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The Sum and Its Parts

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« The Transformers: Windblade vol. 2 #1 »
« Combiner Wars
Part 1 		»
Windbladev2 1 regcvr.jpg
"The Sum and Its Parts"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published March 25, 2015
Cover date March 2015
Story by Mairghread Scott and John Barber
Written by Mairghread Scott
Art by Saren Stone
Letters by Tom B. Long
Editor Carlos Guzman
Continuity 2005 IDW continuity
Chronology Current era (2015)

As Menasor rampages on Caminus, Superion enters the fray, and Optimus Prime discovers the significance of the role he must play in bringing the two worlds together.

Contents

Synopsis

Swindle has been swindled! Caminus has turned out not to be the resource-rich world Starscream led him to believe he would be able to pillage, and the local law enforcement, led by Afterburner, soon arrives to apprehend him. Unfortunately for them, their cityspeakers have not been able to properly translate their Titan's warning about the Enigma of Combination, and they are unprepared for Menasor. Afterburner tries to keep his cool in the face of the combiner, but when he tries to arrest Menasor, the Stunticon giant stomps him to death. Menasor's rage begins to build, but Swindle tries to calm him, and moreover, to avoid any physical harm by reminding it was Starscream, rather than Swindle himself, who promised them all a "big score". With mounting dread, Swindle realizes that Starscream has set them up—though what he does not know is that the addition of hot-tempered secret police officer Blackjack to the Stunticon ranks was also engineered by Starscream in service of this scheme, to "infect" Menasor with his anger. The ex-'Con tries to get Menasor to separate and retreat, but the combiner's fury is insurmountable, and he turns his anger on Caminus itself.

On Cybertron, Starscream is nonchalantly picking a color for his new body when a furious Optimus Prime summons him to the spacebridge chamber with the news that it has been used. Feigning shock and confusion, Starscream arrives on the scene and orders a squad of his secret police to join Ironhide and the suspicious Chromia in going through the portal to help take Menasor down. The battle does not go well, and when Chromia is seized by Menasor, Windblade is forced to traverse the bridge to help; Optimus Prime offers to join her, but she insists that he stay on Cybertron until she can explain some pertinent facts about Camien life to him. Windblade arrives just as Chromia frees herself from Menasor's clutches and saves her friend from a nasty fall, then requests Prime have Starscream call in the Aerialbots, who they both know are fully functional, though Starscream tries to take the moral high ground by briefly denying it. In no time flat, the Aerialbots are through the bridge to Caminus, and combine into Superion to battle Menasor, displaying greater mental stability and dexterity that allows their combined form to easily best their Stunticon counterparts. When Menasor throws a haymaker, Superion is even able to reconfigure his body around the Decepticon's giant fist, causing him to fall forward, straight into a point-blank headshot from Superion's gun. Toppled by the shot, Menasor is quickly put down by a few more of Superion's earth-shaking punches. Swindle tries to sneak away in the chaos, but one of the Badgeless secretly arrests him, remarking that Starscream still has plans for Swindle....

Windblade calls a meeting of Caminus's political leaders, the Forgefire Parliament, who wish to speak with Starscream to arrange that he put right the trouble his world has caused. While Starscream goes to speak with them, Windblade explains to Optimus Prime the reason for her earlier hesitancy. On Caminus, there is only one religion, the Way of Flame, which deifies the Thirteen Primes, and Solus Prime above all. Since Optimus is a living Prime, and carries the Matrix of Leadership, he will essentially be seen as a god to the Camiens—information Windblade wished Prime to have before he made any decision on how to act, given his recent struggles with bearing the title. Concerned, but unwilling to let Starscream play the naive Camiens, Prime decides to visit Caminus, where Windblade interrupts Starscream's meeting with Parliament to dramatically introduce him. Caminus's religious leader, the Mistress of Flame, requests that proof of his "divinity" be shown, and Optimus graciously complies, opening his chest to reveal the Matrix. Starscream can only look on in silent outrage as all the Camiens bow before the living Prime...

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks or stories.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Others

Quotes

"Starscream said I'd get rich robbing these Camiens blind... and what do I find? No fuel! No weapons! Not even any metal! We're made of freakin' metal! How do you slag heaps not have any?"

—Swindle


"Nice planet, by the way."
"It looks a lot nicer when some impossibly tall Cybertronian freak show isn't wrecking it."
"No worries. Combiners get a lot shorter once you take out their legs."

—Ironhide and Chromia


"Starscream, call the Aerialbots. Get them down here—Now!"
"First off, you do not order me to do anything, Prime. Secondly, weren't you the one adamant that I not use Superion? That it was your friends and not a weapon, or some such nonsense?"
"And yet, I highly doubt you followed my advice. Now, unless you'd like me to ask Prowl to look into the convenience of this situation—particularly in your favor—you will help the Cybertronians who are dying for you right now every way you can. So... Does SUPERION FUNCTION?
"Well, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't prepared."

—Optimus Prime and Starscream


"You done destroying this nice little city?"
"RAAH!"
"Guess not."
"Dead 'bots... talk... useless!"
"That... didn't even make sense."

— Superion and Menasor

Notes

Continuity notes

  • Blackjack's addition to the ranks of the Stunticons is revealed to be Starscream's work; he's actually an officer in the secret police, a group introduced in issue #3 of the original Windblade mini-series. Of the various officers who appear this issue, only one is shown in robot mode, but wears the same identity-obscuring mask as seen in that issue. It was said that these 'bots would come to be known as the "Badgeless" in the near future for their deliberate lack of obvious affiliation, though it doesn't appear they've picked that moniker up yet.
  • Starscream reminds Chromia of when Swindle broke her, Windblade and several others out of jail, also in Windblade vol. 1 #3.
  • Windblade, Chromia, and Nautica's brief time as part of Thunderclash's crew is mentioned, as detailed in More than Meets the Eye #26 and Windblade vol. 1 #1. She explains that Thunderclash told them about Optimus's (temporary) abandonment of his Prime title, which took place in The Death of Optimus Prime, only to be reversed just over two years later in Robots in Disguise #26.
  • It's odd to see the Matrix of Leadership giving off the blinding light that it does at the end of this issue, since it was rendered non-functional at the climax of the previous ongoing, but issue #47 would confirm that it was indeed happening in-universe. After all the years we have known him, there's still a lot more to Optimus than meets the eye!

Transformers references

  • The Badgeless attack using "pattern 3-3-1", which seems like a deliberate inversion of "113", James Roberts's Easter-egg number.
  • The long-predicted connection between Solus Prime and Caminus is officially established this issue, with Solus appearing on-panel (albeit only as a statue) for the first time, based on her design in The Covenant of Primus. Though we have seen that the Thirteen Primes are decidedly un-divine in IDW continuity, the people of Caminus nonetheless subscribe to their myth as seen in the Covenant and other corners of the Transformers multiverse, including the belief that the Matrix of Leadership once rested on the hilt of the Star Saber. Afterburner is even heard to swear by Prima when Menasor's attack is detected.

Errors

  • The previous chapter showed Optimus's Matrix-half on the right side of his chest, but in this issue, it's on the left.

Other trivia

  • Just as Drag Strip was missing from the Stunticons in the previous Combiner Wars chapter, Air Raid is not in evidence among the Aerialbots before the team combines. Notably, Drag Strip and Air Raid are the team members who are sold in separate waves of the Combiner Wars toyline to their teammates, so this might be a deliberate, if rather odd, omission.
  • Blackjack is drawn with a mouth and goggles in this issue, closer to his original toy's depiction, rather than the Combiner Wars toy-accurate head he got last issue. Perhaps it is detachable?

Covers (10)

  • Windbladev2 1 regcvr.jpg
  • Windbladev2 1 subcvr.jpg
  • Windbladev2 1 cvrRI.jpg
  • CW Mirage cvr.jpg

A piece of art by Travis Sengaus, with colors by Josh Burcham, of Devastator was used as the basis for a number of store-exclusive covers. Credits below reflect who illustrated the store on the cover:

  • BuyMeToys exclusive cover: Devastator smashes the BuyMeToys store; art by Sengaus, colors by Burcham
  • Giant Robot Comics exclusive cover: Devastator smashes the Giant Robot Comics store; art and colors by Burcham
  • Midtown Comics exclusive cover: Devastator smashes the Midtown Comics store; art by Sengaus, colors by Burcham
  • 4 Color Fantasies Comics exclusive cover: Devastator smashes the 4 Color Fantasies Comics store; art and colors by Burcham
  • St. Mark's Comics exclusive cover:Devastator smashes the St. Mark's Comics store; art by Sengaus, colors by Burcham
  • G & B Comics exclusive cover: Devastator smashes the G & B Comics store; art and colors by Burcham
  • Windbladev2 1 cvrRE A.jpg
  • Windbladev2 1 cvrRE B.jpg
  • Windbladev2 1 cvrRE C.jpg
  • Windbladev2 1 cvrRE D.jpg
  • Windbladev2 1 cvrRE E.jpg
  • Windbladev2 1 cvrRE F.jpg

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Reprints

  • Transformers: Windblade - The Last City (February 14, 2018) ISBN 978-1684052240
    • Collects Windblade (2014) issues #1–4, and Windblade (2015) issues #1–7, but not the alternating chapters of Combiner Wars from The Transformers vol. 2 needed to complete the story. Um.
    • Bonus material includes covers from each issue.
    • Trade paperback format.

External links

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