That's not Thundercracker, that's my fancharacter - his twin sister AwesomeWing. Nice to see her finally canonised. IDW paid me lots of money for the rights. It should be interesting to see her reaction to TC's death, seeing as she's also Skywarp's girlfriend.
Maybe it's just an iconic cover dedicated to a character who will not appear in the actual comic... after all, it's an alternate by Wildman.
But I guess that the resurrection of Rumble or Frenzy or whatever suggests otherwise.
I dunno, Starscream got shot at the chest in Infiltration, and that put him out of commission for, what, one and a half mini?
Since Thundercracker got shot off-panel, it would be easy for other authors to retcon him from dying. After all, McCarthy himself had Rumble pop up the next issue after his seeming death.
Regardless of whom is there (and continuim is deliberately vague on that character so I figured it might happen) thats a terrible cover. As fan-art I would say its good but it looks rotten for something thats going on a comics cover.
Love the wreckers cover which is nicely vague so it doesnt reveal anything too important of the plot