Cosmic Rust (episode)

2010-10-07T18:23:17Z

90.211.139.238:

{{disambig2|the episode in which Cosmic Rust appears|the titular term of the episode|Cosmic Rust (disease)}}
{{episode
|image=Rusted megatron.jpg
|caption=Don't ask, dude... Don't ask.
|series=G1toon
|ep=61
|series2=SRLFtoon
|ep2=48
|prev2=Trans-Europe Express
|next2=The Core
|title="Cosmic Rust"
|written by=[[Paul Davids]]
|production code=700-60
|airdate=[[December 26]], 1985
|production company=[[Sunbow Productions]]
|continuity=[[Generation 1 cartoon continuity]]
}}

'''After finding a new weapon, Megatron becomes infected with a strange disease... one he intends to use against the Autobots.'''

:''Japanese title:'' 恐怖のコスミックルスト! (''Kyōfu no Cosmic Rust!'', "The Terrifying Cosmic Rust!")

==Synopsis==
[[Image:Cosmic Rust Megatron infected.JPG|left|150px|thumb|WhY mY sHoUlDeRs hURt?]]

While flying through space in [[Astrotrain (G1)|Astrotrain]], [[Megatron (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Megatron]], [[Starscream (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Starscream]], and [[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]] discover a planet with the Autobot [[Insignia|symbol]] visible from orbit. Heading to investigate, they find a deserted city and a pillar inscribed with [[Cybertronian languages|Ancient Autobot]]. Activating a recorded message, they are warned to leave, or never return to [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]]... all in rhyme. Disregarding the warnings, the [[Decepticon]]s discover a [[Lightning Bug]]. While attempting to move it, they set it off, causing the ceiling above them to be destroyed. Megatron is pleased—the Autobots have created a weapon that will allow him to destroy them. While leaving the planet, an asteroid follows Astrotrain (look, just go with the flow) and Megatron destroys it. Bad idea, as the debris penetrates Astrotrain, with one piece hitting Megatron in the shoulder. Heading for their [[Victory (G1)|base]], Starscream removes the rock, only to discover that Megatron's shoulder is covered in ruuusttt.

In [[New York City]], [[Perceptor (G1)|Perceptor]] is being awarded for his creation of [[corrostop]], a new solution which prevents rust and corrosion. The Autobots plan to spray all the world's monuments with it, but for the moment, they only have enough to spray the [[Statue of Liberty]]. Meanwhile, Megatron's health is deteriorating rapidly, and he orders the [[Stunticon (G1)|Stunticons]] to bring him Perceptor. Heading for Liberty Island, the Decepticons capture Perceptor and load him into [[Blitzwing (G1)|Blitzwing]], with the [[Aerialbot (G1)|Aerialbots]] in pursuit. The Autobot jets follow the kidnappers all the way to the Decepticon base, but the [[Conehead]]s use the Lightning Bug to drive them off.

Taken within their base, Perceptor is horrified to discover that Megatron is covered in rust. The Decepticon leader offers Perceptor a chance to end the [[Great War (G1)|war]] in exchange for curing him. As Perceptor analyzes the Decepticon, he discovers that Megatron is infected with a metallic plague and that the lightning bug is exacerbating the condition. Perceptor offers Megatron corrostop, which manages to wash the rust away. Megatron declares that the Decepticons are about to be cured.

[[Image:Kentucky fried aerialbot.jpg|right|180px|thumb|Kentucky Fried Aerialbot.]]

At the [[Ark (G1)|Autobot base]], the Aerialbots are explaining what happened to [[Optimus Prime (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Optimus Prime]], when Megatron contacts the Autobot leader. Megatron says that Prime has until noon to reach Perceptor, or sunlight focused through his lens will ignite the fuse on a bomb and blow him to pieces. Despite knowing it's a trap, Prime takes all the Autobots with him to rescue Perceptor. As the Autobots arrive, Perceptor warns them to keep away, but Prime pulls Perceptor away once the bomb ignites and explodes, only for Perceptor to reveal that he is infected with [[Cosmic Rust (disease)|Cosmic Rust]].

[[Image:Cosmic Rust Perceptor kick.JPG|left|150px|thumb|Fonzie would be proud.]]

Returning to the base, the Autobots query [[Teletraan I (G1)|Teletraan I]], who tells them of the fate of [[Antilla]], the world the Decepticons visited. Then, the Autobots notice that they're infected with Cosmic Rust as well. Worse, Megatron is using the Lightning Bug to make the plague spread. Their only hope is corrostop, but [[Cosmos (G1)|Cosmos]] and [[Blaster (G1)|Blaster]] have discovered that [[Ingredient X]], an important ingredient for making corrostop, is gone. [[Wheeljack (G1)|Wheeljack]] suspects that they can use the matter duplicator to make more, if he and Perceptor can fix it. Meanwhile, [[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]] does his best to stem the tide, but they're fading fast. Megatron is watching via [[Laserbeak (G1)|Laserbeak]], loving every minute of it, only to learn that the matter duplicator now works, thanks to <s>kicking</s> a unique solution provided by Perceptor. All they need is some corrostop from the Statue of Liberty to replicate.

[[Image:Cosmic Rust Autobots Statue of Liberty.JPG|right|150px|thumb|"You maniacs! You blew it up!"]]

Heading to the Statue of Liberty, Megatron orders the Stunticons to form [[Menasor (G1)|Menasor]] and use the Lightning Bug to destroy the statue. However, the Autobots are already there, and the Aerialbots form [[Superion (G1)|Superion]]. The Autobot [[combiner]] is able to defeat [[Menasor (G1)|Menasor]] and destroy the Lightning Bug. Megatron, out of ideas, orders a retreat. [[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] is quite pleased: they not only saved themselves, but also Lady Liberty.

{{-}}

==Featured characters==
{{featuredcharacters
|c1=
* Ancient rhyming Autobot (5)
* [[Perceptor (G1)|Perceptor]] (7)
* [[Air Raid (G1)|Air Raid]] (11)
* [[Skydive (G1 Aerialbot)|Skydive]] (12)
* [[Fireflight (G1)|Fireflight]] (13)
* [[Slingshot]] (14)
* [[Silverbolt (G1)|Silverbolt]] (15)
* [[Rodimus Prime (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Rodimus Prime]] (16)
* [[Mirage (G1)|Mirage]] (17)
* [[Wheeljack (G1)|Wheeljack]] (18)
* [[Jazz (G1)|Jazz]] (19)
* [[Ratchet (G1)|Ratchet]] (20)
* [[Red Alert (G1)|Red Alert]] (21)
* [[Ironhide (G1)|Ironhide]] (22)
* [[Bumblebee (G1)|Bumblebee]] (23)
* [[Gears (G1)|Gears]] (24)
* [[Cosmos (G1)|Cosmos]] (34)
* [[Blaster (G1)|Blaster]] (35)
* [[Inferno (G1)|Inferno]] (36)
* [[Powerglide (G1)|Powerglide]] (37)
* [[Tracks (G1)|Tracks]] (38)
* [[Hound (G1)|Hound]] (39)
* [[Smokescreen (G1)|Smokescreen]] (40)
* [[Beachcomber (G1)|Beachcomber]] (41)
* [[Hoist (G1)|Hoist]] (42)
* [[Trailbreaker (G1)|Trailbreaker]] (43)
* [[Sideswipe (G1)|Sideswipe]] (44)
* [[Sunstreaker (G1)|Sunstreaker]] (45)
* [[Prowl (G1)|Prowl]] (46)
* [[Superion (G1)|Superion]] (50)

|c2=
* [[Astrotrain (G1)|Astrotrain]] (1)
* [[Rumble (G1)|Rumble]] (2)
* [[Galvatron (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Megatron]] (3)
* [[Starscream (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Starscream]] (4)
* [[Motormaster (G1)|Motormaster]] (25)
* [[Breakdown (G1)|Breakdown]] (26)
* [[Dead End (G1)|Dead End]] (27)
* [[Wildrider]] (29)
* [[Drag Strip]] (30)
* [[Blitzwing (G1)|Blitzwing]] (31)
* [[Dirge (G1)|Dirge]] (32)
* [[Ramjet (G1)|Ramjet]] (33)
* [[Soundwave (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|Soundwave]] (47)
* [[Laserbeak (G1)|Laserbeak]] (48)
* [[Menasor (G1)|Menasor]] (49)

|c3=
* [[National Scientific Achievement]] meeting emcee (6)
* [[Spike Witwicky (G1)|Spike Witwicky]] (8)
* [[Carly]] (9)
* [[Sparkplug Witwicky]] (10)
* Female television reporter (28)
}}

==Quotes==
"Starscream! Keep your grubby fingers off that. It could be a booby trap!" 
"What trap? This is a prehistoric communication device, you uneducated dolt!"
:—'''Megatron''' and '''Starscream''', doing what they do best.

"Where there's a curse on the door, there's treasure on the other side."
:—'''Starscream''', who has never seen an Indiana Jones movie.

"If that's a lightning bug, I'd sure hate to meet up with a dragonfly."
:—'''Astrotrain''' hates big bugs (nearly his size) and he cannot lie.

"Unfortunately, the operation is successful."
:—'''Starscream''' bemoans removing an infected meteor fragment from Megatron.

"It's some weird kind of heat ray—and it ''works''!"
:—'''Air Raid''' expresses not-unjustified amazement at the efficiency of the Decepticons' weapon-of-the-day.

"Somebody's gotta get us back to Cybertron, Prime. I never thought the end would come like this."
:—'''Bumblebee''', dying from Cosmic Rust and apparently wanting to destroy his home planet.

"The Cosmic Rust has infiltrated your logic circuits." 
"Maybe so, but I'll bet it hasn't affected my aim."
:—'''Megatron''' and '''Optimus Prime'''

==Notes==
===Animation or technical glitches===
* In the shot that pans over the Autobots spraying down the Statue of Liberty, Gears is colored in Rumble's blue and purple.
* Apparently, Blitzwing is large enough in [[Alternate mode|flight mode]] to carry the Stunticons and Perceptor.
* When Megatron's left arm falls to pieces from the rust infection, his fusion cannon is attached to his upper arm instead of its usual place on his forearm.
* After arriving at Fox Creek Canyon to rescue Perceptor, Optimus transforms to robot mode, but he has ''no feet''!
* More of a sound editing mistake: when Menasor is attacked by the firepower of the Aerialbots at the Statue of Liberty, parts of Astrotrain's voice (going back to when he is badly damaged by the asteroids en route to Earth with the heat ray) are used instead of Menasor's normal speech.

===Continuity errors===
* Astrotrain, who got damaged a lot more by the infectious meteor than Megatron, is never shown to be infected. Starscream should likewise be infected, having pulled out the asteroid fragment from Megatron, but again this is never shown. Megatron's statement that "Decepticons—'''we''' are about to be cured!" implies that he's not the only victim, though the story focus in general implies that he is.
* Couldn't Prime have moved the explosives away from the infected and very contagious Perceptor, rather than vice versa? Though the Cosmic Rust seems capable of spreading through the air, Prime could at least ''try'' not to get infected.
* According to Teletraan I, the "Lost Legion" of Autobots had already colonized Antilla ''at [[MSTF|the dawn of time]]''. That's a pretty ambitious timetable!
* Apparently, the Decepticons' entire hope of victory relied on Menasor being able to destroy the Statue of Liberty with the Lightning Bug, and not Menasor's own tendency to smash everything he looks at.
* Perceptor didn't keep a ''single drop'' of corrostop? Not even a laboratory sample? Not even inside the tanks of the spray hoses used to coat the Statue of Liberty?
* Despite its seemingly great potential for all sorts of useful purposes (or mischief, as the Decepticons are well aware of its existence), the Matter Duplicator is never seen again.
* In this episode, [[Cosmos (G1)|Cosmos]] is able to determine for certain that there is no more [[Ingredient X]] in the universe. Yet throughout seasons 2 and 3, it is determined that the Transformers are unable to tell whether and where other rare and important chemicals exist, [[The Golden Lagoon|even when they are on earth]], and that they are constantly discovering [[Paradron|new planets]] which they had [[Quintessa|never]] [[Junk|seen]] [[Unicron|before]].

===Real-world references===
* Teletraan I calls the fallen Autobot civilization the "13th Legion—the Lost Legion". This could be a reference to [[Wikipedia:Ten Lost Tribes|the Lost Tribe of Israel]], which was also the 13th Tribe.
* Writer Paul Davids mentioned that the idea of a plague spreading amongst the Transformers was inspired in part by the AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

===Trivia===
* This episode was originally going to be the Generation 1 cartoon's first attempt to introduce the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] into its continuity, ''before'' ''[[The Transformers: The Movie]]''! In the finished episode, Starscream merely laments that none of the Decepticons can read "[[Cybertronian_languages|Ancient Autobot]]". In the script, however, Megatron ''can'' read the language, and translates it, discovering that the Thirteenth Legion came to Antilla during "the first millennium after the creation of the Autobot Matrix". Starscream dates this to five hundred thousand years before they left for Earth (which is to say, 4.5 million years ago). This, of course, would conflict greatly with what we would go on to learn of the Matrix when it was properly introduced, and, indeed, is not even internally consistent with the rest of the script itself, which claims (pretty stupidly) that the legion has been on Antilla since the "dawn of time".
* Megatron coughs while infected with Cosmic Rust, despite [[Humanization|not having lungs]].
* One wonders if the reason that the Decepticons haven't yet won the war is that Megatron himself is an enormous pansy. One little chunk of asteroid embedded in his shoulder has him throwing a fit about how terribly wounded he is. Not to mention when his Lightning Bug gets ruined, he orders a retreat despite the Autobots currently being weakened by Cosmic Rust.
* For some reason, Megatron would rather trust Starscream to give him medical attention than, say, ''[[Hook (G1)|anyone]] [[Bombshell (G1)|else]] [[Soundwave (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|on]] [[Constructicon (G1)|base]]''.
* Blitzwing is used as a means to transport Decepticons in a way that Astrotrain is usually used. He even mass shifts to become large enough to fit lots of Decepticons the way that Astrotrain does. It does make sense to use Blitzwing since Astrotrain is injured and so this is not an animation mistake, Blitzwing was meant to be used this way.
* Fox Creek Canyon said to be "just three miles from [Autobot] headquarters". The real Fox Creek Canyon is in Idaho near the Wyoming border. This would seem to contradict the Autobot HQ being in Oregon or at Mt. St. Helens. Or maybe Megatron lied about the distance.
* A UK VHS video release (paired with the episode "[[Masquerade]]") mis-spelled the title as "Comic Rust". Comic indeed.

==Home video releases==
{{homevidnote}}
;VHS
[[Image:Flag of UK.png|20px|United Kingdom]] 1990 — ''Transformers'' — Cosmic Rust / Masquerade ([[Tempo Video]]) 
[[Image:Flag of UK.png|20px|United Kingdom]] 1991 — ''Transformers'' — Headmasters / The Return of Optimus Prime / Cosmic Rust (Tempo Video) 
[[Image:Flag of USA.png|20px|United States of America]] 2001 — ''The Original Transformers'' — Exclusively from Blockbuster ([[The Original Transformers|Rhino Entertainment]])
;Laserdisc
[[Image:Flag of Japan.png|20px|Japan]] 1995 — ''Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers'' — Megatron Set ([[TakaraTomy|Takara]]) — Japanese audio only. 
[[Image:Flag of Japan.png|20px|Japan]] 1999 — ''The Transformers'' — Decepticon Edition ([[Geneon Universal Entertainment|Pioneer LDC]]) — Japanese audio only.
;DVD
[[Image:Flag of Japan.png|20px|Japan]] 2001 — ''The Transformers'' — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only. 
[[Image:Flag of USA.png|20px|United States of America]] 2003 — ''The Original Transformers'' — Season 2 Part 2 ([[The Original Transformers|Rhino Entertainment]]) 
[[Image:Flag of USA.png|20px|United States of America]] 2003 — ''The Original Transformers'' — Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 7 (Rhino Entertainment) 
[[Image:Flag of UK.png|20px|United Kingdom]] 2004 — ''Transformers'' — Season 2 Part 2 ([[Metrodome]]) 
[[Image:Flag of Australia.png|20px|Australia]] 2004 — ''Transformers'' — Collection 3: Series 2.2 ([[Madman Entertainment]]) 
[[Image:Flag of UK.png|20px|United Kingdom]] 2006 — ''Transformers'' — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome) 
[[Image:Flag of Australia.png|20px|Australia]] 2007 — ''The Transformers'' — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment) 
[[Image:Flag of Italy.png|20px|Italy]] 2009 — ''Transformers'' — Volume 06: Stagione Due Parte Quarta ([[Medianetwork Communication]]) — English and Italian audio. 
[[Image:Flag of UK.png|20px|United Kingdom]] 2009 — ''Transformers'' — Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome) 
[[Image:Flag of Australia.png|20px|Australia]] 2009 — ''The Transformers'' — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment) 
[[Image:Flag of USA.png|20px|United States of America]] 2009 — ''The Transformers'' — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection ([[Shout! Factory]]) 
[[Image:Flag of USA.png|20px|United States of America]] 2009 — ''The Transformers'' — Season Two, Volume Two: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)

==External links==
*[http://cybertronchronicle.freewebspace.com/cartoon-dossier/synopses/cosmic_rust.html Dossier at the Cybertron Chronicle]

[[Category:Generation 1 episodes]]
[[Category:MSTF]]

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Cosmic Rust (episode)