I have seen that misreading elsewhere as well.
Ruckley's run is not
a "killer of the week" police procedural".
It is more
about a loss of innocence, or the loss of the illusion of innocence.
Rubble was the naive point of view character being introduced to a world that was impressive and alleged to be safe. From the minute he showed up at the beginning of issue 1, we had narrowed his fate down to two possibilities, either of which would have been thematically consistent.
Either Rubble would have been killed by political violence, or he would have made a choice (possibly out of legitimate cynicism) to join the Decepticons.
And, it was the former.
Quake was (probably) killing a witness to an earlier crime. And, then he killed a witness to that crime. As far as Quake is concerned, Rubble was just somebody unlucky enough to stumble across a fresh murder scene, that was part of a larger plot. Rubble was actively, if foolishly, following the witness that Quake had killed.
The plot-victim in a weekly procedural is usually somebody who blundered in to something they had nothing to do with. Rubble was actively involving himself in something he did not properly understand. Similarly, Rubble was never targeted, because nobody knew he existed. He was essentially a bystander. Rubble found Brainstorm's body, and was not smart/savvy enough to get away from the problem. He was simply too close to it.
Rather than a "victim of the week", Rubble was a participant in a fight he did not fully understand. Look at the zero issue of Gillen's "Uber".
There are several characters that are set up as likely protagonists on two different (if reprehensible) sides. All of them are actively involved (as Rubble was), but none have any idea what is coming. Only one of them survives. Rubble is more analogous to the Soviet infantrymen or the German deserters.
That is a fitting end to a naive protagonist in the opening of a series about
the illusion of stability or innocence being removed.
I am interested in seeing what Megatron knew and when he knew it.