's alt mode is "redundant"; and Hound was formerly part of thePrimal Vanguard.
• The "Thaw to War" tagline is another one of those verbal gags that only works if you imagine it spoken with Roberts's British accent; then, the words rhyme.
• The 30th Anniversary cover byPhil JimenezandRomulo Fajardo Jr.is based on theGenerationsThrilling 30Deluxe ClassNightbeatfigure (which was released shortly after this issue came out)... well, in theory, at least. The artwork isactuallybased on earlier plans for the Nightbeat figure as aredecoandretoolof the2010TransformersReveal the ShieldSpecial Ops Jazzfigure, before Hasbro changed its plans and decided to give theGenerationsThrilling 30Deluxe ClassBumblebeefigure a new head and redeco it into Nightbeat instead. The same artwork was also used for the "Hasbro exclusive cover" of thecomicthat wasincludedwith said Nightbeat toy.

Foreign Localization

Swedish

• Title:"Tjugo plus en"(" Twenty Plus One ")
  • Nautica's Sparktype is retained as Estriol-Positive for this edition.

Covers (3)

• Regular cover:Megatron, Ratchet, Nautica, Chromedome, and an unknown 5th bot in a standoff, byAlex MilneandJosh Perez
• Subscription cover:Mosaic tiles of the twenty characters in this issue, byNick RocheandJosh Burcham
• 30th Anniversary cover:Nightbeat byPhil JimenezandRomulo Fajardo Jr..

• 

  The good, the bad-but-now-good, another good, another good, and hopefully someone ugly.

• 

  Count 'em, there's 20.

• 

  His mission: to find out why he has that body!

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• More than Meets the Eye#32
• Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
• Machi Koro(back cover)

Reprints

• The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Volume 6(December 10,2014)ISBN 163140184X/ISBN 978-1631401848
  • CollectsMore than Meets the Eyeissues #28–33.
  • Bonus material includes covers of each issue.
  • Trade paperback format.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 7(March 21,2018)ISBN 1684051495/ISBN 978-1684051496
  • CollectsMore Than Meets the Eyeissues #28–30, #31–33 & #34, andRobots in Disguiseissues#28–32&#33–34.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection:Volume 61: World Shut Your Mouth(January 8,2020)
  • CollectsMore than Meets the Eyeissues #28–34.
  • Bonus material includes "Season 2" character poster art, a cover gallery and a forward bySimon Furman.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: Du sköna nya värld(November,2022)
  • CollectsMore than Meets the Eyeissues #28–38 & #40.
  • Swedish reprint. Hardcover format.

• 

  More Than Meets the Eye Volume 6– cover art byCasey CollerandJoana Lafuente

• 

  The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 7– cover art byMarcelo MatereandTom B. Long

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 61: World Shut Your Mouth– cover art byGuido Guidi(Hoist) andAlex Milne

• 

  Du sköna nya värld– cover art by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente.

References