The Impossible Knot

Blurr races across the New Mexico desert, having recently escaped a Skywatch ambush. While unsuccessfully trying to contact Hot Rod, he nearly runs into a waiting Bumblebee. Blurr notices the new Skywatch badge on Bumblebee's chestplate and is flabbergasted that Bumblebee and his team now work for the humans, which Bumblebee says is better than hiding. He then apologizes to Blurr, tries to calm him, and explains that he's to be turned over to the humans and that he's surrounded. Distraught, Blurr shoots Bumblebee in the chest. As the rest of the team takes down Blurr, Ratchet tends to their leader and finds that Blurr's shot only damaged Bumblebee's Skywatch badge. Bumblebee decides to bring Blurr to the cave rather turn him over to Skywatch.

"What the... You sunk my battleship!!"

Colonel Gordon Horiuchi contacts the Autobot hideout, demanding to know why they did not deliver Blurr. Bumblebee refuses to turn him over and tells Horiuchi that he and his team are done doing his dirty work. The colonel isn't pleased with insubordination and activates the kill-switch in Bumblebee's badge to lock him in vehicle mode, but the damaged badge fails.

As Horiuchi calls Lieutenant Klonowski over to troubleshoot, Bumblebee starts to explain the badge's damage, but Ratchet stops him and has him feign a forced transformation. Pleased that the badge still works (or so he thinks) Horiuchi deactivates the kill-switch. At this point, Ratchet steps in and lies that Bumblebee is stuck in his vehicle form since the badge is stuck in lock mode. Klonowski tells Horiuchi that they will have to travel to the Autobot hideout in order to replace the badge. Once the transmission is discontinued, Bumblebee transforms back into robot mode. When the others stay silent, he realizes that the colonel can monitor transmissions through the badges and that he is the only one that can speak freely. Taking charge, Bumblebee vows to free the other Autobots from their slavery and quickly decides that they need to find a vehicle that matches him for the colonel's arrival.

Meanwhile, on top of the U-Stor-It complex, Skywarp has assembled a communications array and attempts a message to Megatron. He states that he has collected a variety of weapons, that the killers at Allodyne and Dynomic (the manufacturers of the weapons that fought the Decepticons) shall die by "their own swords", and that he is only days away from completing a weapon that is capable of crippling every Autobot in a single strike.

Needing Blurr's speed, Bumblebee asks him to help search for a decoy car. Blurr races through the city and eventually finds one. Back at the headquarters, Bumblebee gives a passionate speech to his Autobot comrades, swearing to release them from the humans.

Bumblebee makes his way to the shipyard to find a rare element, Darmstadtium, that Wheeljack found in the damaged badge, in order to locate the manufacturer of the badges. He discovers a shipping container labeled "Darkmatter Logic Systems". However, he catches a glimpse of a power shovel and immediately recognizes it to be the Constructicon Scavenger, who had infiltrated the shipyard so that he could sneak onto an outgoing ship to escape the stranglehold of Skywatch. Bumblebee explains to Scavenger that Autobots and Decepticons need to work together, but Scavenger attacks Bumblebee, denouncing the Autobots' goal to live in peace with the humans rather than rule over them. Bumblebee retreats, racing off into the desert against the night sky.

Featured Characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Blurr (1) Bumblebee (2) Ratchet (3) Hound (4) Wheeljack (5) Blaster (7) Roadbuster (9) Cliffjumper (10) Jazz (12) Sideswipe (13)	Skywarp (11) Scavenger (14)	Colonel Gordon Horiuchi (6) Lieutenant Daniel Klonowski (8)

Quotes

Cliffjumper: "HURRAH!"
Wheeljack: "No! Shh!"
Ratchet: "Er... Yes, yes... Hurrah for ...Ah, Blaster... Who made us that excellent energon soup tonight. Well done, Blaster. Thank you."

"Hm. Look... Repainting yourself might fool the humans, but I can see the articulation seams in your cab. C'mon Scavenger. Give it up."

—Bumblebee can spot a true Transformer even without a rubsign.

Notes

Writer Zander Cannon wrote Blurr's text all smashed together to simulate Blurr talking a mile-a-second. This was done to emulate John Moschitta's voice acting from the original cartoon series, as well as the Transformers Animated series. However, this is the first time Blurr speaks like this in the 2005 IDW continuity.
Though Skywatch is transporting crate loads of darmstadtium in what appear to be regular shipping containers, in real life the element is extremely radioactive and decays so quickly that virtually all of its properties are still theoretical; the most "stable" isotope, if it can even be called that, has a half-life measured in seconds.
Hot Rod is on one of this issue's covers, but doesn't actually appear in the story.
The title is a reference to the ancient Greek story of the Gordian Knot.

Errors

Whoops.

Blurr sported an Earth-based alternate mode in "A Rude Awakening". However, here he is drawn in his Cybertronian alternate mode. In the IDW forums, Andy Schmidt confessed that he missed this during his editing.^[1]
Although not apparent last issue, this issue's dialogue makes it fairly clear that the badges Horiuchi gave the Autobots are supposed to be covering their Autobot insignias: Blurr claims there is something wrong with Bumblebee's insignia and is described as shooting him "dead center" (where his insignia is), and yet only hits his badge. The art doesn't reflect this, putting Bumblebee's badge on his upper-right breast, leaving his insignia unobstructed and making Blurr's dialogue and the fallout of his actions make little sense.
The way the badges work as a microphone for Horiuchi's men to spy on the Autobots is inconsistent in this issue. Before Horiuchi uses the badge to lock Cliffjumper in alt mode, Ratchet spoke about the badges being used a communication device to spy on them. To avoid their conversations from being intercepted by Horiuchi's men, Ratchet later whispers to Bumblebee to transform and play along. Yet a few dialogue bubbles later, it is revealed that because Bumblebee's badge is damaged, he is able to speak freely about his plans of finding a car as a stand-for him even though the badges on the other Autobots work perfectly. However, in the next issue, Lt. Klonowski listens through Ratchet's badge and is able to pick up the conversation from the other Autobots in the room. Perhaps Cannon didn't fully understand how microphones work.

Covers (3)

Cover A: A stern-looking Bumblebee and Hot Rod against a black and white background with Blurr's head in a set of cross hairs; art by Guido Guidi with colors by Josh Burcham.
Cover B: An upward angle closeup of Bumblebee pointing his blaster; art by Chee Yang Ong with colors by Moose Baumann.
Cover RI: Black and white sketch version of cover B.