Dead Men's Boots

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He'd know. He's done the spreadsheets.
"Dead Men's Boots"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	September 1, 2010
Story	James Roberts
Script	James Roberts
Pencils	Nick Roche
Inks	Nick Roche
Colors	Josh Burcham
Letters	Lo Baker
Editor	Shaun Knowler
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2010)

Springer puts out the call for new Wreckers recruits.

Synopsis

Springer recalls when Impactor first called him to be a Wrecker. He reflects on the irony of this being his job, now that Impactor is incarcerated on Garrus-9. The approach, he notes, is scripted. He tells both Pyro and Rotorstorm that their names are at the top of the selection list, though he is rather frank about the survival rate of Wreckers. Ironfist disputes this statistic, based on his own exhaustively researched figures. Springer notes that unlike his predecessor, he offers his recruits a choice, and sometimes they say no. However, the prospect of Kup on the team causes Guzzle to reconsider Springer's offer.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Production notes

• "Dead Men's Boots" was created as part of the Transformers: Mosaic fan project, a series of one-page comic strips unsanctioned by Hasbro or IDW Publishing. It is the second time IDW creators have produced a Mosaic with the intention of it fitting into the continiuty of their existing, official stories; the first was Simon Furman's "Hail and Farewell." Several Mosaics were published in IDW's comics with a disclaimer explicitly labelling them as unofficial and non-canon, but "Dead Men's Boots" was published without any such disclaimers in the Last Stand of the Wreckers trade paperback, making it canon.

Continuity notes

• The events depicted in this story occur shortly before Last Stand of the Wreckers, and show Springer recruiting the new team of Wreckers featured in that series.
• Ironfist notes that Rack'n'Ruin are dead. These two conjoined Autobots previously appeared in flashbacks in Last Stand #4 and #5, but had not appeared in the present day of the IDW universe; now we know why.
• The schematic displayed on the viewscreen behind Ironfist depicts the cerebro-centric bullet lodged in his brain, as revealed in Last Stand #5.
• The scene of Springer recruiting Ironfist is repeated in "Bullets," the text story published alongside it in the Last Stand trade. It clarifies that Springer is not appearing physically before Ironfist, but is a remote hologram projection.
• Pyro, Rotorstorm, and Guzzle are all notably carrying smoking guns as Springer speaks to them. Bullets implies that this is because they have just got through opening fire on his hologram projection, believing it to be a legendary omen of doom called the "Shimmer."

Transformers references

• Ironfist debates whether or not Rack'n'Ruin should be "counted as one robot" to make Springer's numbers work (see below). This is a very oblique reference to the classic Marvel UK story "Time Wars," in which the combined ranks of the Wreckers and the Mayhem Attack Squad were stated in dialogue to add up to fourteen robots—a number that only worked if Rack 'n' Ruin was counted as one robot.

Real-life references

• This title of this story is a real-life idiom, a way of saying that a person cannot make progress in their career without someone dying to open up a spot for them to be promoted to.

Errors

• Continuing a recurring error from the series proper, Rotorstorm's guns are colored reddish at the wrong ends.

Survival Rate

• Springer and Ironfist's mathematics appear to be faulty. At this point in continuity, eight Wreckers are known to still be alive (Springer, Impactor, Topspin, Twin Twist, Roadbuster, Sandstorm, Kup and Perceptor). That means at least 19 Wreckers must have existed in the past to calculate a survival rate of 42.105%. A dispute about Rack'n'Ruin counting as one or two could only push the stats up to 8 survivors out of 20, or 40%, and wouldn't reduce it to the degree suggested by Ironfist, down to 38%. Raising the overall roster size would only further shrink the effect of counting Rack'n'Ruin twice for the roster.
• On the other hand, Roberts may have misspoken, and 42% was meant to be the death toll, not the survival rate. The difference between 5/12s and 5/13s would be mathematically accurate for the above figures, and incidentally would be the total number of confirmed Wreckers in IDW to date (the above eight known survivors plus the currently unaccounted for Whirl, Broadside, Scoop and Rack'n'Ruin). Unfortunately, this too wouldn't be quite proper, as the re-computation of the death toll should've changed both values of 5/12s, not just the denominator.
• Math is hard.

Foreign localization

Japanese

• Title: "Atogama" (後釜あとがま, "Replacement")

Swedish

• Title: "Inkallad" ("Drafted")

External links

• Dead Men's Boots @ Transformers Mosaic