slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken

« The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #33 »
"Did you know how much you missed me?"
"slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	September 17, 2014
Cover date	September 2014
Written by	James Roberts
Art by	Alex Milne
Inks by	Brian Shearer and John Wycough
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2014)

The mystery of the Lost Light's disappearance is solved, beginning a race against time to shut down the quantum engines and put things right.

Synopsis

As Megatron lifts the unconscious Rewind out of the Magnus Armor and lays him down, the little 'bot slowly awakens. Skids tries to make sure he's okay and talks him through the surprising sights that greet him—an Autobot Megatron, a living Nightbeat, and Nautica being female—but Nightbeat butts in, desperate to find out what happened on the ship. The detective is fascinated by their recent discoveries, and a closer examination of the poster for Information Creep has revealed its release date to have been only a few weeks after the ship's original launch, all standing in contradiction to the history they know—but Rewind dissolves into whimpering, able to give no verbal answer, instead offering up a data slug to the detective.

Meanwhile, across the room, Nautica observes the quantum engines' quantum drums floating in the web of quantum foam, prompting Riptide to make fun of her by suggesting her profession just involves putting "quantum" in front of other words. She responds with a (failed) joke about the way all quantum objects exist in two superpositioned states—which gives her a sudden realization that explains everything. She presents her theory to the crew: that upon launch, the malfunction of the Lost Light's quantum engines caused the ship to undergo a quantum duplication, yielding an exact copy, just as valid as the original, which materialized in the region of the space the ship was supposed to appear in, rather than jumping to the random planet that "their" Lost Light did. Nightbeat confirms her theory is correct with the data provided by Rewind, which reveals that the Rodimus they found in the coffin perished during the Sparkeater fiasco when his head was phased inside the engines instead of just his arms. Ultra Magnus subsequently took command, while Rodimus was interred by Drift; the coffin proceeded to fall from the ship when it broke up following the Decepticon Justice Division's attack—brought on, Rewind claims, by the fact that someone onboard deliberately deactivated Overlord's cell, allowing the DJD to detect his signal. Rewind explains that he was forced to film the villains' murder spree because they promised to let Chromedome live if he did so, but for added psychological torture, they then tried to force the mnemosurgeon to wipe his own memories of Rewind, killing him with his own finger-needles when he refused.

Riptide brings Rewind's grim tale to an end by pointing out that the quantum foam floating outside is beginning to spread; Nautica realizes that it could potentially destroy Ofsted XVII down below by causing a chain reaction in the thinned-out space-time of the region and proposes shutting down the quantum engines entirely, which should also theoretically erase the "duplicate" Lost Light and reinstate their own. Megatron has no interest in risking his own life for a planet of non-Cybertronians, but Skids makes it clear it's not a choice: he is an Autobot now, and for that to mean something, Megatron must put his life on the line for others. Unfortunately, the quantum foam is meshed around the drums so tight that a 'bot of Megatron's size cannot make it through; Rewind volunteers, but as both drums must be deactivated simultaneously, a second small 'bot is needed. Skids recalls Brainstorm's mass-displacement gun, capable of shrinking someone for the job, so the group heads for his lab to see if the "duplicate" Brainstorm invented the weapon. While searching the wrecked lab, Nightbeat and Nautica discuss the minutiae of the quantum duplication process, realizing that the Rewind "data ghost" and his altered message to Chromedome were the result of quantum "cross-contamination", and concluding that the erasure of their Lost Light was triggered when it came into proximity with Rodimus's coffin, making the paradox too blatant for the universe to continue "ignoring". Their conversation is brought to a shuddering halt when they lift a piece of rubble and reveal Brainstorm's body underneath... a discovery made all the more horrifying when Nightbeat picks up Brainstorm's disconnected faceplate, lying on the floor beside him, and uncovers a Decepticon insignia painted inside it. The ghastly realization that Brainstorm—and by extension, their Brainstorm—was the Decepticon mole who deactivated Overlord's cell has to be tabled by the crew in the face of greater concerns, and when it becomes apparent that the mass-displacement gun is not there, Megatron finally offers up a solution: he can use his own mass displacement powers, added to his spark to enable his old handgun mode, to shrink himself down and join Rewind in shutting the engines down.

A short time later, Rewind and the shrunken Megatron carefully make their way through the foam web, successfully reaching the quantum drums. As Nautica begins to walk them through the shutdown procedure, Rewind pauses, seeking belated confirmation of the fact that deactivating the drums will mean he and "his" Lost Light will cease to be. Nautica verifies this, and Rewind calmly resigns himself to this fact, given that his Chromedome is dead, leaving him with nothing to live for. He asks Megatron if the "other" Rewind and Chromedome are still strong, and after a moment of silence, Megatron tells him they are inseparable. Satisfied, Rewind throws the shutdown switch, and a wave of white light consumes everything.

Epilogue 1

Time passes. The deactivation of the quantum engines proves successful: the alternate Lost Light vanishes, and crew members slowly start appearing aboard the Rodpod in reverse order. When Chromedome is returned, however, Skids thrusts a pair of magna-clamps into his hands and tells him to go onto the pod roof... because somehow, the alternate Rewind has survived, and is waiting for him. The two 'bots look at each other in silent shock; Chromedome sits down beside his "resurrected" lover, and after a wordless moment of staring out at the stars together, the two embrace. Back inside, meanwhile, Blaster reports that the Lost Light has also reappeared, and as a course is locked in, Megatron requests that he open a secure channel so that he can inform Rodimus about Brainstorm. Ravage points out that he is not likely to be welcomed by the crew, and offers to depart for Earth, but Megatron invites him to stay, asking if the horrors he has seen the DJD perpetrate are enough to make him question his dedication to the Decepticon cause. Nightbeat and Nautica wonder how Rewind could have survived; Nightbeat jokingly blames "the power of love"... though that doesn't explain how he has managed to keep ahold of the dead Brainstorm's briefcase...

Epilogue 2

Back on the returned Lost Light, Brainstorm squeezes his way through the crowd of revellers at Swerve's, sitting down to next to Atomizer. Over Atomizer's protests, Brainstorm breaks the rules of the bar by undoing the clasps on his briefcase and opening it... and everyone in the bar except him collapses...

Featured characters

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

Quotes

"Such a fuss. Is he important?"
"Come now, Ravage. Everyone's important these days. But yes, I gather they're particularly fond of this one."

—Ravage and Megatron, the former with regard to Rewind, the latter with regard to the readers

"I've never seen the quantum drums outside of the quantum engines... even hidden behind all the quantum foam, they're impressive..."
"Nautica, to be a quantum mechanic, all you have to do is put the word 'quantum' in front of other words. True or false?"
"Both."
"Eh?"
"It's both, simultaneously. True and false. It depends on the quantized energy state of each proposition."
"Eh?"
"It's a joke."
"Oh. Are jokes not funny where you come from?"

—Nautica and Riptide

"If that planet were teeming with Cybertronians, then yes, there'd be an argument for going back into the breach. But I doubt that's the case."
"Ah, your true colors. I'd forgotten how purple they were."
"You've forgotten something else: I am your prisoner. I've been granted conditional bail while we look for the Knights of Cybertron. Where in my bail terms does it say—where precisely does it say—that I have to risk my life to save a handful of strangers? Where does it say that?"
(Skids taps Megatron's Autobot badge.)
"Right. There. What does that badge even mean to you? How has wearing it forced you to modify your behaviour? I'm serious! How has being an Autobot in any way prevented you from doing exactly what you want? Because if the answer is "it hasn't"—then nothing you've said or done in the last six months counts for anything."

—Megatron is read the riot act by Skids

"Before you volunteer, Ravage, I'm sorry, but you lack the manual dexterity to perform the task."
"Touch me again and I'll kill you."

—Nautica and Ravage

"I don't know all our undercover agents. To be honest, he's not our usual type."
"There's a type?"
"Hm. Have you never been approached?"

—Megatron and Nightbeat

"Here's a survival tip: When everyone's lining up to make sacrifices... always get to the back of the queue."

—Megatron

"You should go first. You're still slightly larger than me, so there's a greater chance of you touching the foam and exploding... and if that happens there's no point in me putting my own life at risk."
"And everyone says you were the kindhearted one."
"Were?"

—Rewind and Megatron

"What's left for me here? Chromedome's dead—which is just another way of saying I am. In fact I wanted to ask you earlier, but... on your Lost Light, me and Domey... are we still going strong?"
(beat)
"Megatron?"
"You're inseparable."

—Rewind and Megatron

Notes

Continuity notes

• Brainstorm has, of course, been very dodgy for an Autobot since "Bullets", where we met him creating monstrous weapons for fun. He's notably been callous about a dead Autobot way back in issue #2 and allowed an Autobot to be shot down without doing anything in #6. You could go looking for other proof that he must be up to something.... though we'll later learn he has a different reason for joining the Decepticons than we first thought and he's just a naturally dodgy geezer!
• The Sparkeater affair took place in issue #3; Animus died in that issue, but on this alternate Lost Light, he survived long enough to lure the Sparkeater to the engine room, taking the place of Rung, who is noted to have been "lost" in the initial explosion on the "alternate" ship. This seems to be further implicit confirmation that Animus was a Point One Percenter, if his spark (shown to be green in that issue) was strong enough to serve as a lure for the creature over all others on the ship.
• The DJD suddenly detected Overlord's signature in issue #8; at last, we learn that they were able to do this because the slow cell on the alternate Lost Light was shut down.
• With this issue, all the Autobots on the Necrobot's list are shown to have died on the second Lost Light; we don't see Dipstick's corpse but his being shocked to death by Kaon probably counts.
• Brainstorm's mass-displacement gun previously appeared in the 2012 Annual.
• Nautica finds the duplicate of Brainstorm's cyberwraith cadaver, first seen in issue #7 and used to create Dead Universe forcefields in issue #23.
• Megatron suggests that Nightbeat is the sort of guy the Decepticons recruited as spies. Primarily, it's a joke about the detached way he tends to regard others and their emotions (part of his Benedict-Cumberbatch-as-Sherlock-Holmes characterization), but back in issue #9, we saw that Nightbeat followed Decepticon politics with interest before the war, and agreed with them about ratioism.
• Megatron recalls his old handgun transformation, which is an alternate form he hasn't had in IDW since All Hail Megatron; it previously appeared in More than Meets the Eye proper in flashback in issue #16.
• Last issue, Skids said he was worried he'd stop hating Megatron and here he is, genuinely pleased the ex-tyrant is risking himself for others just like he'd demanded. This starts him down a road where by issue 50, he'll be considered one of Megs' mates.
• "No Briefcases" was established as one of the rules of Swerve's in issue #18. So how did Brainstorm get in the bar past Swerve's bouncer, Ten? Attention deflectors, of course!

Transformers references

• Brainstorm is revealed to have a mouth under his faceplate, leaving him evocative of his animation model for the Headmasters cartoon. He also had his faceplate removed more recently in IDW's Regeneration One #87.
• The alternate Ultra Magnus was rid of his Nanocon infection using domesticated scraplets, a form of mechanical parasite that originated in issue #29 of the Marvel US series. There have been a few sparse references to them in Roberts-written IDW stories before now, including a one-panel appearance by one taken from Rewind's database in issue #16.

Real-life references

• This story's subtitle comes from the Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken".
• Quantum superposition is a real concept in physics, whereby an isolated particle can exist in two or more different states simultaneously. Its footprint on popular culture is felt most famously via the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, which envisions a hypothetical scenario where the phenomenon could be observed in a macroscopic object. The way in which one Lost Light begins disappearing as the two versions draw near to each other is loosely analogous to the process of quantum decoherence, in which a superposed particle ceases its quantum behaviour and assumes a single state once it is no longer isolated.

Errors

• An alternate scenario involving the Nanocons inside Ultra Magnus is described as having played out on the duplicate Lost Light... buuuut the only reason the dormant Nanocons inside Magnus even became active was because of the influence of the Crystal City Titan, which the alternate Lost Light was never anywhere near. James Roberts offered the wry explanation that Skids was just assuming the Nanocons were activated by the Titan, and was wrong.^[1]
• In this panel on page 22, Atomizer is missing one of the side pieces on his head that is meant to go between his head and cheek spike thingy. Now you can't unsee it.

Crew manifest

• All the vanished members of the ship return
• The Rewind of the "alternate" Lost Light survives the quantum reset and joins the crew

Soundtrack

• "Teenage Spaceship" by Smog
• "Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space" by Spiritualized
• "Night and Day" by Pelvis^[2]
• "Pure" by The Lightning Seeds^[3]

Other trivia

• It's never actually explained what happened to all the other 'bots who weren't part of the original crew when their shuttles disappeared, but they all appear to be fine now that everything's over.

Foreign Localization

Swedish

• Title: "slakthuset Del 2: Det andra äventyret" ("slaughterhouse Part 2: The Other Quest")

Covers (4)

• Regular cover: A shadowed Rewind, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
• Subscription cover: In the manner of Lady Justice, Tarn holds aloft a set of scales on which the rest of the DJD members stand, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham
• 30th Anniversary cover: Tarn looms over Fulcrum, dripping energon, by Saren Stone; the second in September's series of 30th Anniversary covers commemorating moments from IDW history, this one representing the Scavengers' meeting with the DJD in issue #8.
• Heroes and Fantasies Alamo City Comic Con exclusive cover: Grimlock (in his War for Cybertron design) roars in front of the Alamo, by Casey Coller and John-Paul Bove; a banner reading "When Dinobots Ruled the Earth" falls in front of him, paying homage to the climactic scene of Jurassic Park (and not for the first time).

• 

  Shh, he's hiding.

• 

  We serve our justice cold, and it is very cold in space.

• 

  "Intimidated yet?"

• 

  "Me Grimlock say Steven Spielberg, eat your heart out."

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• Robots in Disguise #33
• Primacy #2
• Transformers vs. G.I. Joe #2
• IDW Transformers graphic novel library
• My Little Pony Annual 2014 (back cover)

Reprints

• The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Volume 6 (December 10, 2014) ISBN 163140184X / ISBN 978-1631401848
  • Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #28–33.
  • Bonus material includes covers of each issue.
  • Trade paperback format.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 7 (March 21, 2018) ISBN 1684051495 / ISBN 978-1684051496
  • Collects More Than Meets the Eye issues #28–30, #31–33 & #34, and Robots in Disguise issues #28–32 & #33–34.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 61: World Shut Your Mouth (January 8, 2020)
  • Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #28–34.
  • Bonus material includes "Season 2" character poster art, a cover gallery and a forward by Simon Furman.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: Du sköna nya värld (November, 2022)
  • Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #28–38 & #40.
  • Swedish reprint. Hardcover format.

• 

  More Than Meets the Eye Volume 6 – cover art by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente

• 

  The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 7 – cover art by Marcelo Matere and Tom B. Long

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 61: World Shut Your Mouth – cover art by Guido Guidi (Hoist) and Alex Milne

• 

  Du sköna nya värld – cover art by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente.

References

External links

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