First Strike issue 5

Windblade turns from the screens showing the fallen response teams, cut down by Joe Colton's boobytraps, to discover that Optimus Prime has silently left the room already. Metroplex assures her that Optimus will do the right thing, but Windblade is not convinced; she is sure Optimus will do what he believes is the right thing, but she finds she can no longer trust his judgement in such matters.

Convinced that Scarlett is the only one who knows Colton well enough to stop him, Optimus recruits Soundwave and Arcee to break her and her team out of jail. Arcee is incredulous; such an action will make them enemies of Cybertron, and further, if Prime truly believed it was the right thing to do, he would have asked Windblade for help. Optimus solemnly declares that, if his plan is successful, he will take solace in the fact that the rest of Cybertron is alive to judge him, and the trio rolls out for the prison. They enter via a ventilation shaft, and Arcee and Soundwave incapacitate the guards so Optimus can free the humans. Only Scarlett and Roadblock are able to get out of their cell before it automatically reseals, indicating that the break-out has been discovered, so Prime just rips the control panel out of the wall, deactivating the cell for good and letting Lady Jaye, Matt Trakker, and Gloria Baker escape too. Arcee returns their confiscated weapons to them, and together, they hold off the squad of Badgeless that comes to investigate while Optimus makes them an escape route by smashing through the prison wall in truck mode. As they dive through, however, they find their way barred by Windblade, who Arcee is ready to take down in order to get past, if she has to. Prime orders Arcee to stand down, and asks Windblade to do the same; she reluctantly complies, knowing that she is physically unable of stopping Prime, and at least hoping to prevent the damage to the city a fight would case. But she insists that Prime has made the wrong choice, and that this will be the last time she will bow to his will...

Windblade brings the news of Optimus's treason to Starscream, only to find that he is already fully aware of it thanks to the surveillance Obsidian has been running on the prison. After taking a moment to bask in the fact that everyone has turned on Optimus Prime and is coming to him for help, Starscream calls in Ironhide to arrest Prime, Scarlett's team and Colton's team, quickly, quietly, and without any casualties. Starscream is as surprised as anyone to find out that, for once, Windblade agrees with his under-the-table tactics, and even Elita One agrees to the plan... at least to Starscream's face, as after the meeting has concluded, she informs Obsidian of her intent to see the humans all dead.

Prime and Scarlett's team head down into the depths of Cybertron, with Scarlett thanking Prime for all he has sacrificed to help her as they go. Along the way, they run into more of Colton's traps, fighting their way past Red Shadows, turret robots, and mines, the individual abilities and powers of the group combining to make their progress fast, if not easy. Still, Scarlett wonders if Colton is playing a greater game, and has planned for her presence. She remains convinced that they are not moving fast enough... and all hope of catching up seems to evaporate when they find their path obstructed by a huge river of acid. Soundwave is unable to pick up Colton's trail, and the heroes conclude that he must have hit this same dead end and doubled back—but Scarlett doesn't buy it. She thinks about how Colton assembled his team of villains with each of their specific powers in mind, and recalls a time Matt told her about Miles Mayhem deceiving him... and dives headfirst off the cliff and into the river below. Fortunately, Scarlett's gamble proves correct: the "river" is a hologram set up by Mayhem, so advanced it deceives even Cybertronian sensors into thinking it is real. If the villains were trying to get them to detour, Scarlett reasons, then they must be close to their objective and running out of options...

Near the heart of Cybertron, the villains scale the last few hundred meters of cliff that will take them to the planet's core, which has begun to release lightning-bolts of energy to defend itself. Shazraella climbs ahead to lower ropes for the others, but on the last stretch, Garrison Kreiger stumbles and falls. Colton grabs his wrist and saves him, and the two men then join their fellows at the top of the cliff, where the core has released a swarm of Insecticons to block their way. Still the villains continue to squabble amongst themselves even as they fight for their lives, and Colton is at the end of his rope; after tackling Mayhem to safety, he orders them all to shut up or he will kill them himself. Together, the villains cut their way through the Insecticons and enter the core chamber, moving past the point of no return—if they do not complete their mission, there will be no way out for them now. But one final obstacle stands in their path: Optimus and Scarlett's team have beaten them to the core, and stand ready to put the villains down for good!

To be concluded!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	G.I. Joe	M.A.S.K.	The Iron Ring	Others
Windblade (1) Metroplex (2) Arcee (3) Optimus Prime (4) Ironhide (15)	Soundwave (5)	Scarlett (6) Roadblock (7) Lady Jaye (10)	Matt Trakker (8) Gloria Baker (9)	Red Shadows (16) Miles Mayhem (17) Destro (18) Joe Colton (19) Garrison Kreiger (20) Shazraella (21) Storm Shadow II (22)	Assorted Badgeless (11) Obsidian (12) Elita One (13) Starscream (14) Insecticon swarm (23)

Quotes

"Eyes open! Let's go!"
"What exactly do you think we're gonna miss?"
"Not now, Jaye!"
(A group of Badgeless enter)
"See? They're like school buses with feet. I'd have to actively try not to spot them."
"READ THE ROOM!"

—Scarlett doesn't appreciate Lady Jaye's sense of humor

"This will be the last time I bow to a Prime."
"Hopefully, it will be the last time you will have to."

—Windblade and Optimus Prime

"The first thing to do is enjoy this moment. Everyone hates and mistrusts Optimus Prime and you have all come to me to fix it."
(...)
"Oh, yes. That was satisfying."

—Starscream

Soundwave: "Termination cannot be predicted and so it should not be a primary concern. Their deaths have meaning if it allows us to overtake Colton."
Roadblock: "Whoa. How many millions of years of war did it take for you Transformers to get so cold?"
Scarlet: "No judgements, Roadblock, humans got that way a lot faster."

"What are these things called?"
"I believe they are called 'Insecticons.'"
"Appropriate. Let's test their sting."
"It is decided. You are the human I like."

—Storm Shadow and Shazraella

Notes

In addition to this 20-page main story, First Strike #5 also includes the four-page fifth and final chapter of an ongoing back-up strip, "The Origins of Evil," detailing how Ironblood assembled his evil allies.

Continuity notes

Arcee joins the action in the main First Strike storyline after her role in the two-part tie-in story told through the Optimus Prime: First Strike and Transformers: First Strike one-shots, which hadn't actually been published yet at the time of this issue's release.
Matt and Scarlett recall a previous instance of Mayhem confounding Matt with a realistic hologram. That took place in M.A.S.K. #4, when Mayhem created a hologram of Matt's mother and appeared to kill her.
The Insecticon swarm were originally presented as having been created by the Decepticons in All Hail Megatron #7, the failed products of experiments intended to create the more famous Insecticon trio. They swarmed over Cybertron, but were largely eradicated by Ironhide in his 2010 self-titled mini-series, with the caveat that several hundred rogues still remained scattered over the planet. This is the first time we've seen them in a capacity this major since then, but their portrayal here as a defense released by the core of Cybertron seems to owe a little more to the depiction of the Insecticons in the "Aligned" continuity, where they were presented as a naturally-occurring subterranean Cybertronian sub-species. In fact, IDW has quietly retconned their Insecticons into always have been exactly that; the profile for Bob in Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #1 notes that the Decepticon experiments in All Hail Megatron were actually cloning experiments conducted on the pre-existing Insecticon race.

Covers (8)

Cover A: Ironblood triumphant, by Freddie E. Williams II and Jeremy Colwell
Cover B: Prime's team and the forces of law, with Joe Colton caught between them, by Max Dunbar and Ander Zarate
Cover C: Scarlett takes a dip, by Alex Ronald
Cover D: Starscream, Windblade, Scarlett, Quick Kick, and Rom versus the Dire Wraiths, by Rob Duenas

Of course this won't happen.
Everyone hates Colton.
Acid bath!
Wait, is this some other story?

Retailer incentive cover A: Scarlett, Optimus, and Arcee caught mid-breakout, by Jay Fosgitt
Retailer incentive cover B: Scarlett, Roadblock, and Optimus press on, Davidé Fabbri and Thomas Deer
Retailer incentive cover C: Colton, Mayhem, Destro, and Shazraella, by Ilias Kyriazis
Retailer incentive cover D: Storm Shadow versus Matt Trakker, by Whilce Portacio and Thomas Deer; connects to Cover RID from issue #1 and issue #3 to form a larger image