Twenty Plus One

« The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #31 »
"Twenty Plus One"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	July 9, 2014
Cover date	July 2014
Written by	James Roberts
Art by	Atilio Rojo
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Assistant editor	Vincent Kings
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2014)

Tensions run high as twenty Lost Lighters find themselves stuffed into one small spaceship, and things only get worse when the lights start going out, and 'bots start disappearing...

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Featured characters 3 Quotes 4 Notes 4.1 Continuity notes 4.2 Transformers references 4.3 Real-life references 4.4 Errors 4.5 Crew manifest 4.6 Soundtrack 4.7 Other trivia 4.8 Foreign Localization 4.9 Covers (3) 4.10 Advertisements 4.11 Reprints 5 References

Synopsis

Following the disappearance of the Lost Light and the evacuation of the crew, twenty 'bots cram themselves into the Rodpod: Megatron, Crosscut, Skids, Gears, Blaster, Getaway, Nautica, Ammo, Huffer, Chromedome, Swerve, Hoist, Nightbeat, Riptide, Tailgate, Dipstick, Cyclonus, Hound, Ratchet, and Highbrow. When Nautica inquires as to the origins of the now-vanished ship, Riptide recounts how he, Pipes, and Drift purchased the vessel from a pair of chirolingual NAILs in Iacon's religious quarter, naming it after the Festival of Lost Light, which was taking place there at the time. Though Megatron tries to make the group focus on their present predicament, Nautica persists with her train of thought, and highlights the abnormality of the ship and the power of its quantum generators. At Ammo's request, she tries to explain to the befuddled crew how quantum engines are essentially powered by the improbability of their own function, concluding with the theory that the ship was so advanced that it "proved itself impossible." Megatron is less concerned with the how of the ship's disappearance, but rather with what to do next; at that moment, Blaster receives a transmission from Rodimus on a neighboring shuttle, informing them that they will be making for the nearby lectureworld of Ofsted XVII in Sector 113.

After a crew headcount, Crosscut is telling Cyclonus about his latest play when the lights suddenly go out. When power returns a second later, Crosscut has vanished mid-sentence, and Tailgate, full of false bravado after all the praise he has received lately, draws a gun on Megatron, blaming him for Crosscut's apparent death. Cyclonus and Ratchet try to talk the tiny 'bot down, but Megatron's reaction goes from bemusement to anger when Tailgate proposes locking him up, and he draws a weapon of his own. This prompts Riptide to add his weapon to the growing standoff, and when Cyclonus tries to calm everyone down, Huffer and Gears, never having trusted the ancient Cybertronian, both draw on him. Hound then appears to level his own weapon at Nautica, but it quickly becomes apparent that he is actually aiming at the lurking Ravage, who pounces from the shadows just as the lights go out once more. Megatron fires into the darkness and subdues the feline; as the lights flick back on, he claims not to know why Ravage is there, but whether that is true or not is called into question as he secretly communicates chirolinguistically with the cat-bot, telling him to play dead.

The discovery of Ravage defuses the standoff, but Nautica soon observes that more disappearances have taken place in the darkness: Gears, Blaster, Huffer, Chromedome, Hound, and Highbrow have now also vanished. Nightbeat dedicates himself to determining the pattern by which 'bots are being taken, and, reminded of Tyrest and his plan by Cyclonus, decides to begin by figuring out which of those present are constructed cold, like himself, and which are forged. Megatron refuses to divulge that information, but a pattern seems to be emerging as Getaway, Dipstick, and Ammo reveal that they are "Made To Order soldiers"—second-generation constructed cold, created during wartime from the spark stockpile—until Ratchet points out that he and several others present are forged, and several of the disappeared were constructed cold. As Nightbeat withdraws into detective mode, the others begin talking amongst themselves; after Ammo, Riptide, and Getaway tell Nautica about the "Ten-Step Program" that MTOs had to pass in order to be declared "world-ready" (which Riptide hated), Ratchet chimes in about the high percentage of MTOs who claim to have had mystical experiences, which he professes are neurological hallucinations that are a product of their virtually-newborn senses. Swerve takes offense, pointing out that faith isn't a new idea, but Skids counters that with a brief lecture on a condition known to affect robotic lifeforms known as "information creep"—the corruption of brain data that results in memories being unconsciously reinterpreted. Nautica is familiar with the condition, which was known on Caminus as "blurred data"; just as she is thinking of her friends Windblade and Chromia, the lights go out once more.

This time, Ammo, Hoist, Dipstick, and Cyclonus have disappeared, but Cyclonus's Great Sword has not vanished with him. As Nightbeat inspects it, he gets the feeling he is being watched, and turns to sees a gigantic eye staring down at him... though it quickly turns out that it belongs to Ultra Magnus's holomatter avatar, projected in from the Leading Light, albeit at accidentally gigantic scale. Magnus quickly adjusts its size, and informs the remaining crew that all the other occupants of his craft have disappeared too, as have other shuttles. Tailgate peers out a porthole and notes that he can't see Magnus's shuttle anywhere; Magnus has but a moment to realise that he can't feel his body any more before his avatar fades out.

At the end of his rope, Nightbeat instructs Ratchet to write down every piece of information he knows about the crew from their medical files, but he barely has time to study the data before another blackout claims Swerve, Tailgate, and Ratchet... but not Ratchet's hands, which Skids points out used to belong to Pharma. Riptide grins, having heard the whole story behind that from Swerve, and remarks that the Lost Lighters sure did get up to some crazy stuff while they were away. Nightbeat asks him to expand, having believed that Riptide had been on the Lost Light from the outset, but the Hydrobot explains that he was not: after going back to get a receipt for the ship from the NAILs who sold it to them, he eavesdropped on them and learned they were Mortilus worshippers who had been keeping a Sparkeater in the basement, feeding it with turbofoxes they had stolen from the crew of the Alchemy-Seven, and when an altercation ensued, he was knocked out, and missed the Lost Light launch. Nightbeat crows that he has solved the mystery: everyone who disappeared was a member of the original Lost Light crew, and all those remaining on the Rodpod (himself, Megatron, Skids, Nautica, Getaway, and Riptide) joined the crew after its launch. As Megatron angrily points out, though, his deduction solves absolutely nothing, since the detective was too slow to save anyone. Just then, Nautica informs them that they have reached Ofsted XVII, but that they are not the first to arrive... as outside, floating in the planet's orbit, is the shattered wreckage of the destroyed Lost Light!

Featured characters

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

Quotes

"I didn't realize how hard it was to explain the science until Tailgate asked me how 'quanton technology' worked. I don't think you learned anything that afternoon, did you?"
"Just some new swear words..."

—Ratchet and Tailgate

"If I sit next to you too long, am I going to die of smartass poisoning?"

—Getaway on Nightbeat

"'I hope this puts paid to the notion that I ignore everything my "co-captain" says on the grounds that he's lazy, petulant and pathologically ill-suited to command...'"

—Megatron on Rodimus

"Cool it, guys! Cyclonus isn't the enemy!"
"He's not? Oh I'm sorry. It must've been the other Cyclonus who murdered all those Autobots at Kimia—because if not, that makes you a MONUMENTAL FRIKKIN' HYPOCRITE!"

—Tailgate and Huffer

"No one has a right to know how a fellow Cybertronian was created. There's a thin line between categorization and segregation, and I never want to see it crossed again."

—Megatron

"In the end, High Command decided they wanted their new troops to fight, not study, so they reduced the steps from ten to eight to three. Three steps, Nautica: 'From thaw to war in under an hour.' Because who cares whether or not a warborn knockoff with a three-minute life expectancy can quote Dominus Ambus or notate the Grand Celestial Melody? So long as he can assemble a path-blaster with his brand-new eyes closed, everyone's happy. That's sarcasm, by the way. I dabble."

—Skids

"Mystery solved!"
"Well done."
"Thank you. Want to say it again and mean it?"
"You failed."
"What?"
"You failed. You solved the mystery, but only after everyone was taken. You were too slow to save them"
"Yes, but - at least I worked out what was happening. That has to count for something, doesn't it? ....doesn't it?"

—Nightbeat and Megatron

Notes

Continuity notes

• "Don't make me put my foot down," Drift says to Pipes, wickedly recalling (and, since this is a flashback, technically foreshadowing) Pipes's death at the hands—or rather, foot—of Overlord in issue #15.
• A new face in the crowd, Ammo, was previously mentioned in issue #19. And he doesn't even die or anything!
• Crosscut refers to an earlier play of his named My Shovel, Your Face; Robots in Disguise #25 taught us that Crosscut was known for liberating Petrex "with wise words and a shovel". Info Creep, the working title of his new play, is a reference to the condition that affects Transformers, also introduced this issue.
• In what is likely no coincidence, there was a brief blackout on the Lost Light back in issue #28, just as the disappearances were starting. Perhaps it was during this blackout that the Pyrobots vanished.
• The pistol Megatron draws is one of the revolvers seen holstered inside his hip armor during the aforementioned previous blackout.
• The crew discover Ravage's presence, but the audience learned he was on the ship in issue #28.
• Remember Getaway praising Tailgate for messing with Megatron, as it'll come up again in #47.
• Getaway referred to himself as an "M.T.O." last issue; here we learn this stands for "Made To Order soldier", and refers to a 'bot constructed cold after the outbreak of the war, from the stockpile of sparks left over from Tyrest's bleeding of the Matrix.
• Hoist mentions having a friend named Scattergun. Assuming it's not a different 'bot with the same name (they do say all the good ones are taken), we previously heard of this fellow in issue #16, as one of Chromedome's former Conjunx Endurae. Scattergun was constructed cold for the Fourth Vorsk Offensive, a battle first mentioned in "Chaos Theory Part 1".
• Riptide was constructed cold to take part in the conflict on Simanzi, which has been mentioned several times throughout Roberts's work. He notes he was specifically created a Hydrobot in response to something called the "Forced Flood".
• Ammo was constructed cold in response to Megatron's attack on K'th Kinsere, a region of Cybertron that is home to Vaulted Heights (mentioned in issue #1) and a sect of High Priests (namechecked in Spotlight: Orion Pax).
• Ratchet refers to the Shimmer, a battlefield hallucination that plays a role in the prose story "Bullets", as well as the Necrobot, who made an alleged appearance back in issue #8.
• Ultra Magnus's Verity Carlo holomatter avatar from issue #13 reappears. Megatron recognizes the image of the girl, having encountered her waaaay back in Infiltration #5 (though he seemed deeply uninterested at the time). The panel of a giant Verity looming over Megatron is based on the dramatic reveal of that encounter, with the roles reversed.
• Hoist is noted to suffer from "feelings of isolation", which we learned about him in his self-titled Spotlight.
• Highbrow is revealed to have been a former member of the Malware Brigade, an anti-Senate organization mentioned in "Chaos Theory Part 2".
• The former owners of the Lost Light are worshippers of Mortilus, the death god of the Guiding Hand, introduced in the 2012 More than Meets the Eye annual. They are hiding from the crew of the Alchemy-Seven, a NAIL ship first mentioned in The Death of Optimus Prime.
• The sparkeater in the basement of the Lost Light, and the fact that the ship's former owners had been feeding it turbofoxes, were introduced in issue #3.
• Of course, there have been other new additions to the Lost Light since its launch beyond the 'bots left at the end of this issue (First Aid, for example, or any of the new 'bots who have joined up since "Dark Cybertron"); Issue #34 would reveal that when their shuttles disappeared in the course of this issue's events,they were left floating in space. The reason the Rodpod does not disappear, on the other hand, is because it's a new Rodpod, built last issue, following the original's destruction in Robots in Disguise #25.

Transformers references

• The number 1989 pops up in Nautica's equations, likely referring to the Time Wars of 1989/2009 from the classic Marvel UK comics, or alternatively to the maddeningly-convoluted change in publication format that immediately followed and the ensuing continuity fun times.
• Sector 113 is, of course, another of Roberts's reference to the number.
• Skids makes reference to the pathblaster, a weapon wielded by Roadbuster in "Time Wars". His rant about the lowering standards of the MTO education system may have even been a direct reference to Roadbuster who, according to "Zero Point", went millions of years before even learning how to read.
• Ammo has Corrodia Gravis, a rusting disease introduced in the Marvel UK Transformers Annual 1990 story "Destiny of the Dinobots!".
• Hoist is an Evolutionary Engineerist, the IDW version of atechnogenesis: the belief that life came from "the naturally-occurring interaction of gears, levers, and pulleys", as foretold in #1 of the Marvel run.
• Hound is the one who catches Ravage, because of course he is.

Real-life references

• In televisual terms, this issue would be a bottle episode: a story that primarily consists of dialogue, and takes place in one setting. Bottle episodes were originally conceived as a money-saving venture, but the potential for tension and character-driven interactions they inherently possess has given them more value as storytelling devices; obviously, More than Meets the Eye doesn't save money by doing an issue this way!
• Having all the characters who were on the Lost Light from the outset disappear is a narrative trick in order to spend an issue or two developing and focusing on the newer characters whom the audience is unfamiliar with.
• The specific meaning of the Festival of Lost Light is not divulged here, but given its name, the fact that it involves the release of lanterns, and a song known as the "Hymn of the Disappeared", it seems to be a ceremony dedicated to remembering lost loved ones. In particular, it is evocative of Japan's Tōrō nagashi ceremony, in which lanterns are released to light the way to the afterlife for the souls of the dead.
• Multiple references to the British education system here! Ofsted XVII gets the bulk of them. It's named after Ofsted, the British government department which oversees schools; it's labelled an "A Level" planet, in reference to the English academic qualification, the A-level; the imposition of tuition fees are a barbed jab at the tuition fees brought in, and jacked up, for universities; and the takeover and rebranding, with the "TM", by the "Academic" arm, may be a reference to the introduction of academy schools in the English system by the then-government. The reduced cultural curriculum for M.T.O.'s may also be references to the British educational system.

• Chromedome remarks that Ethics were Ofsted's "Specialist Subject", a term that, while generic-sounding, is almost certainly a reference to the British TV quiz show Mastermind. Similarly, the tessellated hexagonal tiles on the subscription cover are extremely reminiscent of the British TV quiz show Blockbusters.
• The ten-step program borrows its term from the Twelve-step program used for substance addictions.
• "Information creep" is a term used by Wikipedia to describe the slow feed of information into an article that winds up shifting its perspective and/or readability over time.
• Dipstick was constructed cold to take part in "Operation: Doom Patrol", a reference to the DC Comics superhero team, the Doom Patrol.
• Among the assorted types of Spark the crew are shown to have, only Nautica has an "estriol-positive" one. Estriol is one of the three main estrogens produced by the human body, indicating that being a female Transformer is not just about the shape of your chassis, but goes all the way to the Spark. Belatedly realizing the potentially offensive connotations of defining female Transformers in this way (casting them as an "abnormality", and reinforcing a binary gender system), Roberts requested that this be removed in the trade paperback collection, which instead lists her as "ferrum-positive." He later said that he also thought it was lazy writing to have gender be down to sparktypes and to use a feminine name.^[1]

Errors

• The scale of many bots is off this issue - Tailgate is shown to come up to Ratchet's shoulder, for instance.
• On page 2, when Drift says "Of course...! This is the Hymn for the Disappeared.)", it should have a parentheses at the start of the phrase, like how his aside was in the previous panel.
• On page 4, Ammo is drawn without his cannon on his left arm, where on page 5 he has it on the left forearm. Considering how he still has it on his left arm in page 14, this is probably an artistic error.
• On page 11, Megatron channels his inner Grimlock, saying of Ravage "He unconscious" rather than "He's unconscious". This was fixed in the trade paperback.
• On page 12, as Megatron communicates with Ravage chirolinguistically, the cassette's name is misspelled "Ravege". This was fixed in the trade paperback.
• On page 15, the word "discovered" is split over two lines into "discove red" in Getaway's speech bubble, but there's no connecting hyphen, nor is it split where a hyphen would be allowed to divide the word in the first place. This was fixed in the trade paperback.
• On page 16, when Nightbeat is attempting to find out Megatron's method of construction "It seems" is written as "I seems". This was fixed in the trade paperback.

Crew manifest

• It is revealed that Riptide was supposed to be on the ship when it departed originally, but was waylaid.
• If Nightbeat's deductions are correct, the disappearance of the Pyrobots in #28 means they were part of the original crew.
  • Confirmed previous crew: Ammo, Huffer, Gears
    • At least 33/79 original crew still on board, 2 departed
  • Confirmed new arrivals: none this issue
    • At least 17 new crew members since second launch

Soundtrack

• "S (Studio Version)" by Labradford^[2]
• "Lost Property" by The Divine Comedy^[3]

Other trivia

• A preliminary title for this issue was "Murder in the Dark".
• When Nautica explains how the quantum generators work using improbability, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a deliberate nod to the Infinite Improbability Drive from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In actuality, James Roberts has never read the series, and came up with the idea entirely independently.^[4]
• Four "Meet the Crew"-style cast lists are sprinkled throughout the issue as a means of cataloguing who disappears, with each vanished crewmember being greyed out. Each lists also provide for the audience an assortment of information about the characters as Nightbeat requests it in-story. These pages do not count towards the 22-page total of the story itself, so there are noticeably fewer ad pages in the back of the comic. All those extra pages are kept for the trade paperback.
• A quick forged/constructed cold checklist from this issue:
  • Forged: Crosscut, Skids, Nautica, Huffer, Swerve, Hoist, Tailgate, Cyclonus, Hound, Ratchet
  • Constructed cold (first wave): Gears, Blaster, Chromedome, Nightbeat
  • Constructed cold (second wave): Getaway, Ammo, Riptide, Dipstick
• While he actively protests revealing his origin, Megatron's status as a Point One Percenter confirms him as being forged. Or does it?
• Highbrow is listed as constructed cold but his wave is not given, presumably because Ratchet doesn't know it. (Although Highbrow is listed as a member of the pre-war Malware Brigade, the group hypothetically could have still been active post-war.)
• We likewise learn the names of a number of Sparktypes; there are at least seven, presumably eight:
  • Vitreous-Positive: Chromedome, Riptide (a type shared by Rewind and Whirl, as we learned back in issue #12.)
  • Vitreous-Negative: Crosscut, Skids, Ammo
  • Isomeric-Positive: Blaster, Getaway, Nightbeat
  • Isomeric-Negative: Gears, Hoist, Dipstick, Ratchet, Highbrow
  • Ferrum-Positive: Huffer, Hound, Swerve, Nautica (in trade collection)
  • Ferrum-Negative: Cyclonus, Tailgate
  • Estriol-Positive: Nautica (retconned away for the trade)

• Other intriguing character points revealed on these cast pages include: Crosscut has a phobia of Nanocons; Getaway has shown purported signs of affinity for the Matrix; Nautica is a possible outlier; Ammo is a Monoformer; Swerve is a practising Adaptusian and has been diagnosed with logorrhea; Riptide has an unreliable transformation cog; Dipstick's alt mode is "redundant"; and Hound was formerly part of the Primal Vanguard.
• The "Thaw to War" tagline is another one of those verbal gags that only works if you imagine it spoken with Roberts's British accent; then, the words rhyme.
• The 30th Anniversary cover by Phil Jimenez and Romulo Fajardo Jr. is based on the Generations Thrilling 30 Deluxe Class Nightbeat figure (which was released shortly after this issue came out)... well, in theory, at least. The artwork is actually based on earlier plans for the Nightbeat figure as a redeco and retool of the 2010 Transformers Reveal the Shield Special Ops Jazz figure, before Hasbro changed its plans and decided to give the Generations Thrilling 30 Deluxe Class Bumblebee figure a new head and redeco it into Nightbeat instead. The same artwork was also used for the "Hasbro exclusive cover" of the comic that was included with said Nightbeat toy.

Foreign Localization

Swedish

• Title: "Tjugo plus en" ("Twenty Plus One")
  • Nautica's Sparktype is retained as Estriol-Positive for this edition.

Covers (3)

• Regular cover: Megatron, Ratchet, Nautica, Chromedome, and an unknown 5th bot in a standoff, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
• Subscription cover: Mosaic tiles of the twenty characters in this issue, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham
• 30th Anniversary cover: Nightbeat by Phil Jimenez and Romulo Fajardo Jr..

• 

  The good, the bad-but-now-good, another good, another good, and hopefully someone ugly.

• 

  Count 'em, there's 20.

• 

  His mission: to find out why he has that body!

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• More than Meets the Eye #32
• Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark
• Machi Koro (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