Spike Witwicky makes a dramatic return, and with Optimus Prime away, Prowl sees an opportunity to settle an old grudge against the human. Unfortunately, Galvatron also has an interest in Spike...

Synopsis

In Nikko, Japan, Spike Witwicky and Jimmy Pink hunt down and disable a fleeing Mini-Constructicon, then use its systems to remotely hijack the display screens at technology corporation Onyx's highly publicized product launch for its new operating system, the Onyx Interface, in Tokyo. Over the link, Spike tells the assembled media that Onyx is in collusion with the Earth Defense Command, building weapons for them and secretly allying with Cybertronians, and encourages them to investigate the recent goings on in Poverty Flat. Spike kills the Mini-Constructicon to terminate the link, and the furious head of Onyx, Garrison Blackrock, demands that Marissa Faireborn be contacted.

Sent to observe the status of the E.D.C.'s Bikini Atoll headquarters, Cosmos comes under fire from the base's armament despite his stealth paint. Grumbling about his lot in life over his comm to Kup, Cosmos fends off what missiles he can until Sky Lynx and Sideswipe arrive to back him up. The pair encourage Cosmos to leave the fight to them, and he glumly takes cover inside Sky Lynx. There, he receives a call from Prowl, who informs he has just received "a very interesting Google alert" and orders them to return. Within the base, Sanjay Bharwaney updates Marissa Faireborn over a communications screen, noting as the Autobots withdraw that they never fired on anything other than the missiles. Faireborn instructs for there to be no pursuit, given that they know the Autobots' location already anyway; she and fellow operative Jones are already en route to respond to Blackrock's call. Barwhaney wonders if the Autobots' activities could be connected to Spike's reappearance, but Faireborn doubts it; the only connection she can see is the Autobots' own desire to see the human dead.

Aboard the Ark-7, orbiting the Moon, Jetfire tends to Alpha Trion, whose wavering health has not been helped by his and Optimus Prime's recent trip to the lunar surface. Prime asks Jetfire to step out a moment so he can have a private conversation with Trion, and the scientist does so, though not without making his annoyance at being kept out of the loop known. Optimus tells Alpha that he is heading back to Cybertron to try and learn more about the Enigma of Combination, though Trion realizes that isn't the only reason, as a certain anniversary is coming up. Prime apologizes for his sentimentality, but Trion only laughs and grants him his blessing. Prime heads for the hangar immediately; he leaves command to Prowl, but, wary of the police-bot's recent erraticism, warns him to make no unnecessary moves in his absence. After he takes off in the Skyroller, Prime hesitantly radios back to Arcee and asks her to keep an eye on Prowl, but unfortunately, things are already afoot. Suffering another "nosebleed" and overcome with anger, Prowl storms into his office and flips his desk, after which he is visited by Constructicons. Prowl orders them to get ready to head back to Earth; Mixmaster points out that Optimus said not to do anything, but all the others laugh at his "joke", and Prowl reveals that they are deployed because their mutual enemy Spike Witwicky has resurfaced.

Following their impromptu broadcast, Spike and Jimmy shed their gear and disguise themselves as ordinary tourists. Spike allays Jimmy's concerns about announcing his return, and instead regales him with the story of how he killed Scrapper, reminding him that Transformers are not invulnerable. As they blend into the crowd, Spike sends a text to someone, letting them know he will see them tomorrow.

Faireborn and Jones arrive at Onyx just as Blackrock is placating the media with the flimsy cover story that Spike's message was "actually" an accidental broadcast of footage from a new Onyx-produced video game. He quickly hurries the two agents into his office, where he angrily demands to know why more E.D.C. troops haven't shown up, since that would draw more attention to his product launch. A climate of fear increases sales of both weapons for the military and distractions for the people, and Blackrock is the business of both; he warns the flippant Faireborn not to forget that without him and the tech he provides, the E.D.C. is nothing.

In the Decepticons' warship, which has taken refuge on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, Galvatron has also taken an interest in Spike's broadcast, recognizing him as the son of General Witwicky and suspecting him to have knowledge of the Enigma of Combination. Scoop walks in on Galvatron as he is musing, earning him a brief throttling before he is able to tell Galvatron that Soundwave has requested his presence. Mocking Scoop's religious beliefs as nothing more than the drunken ramblings of 'bots from his era, Galvatron heads to his meeting with Soundwave, upon which the communications officer tells him that he will be leaving on a "personal errand". Galvatron is quick to hurry Soundwave off, professing absolute trust in his fellow Decepticon, but after Skywarp has teleported Soundwave on his way, the reason for Galvatron's alacrity is revealed as he gathers all the other Decepticons together and informs them he will be hunting down Spike. Granted the opportunity to torture and kill for the first time in too long, the Decepticons are only too eager to accompany him!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
Cosmos (5) Kup (6) Sky Lynx (7) Sideswipe (8) Prowl (9) Arcee (13) Optimus Prime (14) Jetfire (16) Alpha Trion (17)	Mini-Constructicon (2) Galvatron (23) Skywarp (25) Soundwave (26) Laserbeak (27) Buzzsaw (28) Rumble (29) Blitzwing (30) Frenzy (31)	Garrison Blackrock (1) Spike Witwicky (3) Jimmy Pink (4) Sanjay Bharwaney (10) Marissa Faireborn (11) Ayana Jones (11)	D.0.C. (15) Mixmaster (18) Hook (19) Long Haul (20) Bonecrusher (21) Scavenger (22) Scoop (24)

Quotes

"I'm getting a little sick of sticking my neck out for pictures of stuff we already know."
"You call that a neck? Now, this is a neck. And that reminds of a funny story about necks. Back before the revolution, back when I was hauling—er, back when I was supervising operations on—Oh! Excuse me."
"You're worse than Kup."

—Cosmos and Sky Lynx

"This is rad. Even if you miss them, the missiles come right back to you can shoot them again! It's what being an Autobot is all about!"

—Sideswipe, having a bit too much fun

"We don't have much in common with the Autobots but neither of us has any love for Spike Witwicky. At worst—once they learn he's resurfaced... it'll be a race to see who puts a bullet in him first."

—Marissa Faireborn

""Chosen One." The inane ramblings of my era become the ancient superstitions of yours. Alchemist Prime had consumed twelve drams of rancid Engex when he dreamed up your "Chosen One"."

—Galvatron

"We are not Autobots—not most of us, anyway. We do not mistrust each other such that we need permission to go outside."

—Galvatron

Notes

Continuity notes

The Mini-Constructicons were subordinates of Ramjet, only previously seen in his self-titled Spotlight issue. This one is (well, was) the only surviving one, the rest of them having been destroyed by the end of that story.
Jimmy Pink was, along with Verity Carlo and Hunter O'Nion, one of the Autobots' human allies during Simon Furman's tenure on the original IDW books. Though Verity and Hunter made some appearances in IDW continuity following Furman's departure, this is Jimmy's first appearance since Maximum Dinobots #5, published over five years prior to this issue.
Spike Witwicky reappears after going underground in issue #29 of the 2009-2011 ongoing series, three years prior.
Poverty Flat was the town in which the Autobots and Decepticons battled back in issue #30.
Optimus's departure for Cybertron leads directly into his role in Punishment, released a few months earlier. Punishment would explain that the "anniversary" Trion references is the anniversary of Orion Pax becoming Optimus Prime, as seen in Autocracy #9.
While expressing concerns about Starscream's leadership, Optimus mentions an explosion; this blast took place in Windblade vol. 1 #1, later revealed to be the work of Chromia.
Prowl flips a table, a characteristic of his oft-mentioned in More than Meets the Eye, previously seen in action in issue #1 of that series.
Jimmy has Spike tell him about his execution of Scrapper, which took place in issue #8 of the ongoing.
Jimmy recalls Hunter O'Nion's death, from All Hail Megatron #12.
We learn that Blackrock is responsible for building the E.D.C.'s Transformer army, which we glimpsed in issue #32. It was also in that issue that Galvatron learned about Spike and the fact he was General Witwicky's son.
We discovered that Scoop was on Earth, working as a spy for Starscream, in issue #33.
Arcee's paint scheme changes from the orangey-red acquired in Dark Cybertron to her traditional pink from this issue onward, which colorist Josh Perez confirmed] was in the issue's script.^[1]
The Constructicons laugh at a 'joke' from one of their members, à la All Hail Megatron #1.

Transformers references

This issue debuts the 2005 IDW incarnation of G.B. Blackrock, an Autobot ally from the original Marvel comic book series. It was never revealed what his initials stood for, so he is here been given the new first name of "Garrison".
Kup remarks that he "always believed" Cosmos had potential, akin to his praise of Hot Rod in The Transformers: The Movie ("I always knew you had potential, lad!")
The Decepticons' warship is revealed to be named the Nemesis, after the Decepticons' original spacecruiser from the Generation 1 cartoon's pilot mini-series (though it was only named retroactively, in the Beast Wars episode, "Nemesis Part 1".) It has hidden itself on the ocean floor, in homage to the Decepticons' undersea headquarters from the cartoon.
Continuing on from last issue's introduction of several of the Thirteen into the original IDW continuity, drawing on the Aligned continuity family versions of the characters as detailed in The Covenant of Primus, Galvatron names another of the IDW Thirteen, Alchemist Prime.

Real-life references

This issue is named after the Mission of Burma album, Signals, Calls, and Marches.
An "onyx" is a "black rock", y'gettit?
Sky Lynx paraphrases the classic "You call that a knife?"/"This is a knife" exchange from "Crocodile" Dundee, quoted above.

Errors

On page 5, panel 1, "Cybertronians" is misspelled "Cybertonians". This is corrected in the trade.
It's a little odd to hear Jimmy call Hunter his "best friend", given that he knew Verity longer and only knew Hunter for the duration of their time with the Autobots.

Edits

Similar to the pack-in versions of various other existing IDW comics, the version of this issue available with the Generations Combiner Wars Deluxe Class Blades toy was also subject to some changes:

On page 9 (not counting the "Previously" page that's missing in the trade paperback collection and the pack-in version), Sideswipe's first speech bubble in panel 1 has "I guess Cosmus just makes a better camera than a gun." changed to "I guess Cosmus just makes a better camera than a blaster."
On page 10, Marissa Faireborn's speech bubble in panel 5 is changed from "…it'll be a race to see who puts a bullet in him first." to "…it'll be a race to see who gets him first.", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
On page 14, Prowl's first speech bubble in panel 1 has "and they all want to kill us." changed to "and they all want to destroy us."; Optimus Prime's first speech bubble in the same panel, "Everyone always wants us dead.", is omitted entirely; and his subsequent two speech bubbles, as well as Prowl's second speech bubble in the same panel, are all moved to different positions as a consequence, with Prime's second speech bubble additionally also being changed from "It's in the job description." to "That's in the job description."
On page 16, Prowl's speech bubble in panel five has "If you could kill any living creature in the universe" changed to "If you could blast any living creature in the universe".
Four edits on page 17: Jimmy Pink's speech bubble in panel 2 has "You really killed one, once?" changed to "You really destroyed one, once?"; his speech bubble in panel 3 has "Cybertronians got my best friend murdered" changed to "Cybertronians took my best friend away"; Spike's speech bubble in the same panel is changed from "I killed a Constructicon with some common household goods." to "I destroyed a Constructicon with some common household goods."; and his third speech bubble in panel 4, "…you can kill them.", is omitted entirely, thus leaving the last sentence fragment from his previous speech bubble, "And if you can hurt them…", unfinished. On top of that, the overlap of his subsequent speech bubble, "Now, act like a tourist." and Jimmy's follow-up question, "How do you do that?", is changed: Instead of Jimmy's speech bubble overlapping Spike's speech bubble, Spike's speech bubble now overlaps Jimmy's.
On page 19, Garrison Blackrock's second speech bubble in panel 3 is changed from "Fear sells guns." to "Fear sells weapons.", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.
Three edits on page 22: Galvatron's second speech bubble in panel 2 has "I understand he has killed Decepticons" changed to "I understand he has destroyed Decepticons"; his third speech bubble in panel 3 has "I would torture him" changed to "I would question him"; and his fourth speech bubble in the same panel is changed from "Then I shall—not hurriedly—end his life." to "Then I shall—not hurriedly—end his existence.", with the speech bubble itself resized accordingly.

Other notes

Starting with this issue, the series drops the Robots in Disguise sub-title and is re-branded as simply The Transformers, to avoid conflict with the then-upcoming Robots in Disguise line, including a tie-in comic published by IDW themselves.
When originally solicited, the regular cover to this issue featured a "Rising Sun" graphic, illustrating that the story takes place in Japan (pictured at right). For the finished issue, this was replaced with the moon.

Foreign Localization

Swedish

Title: "Onyx Del ett: Signaler, kallelser och marscher" ("Onyx Part One: Signals, Callings, and Marches")

Covers (4)

Regular cover: The image of Prowl looms over Spike in Japan, by Andrew Griffith and Priscilla Tramontano
Subscription cover: Prowl looks smug as Optimus leaves and Arcee looks on, by Casey Coller and Priscilla Tramontano
30th Anniversary cover: The first in November's series of three 30th Anniversary covers by Andrew Griffith, depicting Starscream in his coronation regalia from The Transformers: The Movie
Hasbro exclusive cover: Artwork of Blades from the Transformers Legends mobile game by Ken Christiansen and Volta, exclusively available with Generations Deluxe Blades. Rebranded as Combiner Wars #11.

"I'm watching you Spike!"
"Muahahahaha"
"I finally got my coronation!"
Hasbro exclusive comic included with Blades toy.

Robots in Disguise #36
More than Meets the Eye #35
Primacy #4
Drift - Empire of Stone
Machi Koro
Angry Birds Transformers (back cover)

Reprints

The Transformers Volume 7: Combiner Wars First Strike (April 8, 2015) ISBN 1631402854 / ISBN 978-1631402852
- Collects The Transformers (2012) issues #33–38.
- Bonus material includes covers from each issue.

Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 64: Windblade (August 9, 2017)
- Collects Windblade (2014) issues #1–4, and The Transformers (2012) issues #35–38.
- Includes a bio for Windblade, an overview of her conception, pictures of her Thrilling 30 toy, and early design sketches by Hasbro.

The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 8 (December 5, 2018) ISBN 1684053722 / ISBN 978-1684053728
- Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #35–38 & #39–40, The Transformers (2012) issues #35–38, Punishment issues #1–5, and Drift - Empire of Stone issues #1–4.

Transformers: Optimus Prime - Tillbaka till jorden (February 15, 2023)
- Collects Robots in Disguise issues #28–32 & #34–38, and Punishment issues #1–5.
- Swedish reprint. Hardcover format.

Volume 7: Combiner Wars First Strike – cover art by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente
The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 64: Windblade – cover art by Guido Guidi (Starscream) and Saren Stone (retro)
The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 8 – cover art by Marcelo Matere and Tom B. Long
Tillbaka till jorden – cover art by Casey Coller and Joana Lafuente