Quote Originally Posted by Paulbot View Post
I'm not sure that is Optimus Prime though! Ratchet tells Kup the Autobots have no morale and that repairs on Prime will take time.

A few pages later Prime walks in with morale boosting speech and the Autobots are ready to fight.

But looks who's missing. Ratchet. After that chat with Kup, Ratchet does not appear again in issue 9 or in issue 10. Why? Because he's still working on the real Prime?

I thought maybe it was a hologram like iamtrunks suggested because there was no sign of Hound either after Prime came back, but he reappeared in #10 (although only for just one panel).
If your suppositions are correct then that's an intriguing plot twist. I wonder which characters would be in on it... perhaps just Kup, Jazz, Ratchet and Hound? Oh, and Drift of course. Hmm... Hound only appeared just in time for Volume 2 - perhaps this plotline was an idea that grew organically out of the story, but McWriter hadn't originally planned it? I'm not going to underestimate him anymore - I've enjoyed this volume so far and Prime's reappearance went so much against the grain so I'm willing to accept that its a militaristic win-at-any-cost scam from Kup.

(I've also now read Spotlight: Drift and it turns out that the new taciturn-John-Woo-Perceptor may be a result of Perceptor's loquaciousness getting him slagged. Okay, I'll buy that. And I also look forward to the upcoming story that explains how Kup went from crazy-Nick-Roche-zombie-killing-Vietnam-vet to Nick-Fury-leading-the-Wreckers.)