Drift - Empire of Stone issue 3

Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	January 21,2015(UK); January 28,2015 (rest of world)
Cover date	January 2015
Written by	Shane McCarthy
Art by	Guido Guidi
Inks by	Stephen Baskerville
Colors by	John-Paul Bove
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era

With Hellbat's treachery revealed, Drift, Ratchet, and Grit must fight their way through the Stone Army to forge an alliance with Gigatron.

Synopsis

WithDriftandRatchetheld at gunpoint by his goons,Hellbatexplains that he has kept the location of theStone Armya secret fromGigatronin order to experiment upon them. With the stone monks who used to guard the citadel long dead, the secret of how to revive the army is lost, so Hellbat has been cannibalizing woundedAutobotsandDecepticonsfor parts, splicing Cybertronian biology with the stone beings, converting a small number that he can activate and command. Drift demands to know his reasons, and Hellbat dryly explains that his goal is to killeverything—convinced of the pointlessness of not just theTransformers' war,but the apparent purposelessness of their veryexistence,he has chosen to fully embrace the only thing he has ever believed his race is good at: killing. Drift rejects this notion, pointing out that he has vowed never to kill again, but Hellbat scoffs, highlighting the small piles of rubble that litter the fortress as proof of Drift's true nature—the remains of the monks, slain by Drift andTurmoilcenturies ago.

As Hellbat concludes his rant, one of his goons suddenly explodes, shot from behind byGrit,who has arrived to take his revenge. Battle breaks out, with Grit tackling Hellbat and Drift sword fighting with Hellbat's talented subordinateVanquish.Unable to wrest himself free of Grit's grip, Hellbat calls out for help, and Vanquish breaks off his fight with Drift to come to his Boss 's rescue, allowing Hellbat to make a dash for the control console that will allow him to bring the converted stone warriors online. A barrage of fire from Ratchet forces him away from the control, but Vanquish comes to the rescue again: he hurls Grit off the balcony, prompting Drift to dive off after him, in turn forcing Ratchet to break off his attack and save them both with a grappling hook attached to one of Hellbat's fallen minions. With all three 'bots' weight on the grapple-line, the ledge holding the fallen Decepticon's body breaks, but after a tense moment, the trio snag the edge of another ledge below and pull themselves to safety. Unfortunately, the gambit has allowed Hellbat the time to successfully activate the stone army.

Drift, Ratchet, and Grit race out of the army's chamber; Ratchet advocates alertingCybertronof the threat, but Drift insists that they must defeat the army here and now, even if that means allying with Gigatron. The three 'bots make for the Decepticon warlord's throne room, with the stone warriors hot on their heels, and quickly manage to convince Gigatron that Hellbat has betrayed him. The furious Gigatron transforms to dragon mode and reduces the soldiers to pebbles with his flame breath. Drift then faces Gigatron down, and confidently orders him to ally with them, take down the army, and stop Hellbat for good.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Others
Ratchet(4)	Grit(3) Vanquish(5) Hellbat(6) Gigatron(7)	Deadlock/Drift(1) Stone Armysoldiers (2)

Quotes

"How long have you lived? A million years? More? What are we? We can alter our bodies... Overcome, adapt. We hardly age, or get sick... I've watched races die. I've watched civilizations, cultures, wholeworldsdie. And here I am, still living.Eternal.What do we do? What is thepointof us? We don't reproduce. We don't create. Whatarewe? Millions of years and what have we done? Kill. Our own kind... others...Thatis what we are.Thatis why we're here. Machines of war, ofdeath.These hands... I have killedcountlessbeings with these hands. All those lives I've taken, I remember every single one of them. Centuries of killing as though it was yesterday. "

—Hellbatsums up his insanity.

"Ratchet!"
"What?!"
"Grapple hook!"
"What—SERIOUSLY?!"

—Driftcomes up with a truly insane plan.

"Hellbat's crazy, but he's right. I've been running the whole time. Running from who I am, from what I've done. Punishing myself. There's a side of me that scares me. Like you wouldn't believe. I've tried to hide from it... loner one day, spiritualist the next... but it's just eating away at me. Maybe I'll never be forgiven for what I've done, maybe I don't deserve it... but maybe that doesn't matter. I don't know, but maybe what matters is I'm trying to make a difference. Maybe that's enough. It's time to stop running."

—Driftreflects on himself as he leaps to save Grit, and Ratchet leaps to save HIM.

"Your second in command, who by the way isspectacularlyout of his mind, has known the whereabouts of the army all along. And is about to use it to wipe you out. That's not going to happen. What is going to happen is you and I joining forces. We're going to fight our way back down there, past his freakish horde and all the way up to his smug bat face. And then we'rebothgoing to put an end to his madness forever. Any questions? "

—Driftproposes an alliance with Gigatron.

Notes

Continuity notes

With this issue, Vanquish is finally referred to by name, and furthermore, transforms on his own into a functionaljet mode,so it looks like his appearance as aMicromaster CombinerinWindblade#4,which was already incongruous with this story, is being completely ignored here. Perhaps his colonist appearance inWindblade#4 is actually that of his AutobotReturn of Convoycounterpart?

Other notes

This issue was originally intended for release onJanuary 21,but delays that struck several IDW titles that month caused it to slip to the following week. However, the issue still made it to theUnited Kingdomon time, where it went on sale a week ahead of the rest of the world.
Hellbat becomes the mouthpiece for Shane McCarthy's usual "statement" on the Transformers' ongoing war: that the conflict has descended into pointlessness.

Errors

On the third panel of page 2, the comma in Hellbat's speech bubble should be a semicolon.
On page 16, Drift says "Any minute now we're going to be drowning those things"; presumably, it should say "drowninginthose things. "
During his rant, Hellbat claims that Cybertronians don't reproduce. In the IDW continuity alone, there are at least two different methods ofTransformer reproductionthat have been repeatedly alluded to (and occasionally shown on-panel). He might be referring to biological methods of procreation or something, or he might just be totally crazy, but it still doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.

Covers (2)

Regular cover:Drift and Gigatron, byGuido GuidiandJohn-Paul Bove
Subscription cover:Ratchet bySaren Stone;links up with the subscription cover to issue #4 to form a larger image