Prime Directive issue 5

	; Eject poses for the cover of a Wheaties box.
Publisher	Dreamwave Productions
First published	September 11, 2002
Cover date	August 2002
Writer	Chris Sarracini
Penciler	Pat Lee
Inker	Rob Armstrong, Erik Sander
Backgrounds	Edwin Garcia
Colorist	Ramil Sunga, Gary Yeung, Alan Wang
Letterer	Dreamer Design
Editor	Roger Lee
Continuity	Dreamwave continuity
Chronology	Modern era

While the Autobots fight on two fronts, Spike learns a terrible secret and Hallo plans a final solution.

Synopsis

Spike Witwicky is under lock and key in the Pentagon due to General Hallo's orders. To his surprise, a note is slipped under the door: "3 O'CLOCK BE READY".

In the Northwest Territories the Autobots try to warn some hikers about the danger to the human race from the cyber-virus, but the recent attacks by Decepticons have the humans running scared of all Transformers. Wheeljack explains that the blasters he designed will effectively destroy the virus, but that the devices are powered by the Autobots' own internal systems, which means the power depletion will weaken them.

As they start blasting away, Jazz gets an emergency call for backup from Trailbreaker. The battle in San Francisco looks bleak after the loss of Superion. After Devastator stomps on Trailbreaker and smacks Sideswipe and Sunstreaker away, he turns his attention to Optimus Prime. The Autobot leader transforms and makes a suicide run, leaps onto Devastator's chest and fires point-blank into the combiner's face. He falls back into the ocean as Prime, wasted by the effort, lifts himself onto shore...only to find Megatron waiting for him.

It's 2:59 and Spike is expecting Hallo to come and kill him. But the person who opens the door to his cell is someone he didn't expect.

Up north, the Autobots are still battling the virus and appear to be winning, but the power drain is making them so weak they have to speak in halting sentences. To make matters worse, an armored division of the Canadian military arrives and demands that they stand down.

In the Pentagon, Larry the janitor helps Spike escape and when the pair are concealed he hands over a file folder labeled "Lazarus Project". He explains that General Hallo and an engineer named Adam Rook tried to build their own transforming robots five years ago, but when their efforts failed they plotted to control the real Transformers. After the Decepticon defeat, Rook came up with a program to override and control the captured robots. Hallo didn't want to stop with just Decepticons. Larry reveals that Hallo planned and carried out the explosion of the Ark II to eliminate the Autobots as well. However, Hallo didn't expect Rook to turn traitor and disappear from the project along with the Decepticons that same day. Upon learning that his father was murdered, Spike declares Larry a coward, takes his keycard and leaves the janitor to stew in his conscience.

In San Francisco, the Autobots have been rounded up and disabled. Megatron is pointing out to a damaged and exhausted Optimus Prime all the failings of humans and how he pities the Autobots for protecting such a primitive race. Megatron tells Prime to say the word and they can end the war and remake Earth to Megatron's satisfaction.

Back at the Pentagon, the military is monitoring the Transformer battle. Hallo calls for the nuclear option. When his troops question the order he holds them off at gunpoint, enters his launch key and orders that the warhead coordinates be set to San Francisco.

To be concluded...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Bumblebee (1) Jazz (2) Mirage (3) Wheeljack (4) Red Alert (5) Huffer (6) Cliffjumper (7) Brawn (8) Trailbreaker (9) Sunstreaker (11) Sideswipe (12) Optimus Prime (13) Air Raid (23) Skydive (24) Slingshot (25)	Devastator (10) Megatron (14) Skywarp (19) Starscream (20) Thundercracker (21) Soundwave (22)	Spike Witwicky (15) Larry (16) Robert Hallo (17) Lazarus (18)

Quotes

"Good show Prime. Impressive as always. The second greatest warrior I know."

—Megatron

"The goodness you see in them...the virtues you praise...they don't exist! You fight for what you want them to be...never seeing them for what they really are."

—Megatron takes stock of humanity

Notes

After the previous issue had lost to Dreamwave's own Transformers: Armada #1, this issue once again ranked second in Diamond Comic Distributors' sales charts, with 122,829 copies ordered for August 2002. The top spot was claimed by Marvel's Fantastic Four #60, which sold for a mere 9¢ as part of a publicity stunt, and therefore managed to have an extraordinary 705,109 (!) copies ordered.^[1] Despite this, like issues 1 and 2 before, this issue saw a second printing run due to high demand.
The middle of the comic contains a two-page spread by James Raiz and Alan Wang with Kenny Li featuring Armada Transformers.
After the story, a letter by Adam Fortier apologizes for the delays in some of Dreamwave Productions' titles.
On the same page is a 3-panel humorous strip with Optimus Prime finding that the Matrix was "made in China".
Megatron states that he hardly even remembers the reason for the war anymore. Though he seems to be speaking metaphorically, he's actually speaking quite literally. The War Within would later reveal that in one of their first battles, Optimus gave Megatron a sort of lobotomy that caused Megatron to forget his original reason for fighting the war. This will become a semi-major plot point in the Dreamwave continuity.

Errors

This art was so awesome they zoomed up on it across three panels.

Red Alert's presence was not an error at the time of publication, but became one in the next miniseries when it turned out he'd actually been on Cybertron the entire time. Matt Moylan later explained in his blog that Pat Lee had originally drawn Sideswipe fighting the technovirus in the snow, despite having already drawn him fighting Devastator in San Francisco on an earlier page in the very same issue, and so the solution was to recolor Sideswipe into Red Alert.^[2]
When Optimus Prime charges at Devastator, not only are his two rear axles reaaally far apart from each other in the panels that show him from the top, the front one being almost in the center of his cab mode... he even has an extra wheel in front of the "center" axle on his passenger's side! Seriously... how does this happen?

Covers (3)

Cover A: Blaster with cassettes by Pat Lee
Cover B: Soundwave with cassettes by Pat Lee
Alternate Cover: Devastator (front) Reflector vs Perceptor (back) by Guido Guidi