The X-Files: Conspiracy: The Transformers

« The X-Files: Conspiracy: The Transformers
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	February 26, 2014
Cover date	February 2014
Written by	Paul Crilley
Pencils by	Dheeraj Verma
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Edits by	John Barber and Denton J. Tipton
Continuity	Hearts of Steel

The Lone Gunmen team up with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee to rescue Ratchet from the clutches of a mysterious organization seeking to exploit the secrets of Cybertronian bio-tech to create a deadly virus.

Synopsis

Having received an e-mail containing documents that allege to be from the future and warning of the impending outbreak of a lethal virus, the conspiracy theorist trio known as the Lone Gunmen—John Byers, Melvin Frohike, and Richard Langly—have begun investigating the urban legends mentioned in the documents in hope of averting the looming disaster. Following a small-scale release of the virus in Winchester, the Gunmen's encounters with a team of New York-based ghost-hunters and a quartet of sewer-dwelling mutant turtles have yielded the revelation that the virus was seemingly engineered by Skylogic Systems.

Some internet research into Skylogic by Langly has yielded a contact who claims to have information for them, but at a meeting in the dead of night, the three men are shocked when their "contacts" turn out to be a driverless truck and car which transform into robots! The two robots demand to know what the Gunmen have done with their ally Ratchet, but when their sensors are able to verify that the humans' confusion is genuine, they introduce themselves as Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, members of a race of alien robots who have been secretly protecting Earth for centuries. They explain that when Ratchet investigated a strange signal that the Autobots feared could be the return of the Decepticons, he was captured, managing only to send out a scrambled transmission referring to "Skylogic" before going offline; Prime and 'Bee suspected that the Gunmen were connected and may have been attempting to lure them into a similar trap. The Gunmen, in turn, explain that they are investigating Skylogic because of the virus, which they now realize was created with a hybrid of mutant cells and Ratchet's robotic "DNA". They present Prime with a picture of the man who unleashed the virus in Winchester, and the Autobot leader is able to enhance it and interface with CCTV cameras across the country to identify him as David Simmons.

Calling on their FBI ally Fox Mulder for help in tracking Simmons down through his credit card, the Gunmen and the Autobots corner their suspect in a motel room and nonchalantly abduct him, taking him to an abandoned warehouse for interrogation. Simmons explains, with minimal coercion, that years ago, he and several other scientists were approached by the government and presented with proof that aliens existed, and were plotting to conquer the Earth with a race of alien-human hybrids. They created the virus as a means of stopping this invasion, as it was intended to only affect these hybrids, but the field test in Winchester proved it was still harmful to humans. A second, supposedly-perfected batch is set for imminent release, but Simmons is now attempting to flee the country because he does not believe it could have been made safe in such a short space of time. Simmons is unaware of his true employer; Skylogic merely manufactured the virus and shipped it elsewhere, but he provides them with an address for Skylogic and codes to get into its systems.

Bumblebee and the Gunmen infiltrate Skylogic Systems, with 'Bee adopting a military vehicle mode and cloaking the Gunmen with holomatter disguises. They find and free Ratchet with surprising ease, recovering virus samples and obtaining the address to which Skylogic was shipping them... at which point alarms start blaring throughout the complex, bringing a squad of heavily-armed troops down on the team. Bumblebee is incapacitated covering the Gunmen's escape, but at the last minute, Langly snatches up a fallen soldier's weapon and opens fire, knocking out the weapon that is paralyzing Bumblebee. The yellow Autobot blows out one of the skyscraper's windows and has the Gunmen jump out; he and Ratchet follow, with the medic grabbing the Gunmen, transforming to ambulance mode and driving down the slope of the building, before they all regroup with Optimus and disappear into the night.

The Gunmen and the Autobots part ways, with the Autobots promising to head off in the opposite direction, to lure Skylogic away in the event that they're able to track the 'bots. The Gunmen proceed to update Mulder on their recent discoveries, and prepare to head for Atlana to deliver the virus samples recovered from the lab to the Center for Disease Control. But little do they realize that Skylogic troops are gathering outside their motel room even as they speak...

Featured characters

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

Quotes

Optimus Prime: "To answer your question, I am Optimus Prime—and we are Cybertronians."
Bumblebee: "From the planet Cybertron."
Langly: "Cool..."
Bumblebee: "I know—right?"

"Urgh. I hate military alt-modes. Make me feel so dirty."

—Bumblebee

Notes

Continuity notes

• Surprisingly, this story turns out to take place in a pre-existing Transformers continuity: it's the present day of the Hearts of Steel continuity previously seen in the 2006 Evolutions mini-series and revisited in Infestation 2, as proven by Optimus's recollection of his battle with an Elder God from Infestation 2 #2.
• As the event concludes in The X-Files: Conspiracy #2, the Lone Gunmen and FBI Agent Dana Scully use samples obtained from the Transformers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to fashion a vaccine for the virus (no, really). Doing so creates a paradox in time and space (as it was the Lone Gunmen who sent the information about the virus back in time) and ultimately the events of the miniseries are erased from history. As a result, all the books featured in the miniseries would go on to ignore its events entirely in future issues.

Transformers references

• The image of Prime on the issue's standard cover is copied from the artwork created by Don Figueroa for Shout! Factory's DVD release of the first season of the original Transformers cartoon.
• Optimus Prime and Bumblebee have adopted forms similar to the bodies they took on at the beginning of IDW's 2009-2011 ongoing series; Bumblebee's got a rather different head design, though, with cutesy round eyes evocative of the live-action movie and Prime versions of the character. Both characters have transforming arm-weaponry like their movie-selves, with Prime in particular sporting an Energon Sword.
• Ratchet, meanwhile, is based entirely on his Prime self.

Other trivia

• The X-Files: Conspiracy is IDW's multi-franchise crossover event for 2014, following in the footsteps of the previous year's Mars Attacks and the Infestation events before that. Rather than telling discrete or only vaguely-interconnected stories set in different universes like these past crossovers, however, Conspiracy is a six-chapter story that all takes place within the same universe. This issue is the fourth chapter in the story, following on from a premiere Conspiracy #1 issue (which, unlike the Infestation events' opening issues, isn't covered here per TFWiki policy, for a newspaper clipping depicting generics is the only Transformers reference in that issue), Ghostbusters and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; the story continues in The Crow, and concludes in Conspiracy #2.
• In the 2005 IDW continuity, the characters in the Hearts of Steel stories are presented as Maximals brainwashed by Shockwave into believing they are Cybertronians in the Great War. However, this particular plotline skips this issue, as its events are incompatible with established IDW continuity.

Covers (3)

• Standard cover: A collection of evidence from a X-File on the Transformers, including polaroid snaps of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee and vials of energon, by Miran Kim
• Subscription cover: A startled flock of birds flies out of a tree while the silhouette of Optimus Prime can be glimpsed among the leaves, by Dheeraj Verma and Joana Lafuente
• RI cover: A "Weekly Weird News" tabloid newspaper parody by Joe Corroney and Brian Miller of Hi-Fi Studios

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Collections

• The X-Files: Conspiracy HC: (July 2, 2014) ISBN 1613778961 / ISBN 978-1613778968
  • Collects Part 1, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, The Crow and Part 2
  • Bonus material includes [unknown at this time].