While looking for his fellow Autobots, Ironhide discovered clues about the All Spark—and another race that wants it.

Magazine Credits[]

Editor: Steve White
Designers: Martin Stiff & Danny Preston
Deputy Editor: Den Patrick
Publishing Manager: Darryl Curtis

Contents[]

Lost In Space 3: Ironhide[]

• Script: Simon Furman
• Art: Guido Guidi
• Colours: Jason Cardy
• Lettering: Jimmy Betancourt/Comicraft

After several solar cycles of planet-hopping, Ironhide has locked on to Ratchet's homing signal from #3. But en route he's abducted by a mysterious alien craft. Inside, vast alien entities, claiming to have created the All Spark and that is was stolen from them, do a psychic probe of his mind. To resist, Ironhide focuses on an incident from his past...

Back on Cybertron, Ironhide is leading a training mission - one he's now leading to destroy a Decepticon outpost and rescue a POW, despite recruit Signal Flare's protests that there'll be half a battalion in there. Skyblast provides covering fire; Signal Flare and Strongarm do flanking runs to draw the guard tower's fire; Slipstream and Bumper back-up Ironhide as he personally blasts into the outpost, which turns out to only have one Decepticon in it. Ironhide, who knew all along it was automated, explains to them the third rule of soldiering is "take nothing at face value"...

Ironhide decides to take this own advice, and discovers most of the craft is derelict and the aliens are actually an illusion of the ship's former inhabitants - "digital phantoms from a bygone age". These illusions were the front for the fish-like aliens who'd salvaged the craft and were tracking the All Spark to exploit it, and who immediately surrender to Ironhide. He finds they'd found him via a device, salvaged in the craft, that was attuned to All Spark energy pattern - he takes it with him, and wonders who once owned this craft "and what their true connection to the Allspark is!".

Articles & features[]

• Character Profile: Jazz
• Smackdown: Sam Witwicky v. Frenzy — Write-ups of the skills and weaknesses of the two characters in question, leaving the reader to decide who would win in a head-to-head. Written by Simon Furman.
• Top Gear — Advertising The Art of IDW's Transformers, and a chance to win a Blackout toy and the Fast Action Battlers.
• Ironhide stock image poster.
• Competition to win Beast Machines Season 2 DVD.
• Mech Mail - Letters and art from readers

Free Gift[]

• "Neutron Blaster!" - Disk Launcher, firing four disks: an Autobot logo, a Decepticon logo, a title logo and a Sector 7 logo.

Reprints[]

Reprinted stories are only a portion of their respective issues.

• Transformers: Movie Prequel, part 2b (8 pages)
• Beast Wars: The Gathering, part 2b (8 pages)

Items of note[]

• Reveals the Decepticons are spread thinly across Cybertron, and most outposts have to be automated with only a skeleton crew.

• Due to being based on their toy appearances, which were redecos, Ironhide's trainees have a deep contrast between the other movie bots (in that they look closer to bots from previous continuities), especially their Cybertronian modes (which look a lot more like Earth vehicles, complete with wheels and wind shields).