ROBOTS IN DISGUISE

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Cover by Andrew Griffith Colors by Josh Perez
Collection Edits by Justin Eisinger and Alonzo Simon
Collection Design by Jeff Powell

Special thanks to Hasbro’s Aaron Archer, Rik Alvarez, Jerry Jivoin, Michael Verret, Ed Lane,
Joe Furfaro, Jos Huxley, Andy Schmidt, and Michael Kelly for their invaluable assistance.

THE TRANSFORMERS: ROBOTS IN DISGUISE, VOLUME 1. JULY 2012. FIRST PRINTING. HASBRO and its logo, TRANSFORMERS, and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with
permission. © 2012 Hasbro. All Rights Reserved. IDW Publishing, a division of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Editorial offices: 5080 Santa Fe St., San Diego, CA 92109. The IDW logo is registered
in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this
publication may be reprinted without the permission of Idea and Design Works, LLC. Printed in Korea. IDW Publishing does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork.

Originally published as THE TRANSFORMERS: ROBOTS IN DISGUISE Issues #1–5.

ROBOTS IN DISGUISE

WRITTEN BY JOHN BARBER

ART BY ANDREW GRIFFITH
ADDITIONAL ART BY CASEY COLLER
COLORS BY JOSH PEREZ
LETTERS BY SHAWN LEE
SERIES EDITS BY CARLOS GUZMAN
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BY ANDREW GRIFFITH COLORS BY JOSH PEREZ
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 ISSUE #3 NOTES
BY JOHN BARBER, ANDREW GRIFFITH, AND JOSH PEREZ.

PAGE 1

We’ve got Prowl here playing his own little agenda and
manipulating events. How far do you see him going for
the cause?

JOHN BARBER: That is a central question to the whole

next year of TRANSFORMERS: ROBOTS IN DISGUISE. Plus
the other question remains—how far did he go already?
At this point, we saw (spoiler alert if you haven’t read last
issue) Arcee take out Ratbat, who was making a play for
Decepticon leadership. There was an enigmatic conversation
between Arcee and Prowl afterward. Was Prowl displaying a
conscience or was he getting his story straight with Arcee?

And if you saw the way Ratbat went down, you know this
is stretching credulity pretty far past the point of breaking.
Prowl’s exerting control: It doesn’t matter what the reality is,
what’s true is what he says is true. We’ll get a better peek
into Prowl’s head next issue.

ANDREW GRIFFITH: How far will Starscream go? As far as

he has to, I’d imagine. To me, I think this new status quo
is exactly the kind of situation Starscream seems to have
been made for. He’s always been that scheming character
who wanted power more for its own sake than for the sake
of the ideology. But in the end, he’s always failed. He failed
to usurp Megatron in Infiltration [the first IDW-published
TRANSFORMERSE comic book series] he failed to lead the
Decepticons to any more than a sad existence on an asteroid
during Megatron’s absence (even with the Matrix in-hand),
and he failed to even convince Thundercracker to join his
cause.
But now he’s got a new world with an upended status quo
where he can use his smooth-talking and opportunistic
tendencies to weasel himself into a position among the
inner circle of the new government. The lack of established
power and trust among all groups just seems ideal for old
Screamer. And he’s just getting started. I think his smoothest
move yet may come during the opening pages of issue 4. But
the question remains just how much of his agenda is on the
up-and-up and how much is something yet unsaid.
JOSH PEREZ: I can see Prowl going as far as he needs to
in order to maintain a hand over any possible Decepticon
uprisings. Unfortunately, though, I can imagine that covering
up so many things won’t be something people will look
fondly upon once the cover is blown, should his cover-ups be
revealed to the masses.
And we’ve got a sixth Aerialbot in Barrel Roll. Where did
he/his design come from and can we expect to see more
in this sub-group?
JB: I realized there was another Aerialbot in different
Transformers continuities, so I thought it might be cool to
play with that. The Aerialbots haven’t been really solidly
established as having a definite number in this particular run
of comics. But I wasn’t sure that particular character really
made sense, so I think—if I remember right—I threw out
the idea of using a Minicon in his place. And then Andrew
used Barrel Roll for what I remember being a solid set of
reasons—Andrew?
AG: Well, he’s an open book, as far as IDW goes. And John
had a mere two or three pages to make the reader care about
him before he bites the dust. Here’s a guy who genuinely
believes in the righteousness of the Autobot point of view,
reminiscent of how a lot of us view Bumblebee without the
burden of leadership. And on this harsh new Cybertron, interaction on this page that I want more of these crazy
the facts of life don’t have the capacity to worry whether little Prowl and Starscream situations. For some reason
you are an innocent or not. He was just in the wrong I see Prowl as Carlton Lassiter to Starscream’s Shawn
place at the wrong time doing the right thing. Spencer on this page (Psych reference ahoy!).

As far his design, it was really just a case of taking his And Cybertron is still doing weird things. There’s a
minion design and retooling it a bit to fit the quasi-WfC real feeling of evolution here.
aesthetic we’ve established.
JB: The idea is that the city is growing a little, day by
JP: I like seeing these random guys in the books— day. These first three issues have all been pretty much
cannon-fodder or not, it’s a pleasure to see characters direct continuations from each other. This is the day after
you never thought you’d see. Barrel Roll is one of those Bumblebee (seemingly) blew up Horri-Bull. So we’ll see
characters I was happy to see in the book; I have a huge some more construction going on next issue, and we’ll
love for Minicons. John did a fantastic job of giving us see a little of what’s going out outside the city, too. By
an idea of who Barrel Roll was—and I love Andrew’s issue 5 there’s a pretty noticeable difference in the
design on him! All I really did was try to match his colors environment, thanks to Andrew.
up with his Minicon iteration’s color scheme. In a team
of silver, white, red, black, and gold- green is the new AG: Well, I only go as far as the script allows. One of the
red shirt, I guess! challenges of this book has been getting the growth of
the city right. The town itself grows significantly each
PAGE 2 time a couple of ships land, and all the while I imagine
the Constructicons and other industrious bots are busy
Starscream is here, probably doing same kind of modifying and building bigger structures based on the
thing Prowl is. Do either of these guys know what structures of those ships. So it’s getting bigger and
the other really wants from this new situation? stranger day-by-day. While on the outskirts of the city
there are the beginnings of more “out-there” structures
JB: They both think they’re in control. Starscream kinda that Cybertronians might be as proud of as Frank Gehry
manipulated events to get where he wants to be right would. With the new structures I really want them to
here, and Prowl isn’t really sure what Starscream is up
to. The Decepticons clearly don’t believe what Prowl’s
saying, but Starscream coming in lends a weird sort of
credence. Sort of. It at least presents a situation of, well,
if you’re a Decepticon—what options do you have?

AG: I’ve just been having fun with the interaction between
these two. Prowl is straight-up by-the-books, at least
in terms of how he comports himself. And Starscream
its more like the playful devil on your shoulder, always
tempting you to give in to those temptations to go take
the darker action, almost playing the role that Loki
would play in the Marvel Universe.

I particularly like Prowl brushing Starscream’s hand off

his shoulder, as if Starscream is a nuisance he’d rather
just be rid of if he wasn’t in public. All the while they’re
sort of making an almost Faustian deal under their
breath, which goes unheard by the noisy crowd.

JP: I’m just waiting for the spin-off comic “Perfect

Stranger-bots”, where Prowl and Starscream share an
apartment and get into all kinds of wacky situations!
Ha ha—but more on-topic, these two have such a fun
look otherworldly due to Hook’s snobbery when Earth’s stuck on Cybertron, trying to avoid the Swarm. The Autobots
“unartistic” architecture during All Hail Megatron, so that’s were basically ignoring them. They weren’t going to kill the
why the outskirts of the city tend to look different than the Decepticons, but they weren’t going to help them, either.
center of town.
Dirge would have joined back up with the other Decepticons
JP: I like how the city is evolving, and I love seeing how wild during Chaos—and he holds a pretty big grudge against
Cybertron is getting. One thing I like to imagine in the city is both sides, now.
that since a lot of people are just living in their ship’s, they’re
constantly moving around. A spat with a neutral here, a spat Personally, I always think of the “cone head” Decepticon
with a Decepticon/Autobot here, and they just keep moving jets as being significantly newer than the original three jets,
around the city to find “The right spot.” As a colorist, I can Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp. I mean, there’s
only express this idea so much by coloring in a different ship like, what, a year’s difference? But when I was a kid, when
here or there, but it’s something I like to think is going on. they first came out, it felt like a really big difference. And I
never had any of those later toys, so they always seemed
kinda different and cool to me. So I jumped at the chance to
PAGE 3 use one of them.

Dirge is back, since he was last seen in . What’s he been AG: For me, I was just excited to get to work with Dirge. I had
doing and why bring him back now? him as a toy as a kid, and he was always one of my favorite
Seekers. He has such a dark and morbid outlook that it’s
JB: I wanted to have a Decepticon that wasn’t really allied with almost fun to see him suffer and justify his personality.
the Decepticons. Looking back at AHM, the other Decepticons
shove Dirge and Deluge through a space bridge with the Now if only I could get to work with my all-time favorite
Autobots, stranding them all on the then-still-dead Cybertron. Decepticon, Thundercracker. But what ever is he up to,
To me that wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine the Autobots anyway…?
NOT killing two helpless Decepticons. So those two were
JP: I was happy to see that Dirge was still up and kicking.
I agree with Barber’s outlook on the seekers; I always felt
the “cone heads” were sort of the B-Squad to Starscream’s/
main three A-Squad, with Starscream just being the jerk
commander that Dirge and his crew just kinda hated, but
had no choice but the take the orders commanded to them
by Screamer. Even though I’m not a huge fan of Decepticons
in general (I was always the “Autobots!” kid—Bumblebee
specifically, of course), I do love how Barber has written
Dirge. I’m also a fan of how Griffith draws Dirge as well-—
and the color scheme is so very easy to flat!

JB: Hey, don’t put words in my mouth! I never said they were the
B-squad, I just said they were newer!

PAGES 4 AND 5

Dirge literally comes back with a bang. Giving Wheeljack

a unique mystery to solve. Are the answers as straight
forward as they appear?

JB: Well, I guess that depends on what you think happened…

I really love what Andrew and Josh did on this spread—I wanted
a moment where you’re going along with the conversation and
then, POW. Something big and terrible happens when you turn
the page. And those guys nailed it. between Barrel Roll and Dirge… just like in real life,
hating a group that you only fight with, or even only
AG: Indeed, what would the straightforward answers hear about, is easier than hating an individual that you
be? There’s definitely the need for some figuring-outing know. But here, just when there’s some progress, it all
on the part of Wheeljack. And in the meantime, there falls apart and—as we’ll see later in the issue—makes
are at least two, maybe three fairly pivotal characters things worse for Dirge.
playing a role that are only just introduced in this issue.
There’s a lot going on in this issue with Wheeljack’s AG: Ah, poor Dirge. Given his appearances in previous
efforts providing a central setting for it all to revolve continuities, it’s a miracle he even survived the blast.
around. Cybertron sure isn’t cutting its inhabitants any breaks,
is it? As if distrust and discontent weren’t enough, we
JP: Something about Barrel Roll’s death makes you feel also have who knows how many players going about
THAT much sorrier for Dirge and what he’s been through. with their own ambitions, and all the while there’s an
He was just on the cusp of making a new friend—an ominous wilderness surrounding the new Iacon with
AUTOBOT friend—and bam. Dirge just doesn’t have luck a literally unexplored potential for danger. Plenty of
on his side! dangers abound of this newly established community.

This was a fun page to color; the lines were great, the JP: It’s easier to let the world make pieces of you than
concept was great, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE coloring to make peace on it! Haaaa—I kid. Two factions trying
massive effects like bright explosions. to put their differences aside amongst a new populace
of unaffiliated Cybertronians… yeah, that’s definitely not
Making peace on this world looks even harder than something that can be hashed over a lunch meeting.
the war they just fought.

JB: That’s the idea. Millions of years of war can’t

be erased… or can they? It has to happen through
individual connections, like was starting to happen
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