What's in a Name?
| |||||||||||||
 Swoop gets the bird. | |||||||||||||
| "What's in a Name?" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Marvel Comics | ||||||||||||
| First published | 1st August 1987 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | 1987 | ||||||||||||
| Writer | Simon Furman | ||||||||||||
| Art | Will Simpson | ||||||||||||
| Inks | Elliott | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Marvel Comics continuity | ||||||||||||
Millions of years ago on Cybertron, an Autobot called Divebomb loses a battle and his name to a mysterious Decepticon.
Synopsis
[edit]Millions of years ago on Cybertron, the Autobot called Divebomb was beaten in combat by a Deception whose real name he never learned; the Decepticon then stole his name.
In an attempt to regain his name and his honour, Divebomb disobeys orders and goes hunting for the Decepticon. He eventually finds him deep in enemy territory and engages him in battle. Unfortunately, he is again defeated and would be killed if not for Optimus Prime, who had followed him and drove the Decepticon off. As he hates Prime, this simply made Divebomb's shame even worse.
In the present day, Divebomb, now known as Swoop, discovers that the Decepticon who stole his name has arrived on Earth as part of the Predacon team. Having lied to the other Dinobots by telling them he beat Divebomb last time, he sets off to defeat him once and for all.
Featured characters
[edit](Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons |
|---|---|
|
|
Quotes
[edit]"I'm Divebomb now and you - you're nobody!"
"No! I am Divebomb!"
"Oh yeah? Easy to say - not so easy to back up. You want this name, you take it from me!"
"I will!"
- —New Divebomb and Future Swoop engage in pre-fight banter
"Looking back, I wonder if death would have been preferable to what came next. I figure he must have come looking for me as soon as I went A.W.O.L. I also figure he saw enough of the battle to know how humiliatingly I'd been defeated. The shame was too much to bear. Especially as I'd been saved by the commanding officer I hated with a passion - Optimus Prime!"
- —Swoop has issues.
"I told him to forget it - that it was ancient history. And you know, for a moment, it looked as though he was gonna' tell me something - something that had been bothering him. But all he said was - 'He's still usin' my name.'"
- —Sludge is confused by Swoop's back story.
Notes
[edit]- Swoop and Divebomb's pre-Earth alt modes are revealed here. Uniquely for this era they are also given distinctly new Cybertronian robot mode designs as well.
- On Cybertron Swoop (Divebomb) was a member of the Elite Flying Corps.
- The story was inspired by a casual line in "The Icarus Theory" in which it was stated that Swoop's name on Cybertron was Divebomb (itself likely based on the original The Transformers cartoon series bible, wherein a description of the Dinobot was typed with the name "Divebomb", then crossed out by hand and rewritten "Swoop"). The opportunity this presented for conflict between Swoop and the Predacon Divebomb was almost certainly serendipitous.
Foreign Localization
[edit]- Swedish
- Title: "Vad betyder väl ett namn?" ("What's in a Name?")
Cover
[edit]- Transformers Annual 1987 cover: Ultra Magnus versus Galvatron, by Robin Smith.
-
Transformers Annual 1987
Reprints
[edit]- Transformers: Prey TPB cover: Optimus Prime fends off Predacons while Ultra Magnus broods, by Lee Sullivan.
- Best of UK: Prey #3 Regular cover: Shockwave and Optimus, back to back, by Andrew Griffith.
- Best of UK: Prey #3 RI "Retro" cover: A surprised Swoop, by Will Simpson and Dave Elliott.
- Best of UK: Prey TPB cover: Predaking prepares to crush Prime, by Andrew Griffith.
- The Transformers Classics UK Volume 4 cover: Rodimus and Galvatron fight whilst Scorponok squeezes Highbrow and Goldbug rides Wreck-Gar, by Andrew Wildman.
- Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection, Volume 11: The Legacy of Unicron: Wreck-Gar and Unicron by Don Figueroa and Dan Reed.
- Transformers 100-Page Giant: Power of the Predacons: Predacons attack, by Don Figueroa and Josh Burcham
-
Transformers: Prey TPB (Titan Books, 2004) -
Best of UK: Prey #3 Regular (IDW Publishing, 2009) -
Best of UK: Prey #3 RI (IDW Publishing, 2009) -
Best of UK: Prey TPB (IDW Publishing, 2010) -
The Transformers Classics UK Volume 4 (IDW Publishing, 2013) -
Definitive G1 Collection vol. 11: The Legacy of Unicron (Hachette Partworks, Ltd., 2018) -
Power of the Predacons (IDW Publishing, 2020)
