« The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #32 »
Wait a minute, Mainframe's on the cover? How did that happen?
"slaughterhouse"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 27, 2014
Cover date	August 2014
Written by	James Roberts
Art by	Alex Milne
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2014)

Horrors await the small group of Autobots as they explore the wreckage of the Lost Light, but all is not as it appears...

Synopsis

Overcoming their shock at the sight of the ruined Lost Light, torn into three chunks and bleeding quantum foam, the remaining crew of the Rodpod conclude that, somehow, this is the time-displaced future version of the ship from which the coffin containing Rodimus's dead body originated. Setting down inside the wreckage to investigate, they soon realise that their impromptu landing pad appears to be Swerve's, only it seems to have been refashioned as a playhouse, rather than a bar; a poster for a showing of Information Creep, the play Crosscut is currently working on, seems to confirm that the ship is from the future. Megatron brings out Ravage to help in sniffing out the crew, though no-one is particularly pleased to see the cat-bot allowed to roam free. Nautica tries to be friendly, but makes the cardinal mistake of treating Ravage like a pet, and, suitably chastized by a swipe of his claws, decides to head off with Nightbeat to fix the quantum generators and stop the foam leakage. Presently, Ravage locates Ultra Magnus—or rather, Minimus Ambus, slaughtered and stripped of the Magnus Armor post-mortem, which lies nearby. Skids identifies the fatal blast-wound in Ambus's side as having been caused by a fusion cannon, and immediately turns on Megatron; the former Decepticon retorts that his fusion cannon was destroyed following his change of allegiance, and that furthermore, he had no knowledge of Minimus Ambus within the armor. But as Skids points out, as the ship is from their future, he now does possess that knowledge and could potentially act on it in that future. Shaken, Megatron realizes that it is actually not impossible for him to be responsible for the death and devastation, and suggests that he and Ravage be locked up until more answers are forthcoming.

In another section of the ship, Nightbeat and Nautica make their way to the engine rooms, talking about the strangeness of recent events. Recalling the appearance of the deceased Rewind's "data ghost" leads Nightbeat to ask Nautica about her own romantic past, and from there to the topic of pair-bonding in general on Caminus; the engineer is amused by his bluntness, and asks the same questions of him. As they enter an elevator, extra gizmos added to Nautica's wrench by Brainstorm deliver a report on the local surroundings, identifying local space as "worn down", with many signs of extensive recent teleportation activity. At that point, Nautica's foot bumps into something on the floor... Brainstorm's briefcase.

Locked in a cupboard together, an angry Ravage attacks Megatron, accusing him of betrayal and hoping that shadowplay is responsible for his change of heart, which Megatron denies. Ravage tells him that Galvatron is now in charge of the Decepticons, but that he will be abandoned immediately if Megatron but gives the word; Megatron despairs over the toxicity of Decepticon loyalty, and correctly deduces that Ravage was sent to spy on him by Soundwave, and that he was responsible for the attempted jailbreak during his trial. In response to Ravage's allegation that Megatron is unsure of his identity for the first time in his life, Megatron explains that his change of heart was motivated by the fact that, during his last talk with Optimus Prime prior to the Chaos event, he had spoken harsh words that he had intended only to wound Prime... only to realize that he believed them, and that he hated the person he had become. Ravage claims that in years to come, Megatron will laugh at this notion, but Megatron admits to feeling old, and believes that the Megatron he once was is dead. Before the conversation can go any deeper, the lights flick on, repaired by the other Autobots... illuminating the dead bodies of Ratchet, Drift, and Hound in the cupboard's corner! Examining the bodies, Megatron finds their brain modules torn out and stuffed into their mouths, which gives him all the information he needs to identify the murderers...

Nightbeat opens Brainstorm's briefcase, only to find it empty, leading him and Nautica to theorize everything from invisible gas to a cloaking device to outright theft to explain the lack of contents... unaware that local space/time has begun warping around them, causing their conversation to occur out of sequence. The elevator opens to a gruesome sight: Tailgate's dead body, impaled on a bulkhead! But Nightbeat's attention is drawn by a greater mystery: a flight of stairs leading to a lower level, when they are already supposed to be on the lowest deck of the ship.

Showed up just to die! It happens sometimes.‎

Skids and Getaway continue their exploration of the ship, talking about Megatron and their changing attitude toward him as they go. They catch up to Riptide just as he has made an horrific discovery—a room full of corpses, every one in alternate mode, with two puncture holes in each of them. Reminded of the practice of cerebral dowsing—the ability to deduce the location of a Transformer's brain module while they are in alt mode—Skids realizes that all the dead have been shot in the "head", and that the secondary holes were bored in order to remove their transformation cogs. Just as Skids is getting to grips with this discovery, Nightbeat contacts him over the comm, and reveals that they have found Overlord's dead body in the slow cell beneath the ship. Megatron then joins the call, and everyone pools their knowledge and realizes they have come to the same conclusion: the Lost Light has been attacked by the Decepticon Justice Division.

Everyone regroups in Swerve's and prepares to depart with all due haste, though first, they have to bring the befuddled Nautica up to speed: the brain modules in the corpse mouths were the work of Helex, while the fusion cannon that slew Magnus belonged to Tarn, who also removed the transformation cogs of the dead to feed his transformation addiction. Megatron believes the DJD are acting in response to his denouncement of the Decepticon cause, but Nightbeat points out that evidence suggests that the ship is not simply from the future: Overlord and the cell containing were jettisoned from the ship some time in the past, and should not be there any more, suggesting that past events somehow played out differently on this version of the ship. A surge of energy and tremor caused by the ship's reaction to the quantum foam rocks the team, but Nautica refuses to leave as they haven't finished searching for survivors. Megatron is certain that the DJD will have left none... until Ravage picks up a new scent, and, huddled within the Magnus Armor... Megatron finds the still-living form of Rewind.

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks. Those who appear in the present as corpses are marked with asterisks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Nautica: "Okay, so it's been ripped apart, but—that's our ship!"
Getaway: "Er—the ship we just saw disappear..."
Riptide: "Two words: paradox."
Skids: "Riptide's right, even if his spelling isn't."

Nautica: "That's quantum foam...and it's not supposed to be exposed to naked space. I think it's mutated. Best not to fly too close. I suspect the merest graze would-"
Riptide flies too close to the foam, damaging the ship*
Getaway: "Did you do that on purpose?"
Riptide: "No! Why would I do that on purpose?"
Getaway: "Because you strike me as one of those "don't push the button" types.
'Don't push the button' / 'Why not?' / (presses button) / BOOM!"
Riptide: "...Ridiculous."

"Nuh-uh! It's not Ultra Magnus, which makes this a fail... I'm just waiting for confirmation from the judges and... oh! Not only is it a fail, but it's been placed in the epic category."

—Riptide on Ravage's tracking ability

"Do you have a Conjunx Endura? Or any Amica Endurae? Do they practise any form of elective kinship on Caminus? Why are you smiling?"
"Because you! Your questions! Anyone else would sidle up to a subject like that..."
"Gah, who's got time to tiptoe?"
"Well, the answers are no, yes, and yes. What about you? Ever had a sparkmate?"
"Nah. But then, I am pretty insufferable."
...
"Silent howls of protest."

—Nightbeat and Nautica

"I love my wrench."
"Is it technically a wrench?"
"It's a wrench-slash-scanner-slash-everything. Brainstorm added a billion extras. See? There's even a light that goes on when I'm exaggerating."

—Nautica and Nightbeat

"I once told Optimus I killed for the sake of killing. I wanted to make him hurt me, you see—because when he hurts others, he hurts himself. And the thing is, when the words were in my head I didn't think I meant them; but when they left my mouth, I realized that I did. If the world thinks you're a monster, what does it matter? The world is wrong. But when you start to think of yourself as a monster... I came to hate the person I'd become. And I decided that the best way to leave that person behind—perhaps the easiest way—was to become an Autobot."

—Megatron on his change of allegiance

"Look at me, Ravage. I'm old. Old and weak. Their poison makes me brittle, but even at full strength, I'm long past my prime. My spark flickers where once it flared. And this body... oh, this nonsense body. It doesn't graft to the spark like the others. There's no purchase. No bite."
"I don't like to hear you talk like this."
"Why?"
"Because it's not you! The Megatron who tore down the Senate—who emancipated millions; the Megatron we followed; the Megatron we loved... what happened to him?"
"I don't know. I think he's dead."
"Dead? Or just resting?"

—Megatron and Ravage

"Well done for Megatron. That was bomp-worthy."
"It's weird, though. I almost wanted to apologize for locking him in... I worry I'm going to stop hating him."
"A Decepticon kills an Autobot, you hate him. But a million Autobots? A billion? It's meaningless. That's the problem: the greater the crime, the harder it is to process a response."

—Getaway and Skids

"It's a game, Nautica—an old wartime favorite. When someone shouts D.J.D. you have to find your friends and run like hell."

—Getaway

Notes

Continuity notes

• Though nobody points it out, the web of red quantum foam looks an aaaaawful lot like blood. This is not first "bleeding spaceship" we've seen in More than Meets the Eye—there was the Worldsweeper back in issue #7, though that was actually blood.
• We learned about Crosscut's play Information Creep last issue. As this is not the future, we can safely assume that without most of the disruptive More Than Meets The Eye plots going on here, Crosscut just had more free time to work on it.
• A one-panel flashback shows Megatron being made to melt his fusion cannon in a vat of acid under the watchful eyes of Jetfire and Optimus Prime; there's a similarity here to an imaginary sequence seen in issue #7 (again) in which, after the hypothetical end of conflict, Megatron prepares to dispose of his weapon in a similar bubbling vat.
• We learn about another form of Transformer pair-bonding in addition to the Conjunx Endura this issue, the "Amica Endura". Though Nightbeat doesn't expand on the concept, it seems logical to assume that this is a Transformery version of a "best friend"—this was later confirmed by James Roberts.^[1]
• Ravage mentions Galvatron's stewardship of the Decepticons, which is playing out over in sister title Robots in Disguise.
• Ravage is also revealed to be responsible for freeing the Decepticons from the Lost Light brig in issue #28.
• When Megatron recalls his talk with Optimus Prime, he is remembering the events of "Chaos Theory Part 1" and the notable speech he gave in that issue.
• Skids mentions a friend who used cerebral dowsing to tell where the brain was in any alt-mode. Given what we learn later on there's a good chance he's talking about Glitch.
• As starts to become apparent as the issue builds towards its climax, there's clearly some timey-wimeyness at play here, and this is not simply a future version of the Lost Light—the slow cell, Overlord and Rewind were all, ah, dispatched one way or another in issue #15 and should no longer be on the ship, nor should Drift, who appears among the corpses despite being exiled in issue #16. Note the... tactful positioning of Tailgate's dead body so as not to give this away ahead of time: he has been impaled through the chest, so we can't see if he's got the Autobot insignia he received shortly before issue #28, and only "Disposal" can be glimpsed on his right arm—we can't tell if it says "Bomb" or "Waste", the switch between the two having taken place in issue #21—thereby eliminating the markings that we would be able to use to identify a future version of Tailgate as he is now. We do, however, get one small hint at the truth: the energon splattered around Tailgate's corpse is green, curdled as a result of the cybercrosis that he was cured of in issue #21.
• Getaway's noises about a "response" to Megatron are a covert part of his story arc, which will become apparent in issue 50.
• We can probably safely presume that it was to this "alternate" Lost Light that the DJD went following their detection of Overlord's signal at the conclusion of issue #8, explaining why they never appeared to vex our heroes in the course of regular events.
• And speaking of issue #8, it's logical to wonder if the deaths on the Necrobot's list back in that story might not be recordings of the passings of these "alternate" 'bots.

Transformers references

• Skids exclaims "By the Celestial Spires", an exclamation commonly seen in the Marvel UK comics.

Real-world references

• Quantum foam is also the name of a real concept in quantum mechanics.
• Nautica's upgraded wrench is a pretty clear take-off on the sonic screwdriver of Doctor Who fame, in particular the highly multifunctional version of the device seen in the 2005 series.
• Getaway's feelings about the scale of Megatron's crimes (see quote above) are reminiscent of a famous statement dubiously attributed to another mass-murdering tyrant, Joseph Stalin: "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic."
• Skids references Tarn's "morphing addiction", which is a soundalike for "morphine addiction".

Crew manifest

• Of "our" Lost Light crew, only Megatron, Getaway, Nautica, Nightbeat, Riptide, Skids, and stowaway Ravage are left. All other crewmembers have disappeared.
• All are dead on the alternate Lost Light except for Rewind.

Soundtrack

• "Dark" by Low^[2]
• "Dirge" by Death in Vegas^[3]
• "Waiting Rooms" by Simon Warner^[4]

Roberts singled out one more song, but noted that he resisted making it the issue's theme "in case you'd had enough Divine Comedy":

• "Note to Self" by The Divine Comedy (band)^[5]

Other trivia

• As noted in the synopsis, when Nightbeat and Nautica open Brainstorm's briefcase, the six-panel scene plays "out of order", with each panel making no sense if read directly after the preceding one. The clue for readers to deduce the proper reading order is in the large floor numbers that change as the lift descends through the ship's levels; reading the panels in descending order from Level 06 to Level 01 will reveal the proper conversation. This is quite deliberate, and not any kind of printing error or glitch in your digital copy, kids!
• Many of the dead characters appear in vehicle mode for the first time in the series, making it hard to identify them! In particular, once-and-former Action Masters Rad, Rollout, and Powerflash get alternate modes for the first time in Transformers fiction; fellow Action Master Jackpot—sitting to the right of Blades above the door—has been mostly covered by a speech balloon.
• Despite Megatron's explicit order after the formation of the Decepticons, as revealed in issue #28, Whirl is not spared by the Division. Real loyal, guys. Roberts would later clarify that the order to spare Whirl can be ignored if he's directly threatening the soldier's life, which is the DJD's excuse to get around the order. In issue #39, Tarn would also mention the team was high on Nuke when they began killing everyone.
• Overlord's seemingly passive acceptance of a saw to the neck despite showing he can escape his restraints with ease makes a lot more sense when you remember how suicidal he was at this point.
• The main cover features Magnus, Whirl, Perceptor, Mainframe and Ratchet fighting back-to-back. Page 21 seems to show the outcome of that fight, as all are shown getting killed except for Ratchet, who's been replaced by Swerve.

Foreign Localization

Swedish

• Title: "slakthuset Del 1" ("slaughterhouse Part 1")

Covers (3)

• Regular cover: Ultra Magnus, Whirl, Ratchet, Perceptor, and Mainframe in battle, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
• Subscription cover: Nightbeat and Nautica atop Brainstorm's briefcase, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham, in homage to a classic X-Files promotional image.
• 30th Anniversary cover: The fused Megatron/Ratchet monstrosity from issue #70 of the Marvel Comics series, by Casey Coller and John-Paul Bove, continuing this month's 30th Anniversary cover theme of Marvel moments. Slightly less horrifying than the contents of the issue.

• 

  Mainframe: Ok Roberts! I swear to God, for every issue I don't star in, someone dies!

• 

  The truth is in here!

• 

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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: Best of Megatron (March 2, 2022)
  • Collects The Transformers (1984) #70: "The Pri¢e of Life!", Megatron Origin #1, The Transformers (2009) #22: "Chaos Theory Part 1", Autocracy #7: "Choices", and More than Meets the Eye #32: "slaughterhouse".
  • Bonus material includes an art gallery.
  • Comic 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

• 

  Best of Megatron – cover art by James Biggie

• 

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

References

External links

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