Beast Hunters issue 2

Beast Hunters issue 2 is the second installment in the Transformers Prime: Beast Hunters comic series.

Plot: Revelations courtesy of Kickback send Sludge and Snarl back to Last Spark on the trail of the energon-draining murderer.

Synopsis
As the Insecticons set upon Sludge and Snarl, Kickback expresses surprise on seeing Sludge alive, figuring the other Dinobots had left him for dead after Shockwave experimented on him. Mocking Sludge by revealing that he had personally dumped him back in the tunnels beneath the Sea of Rust, Kickback unwittingly presses Sludge's berserk button: the Dinobot has long harbored anger over the fact it took his teammates four cycles before they even came back for him, and now he lets his rage spill out. Sludge allows Kickback to stab him, bringing the Insecticon in close enough to grab him in his jaws, before transforming and pinning him to a wall. Sludge demands to know why the Insecticons turned to cannibalism, but Kickback vigorously denies the fact: it was the Forged, he alleges, who tried to eat the Insecticons, not the other way around, and insists an airborne Autobot scout who witnessed their battle can verify his claims. Snarl examines the Forged bodies lying around the hive, and confirms they have not been drained dry of energon like the dead in Last Spark, absolving the Insecticons of the crime... but thinking of the atrocities the creatures will commit in the future, Sludge still snaps Kickback's neck.

Snarl patches up Sludge's wounds as he recharges himself with the energon given to them by Last Spark's people, and they talk about potential perpetrators. Given that some of the attacks at Last Spark happened after the Insecticons wiped out the Forged, Kickback's belief that they were responsible seems equally erroneous, but when Sludge suggests that one's enemies would be a logical first target, Snarl has a brainwave. The pair quickly return to Last Spark and have Firestar show them to the outpost's crypt, where Snarl examines the bodies of those who died prior to the beginning of the attacks. He quickly finds what he is looking for: puncture marks that prove the bodies were drained of energon after they died. The killer is not an outsider—it is someone from inside Last Spark, who started with an even more logical target than an enemy, draining already-dead 'bots before being forced to move on to living ones when his supply ran out. Airwave enters just as this conclusion has been reached, and scoffs at the notion, but Sludge is able to put two and two together very quickly: Kickback said the Autobot they spotted near their hive was a flier, and Airwave is the only flight-capable 'bot in Last Spark. He is the murderer, and, his heinous actions found out, he immediately blasts Firestar, transforms to vehicle mode, and rockets away with the Dinobots on his tail. He turns the populace on the Dinobots by blaming them for killing Firestar, then wantonly opens fire as they are being mobbed by his followers. A flame-blast from Sludge forces him to dive low, allowing the Dinobot to seize and ground him, but Airwave is operating on a full tank of energon while Sludge is running low, and things aren't looking good. The maddened Airwave proselytizes his belief that no-one will survive the death of Cybertron, that pure survival without honor or friendship is the only path, and that no-one is coming back to save them... at which point the still-living Firestar runs him through from behind with her sword, and cleaves his body in two. She arranges to get the two Dinobots patched up, and thanks Sludge for their help.

Presently, Sludge and Snarl return home, but Snarl elects not to accompany Sludge to his meeting with Grimlock, expecting that the pair will come to blows. The confrontation that follows is terse but restrained, as Sludge meets Grimlock's every accusation with the repeated insistence that his leader was wrong. But surprisingly... Grimlock agrees. It is for such times, when his judgement errs, that Grimlock admits he has Sludge to keep him honest. After a moment's silence, Grimlock sits back on his throne, and calls for Snarl, so that a new day's worth of appeals can be begin.

Continuity notes

 * This issue plugs the last major continuity gap in the Dinobots' story between the Fall of Cybertron video game and IDW's Aligned comics. In the game, Sludge's body is found by Jazz in the tunnels beneath the Sea of Rust in stasis lock, with the implication being that he was left there when the Dinobots were attacked by the Insecticons. Here, we learn that he was taken in, was actually the first of the team to receive his dinosaur mode, and was then dumped back into the tunnels, where he was eventually later found again by a clean-up crew after the events of the game.

Transformers references

 * Firestar swears by the Thirteen.

Errors

 * Airwave transforms into an Earth jet when he has never been to the planet.
 * In addition, when he confronts Firestar and the Dinobots in the crypt, his legs are colored white instead of red.