Transformers Comic issue 2.1

« Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen #1 »
New look, eh?
Publisher	Titan Comics
First published	18 June 2009
Editor	Steve White
Deputy editor	Den Patrick
Designer	Danny Preston
Contributing editors	Ned Hartley and Andrew James
Publishing manager	Darryl Curtis
Price	£2.99/€4.96

All New Adventure!

Training Day

• Script: Simon Furman
• Art: Jon Davis-Hunt
• Letters: Andrew James
• Continuity: Revenge of the Fallen (prequel)

Cybertron is a dead, abandoned world... except for Skids and Mudflap, using the decaying rooftops of Metrotitan as a training ground! Mudflap leaps straight across the roofs, Skids daringly uses an open-ended tunnel to steal a lead, both flip their way through a barrage of laser-fire they set up... but this race will only have one outcome...

...which is a draw. For the forty-sixth time. Still, they'll break the deadlock soon, and this is all good training. After all, it's training day. Every day is training day...

Meanwhile, Decepticon leader Starscream is in contact with the sinister, barely seen real power behind the Decepticons. Starscream, having organised the army, is to lay the groundwork and return to Cybertron until contacted. All that's needed now is the Matrix... and then Earth can burn!

Back on Cybertron, Skids and Mudflap are having fun training around the natural hazards of molten liquid, happily dodging the spurting geysers and leaping across the metal "islands" within the liquid. Both of them wonder why the Autobots went looking for somewhere else to call home when the All Spark left—neither of them want to leave Cybertron ever!

That's when they come under fire by cobalt missiles! They're no longer the only living sparks on Cybertron, now a platoon of Decepticons have arrived, practicing combat manoeuvres! Starscream arrives to call off the practice and make his speech to them: the long period of preparing and organising is over, and soon the Decepticon army will rise... once the almighty star harvester is activated!

Mudflap and Skids, eavesdropping, don't like the sound of that. But a sub-space signal would take time to reach the other Autobots, too much time... meaning the only other option would be to leave Cybertron and inform the others themselves. They don't have time to dwell on this though, as the Decepticons notice them and the entire air force comes out to silence them! Mudflap is injured in the retreat, causing Skids to return fire with an impressive missile arsenal, and the twins soon use their training to avoid and fight off the enemy. But it's delaying the inevitable and there's nowhere left to run, so they're forced to leave Cybertron after all.

Luckily, they remember that signal from Optimus Prime and know just where to go...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Mudflap Skids	The Fallen Starscream "Purple generic drone"

Quotes

Skids: "This race..."
Mudflap: "...was only ever going to have..."
Both: "...one winner!"
Computer: "Result: Dead Heat. Resetting..."
Skids: "Hhh. How many times is that?"
Mudflap: "Forty-six."
Skids: "*sigh*"

"My... um, your army is almost ready."

—Starscream

"This should be fun. Um, I mean this should test our abilities to the full."

—Mudflap

Skids: "The only other option... is to give them the heads up ourselves."
Mudflap: "Leave Cybertron?"
"Leave Cybertron."
"Eek."

Skids: "What was its name?"
Mudflap: "Er..."
"That's it! Earth."

Errors

• It's a dead world, it was established in the first run that there's no energon... how are Skids and Mudflap still alive? Are they nucleon addicts?
• Wow, Starscream and his forces sure got to Cybertron quickly (and did manouevres quickly too...).
• Skids and Mudflap are miscoloured as each other in one panel on page 12.
• If Transformers can travel on "foot" faster than their own long-distance communications, then, well, why were the long-distance communications ever invented?

Notes

• Evidently, in this timeline Stockade's crew haven't set up shop to try and revive the planet with Nucleon and Unicron. Return to Cybertron: Part 1 I wonder where they are...?
• The twins have battle-masks a la Bumblebee, and spend most of the issue with them on.
• Skids and Mudflap are clearly dodging the war (a la Jazz) under the guise of training. Their getting away with this indicates a very fractured Autobot army.
• At some point, Starscream was contacted by the Fallen and began following it.
• A city-state has naturally occurring molten liquid and geysers on top of a building? We hope that was a recently developed hazard!
• The Decepticons are just purple generic drone, who look quite a bit like Animated Lugnut in robot mode. Whether their two tanks are Decepticons or merely vehicles is unconfirmed, but the former would be funner!
• This issue explains why some Transformers have actual alternate modes on Cybertron but become meteors, as Skids' and Mudflap's vehicle modes decay and turn into meteorites as they leave Cybertron's atmosphere.
• The final panel shows symbolic Autobot heads around Earth: the four survivors from the first film, and Sideswipe. Sideswipe seemed an odd choice at the time, but he'll be revealed to be a high-ranking guy.

Contents

Articles & features

• Skids character profile
• Competitions
• Prime Colours: Colour in a copy of last issue's cover!
• Top Gear: Advertising and competitions, including for Alan Dean Foster's ROTF books.
• Puzzle Parts/More Than Meets The Eye: puzzles, including a spot-the-difference, which silhouette fits which Transformer, a wordsearch, and guessing which Transformers' bodyparts are in a photo.
• Pop Quiz, Hotshot: three short quizzes, with varying levels of hardness—Fan, Nerd and Ubernerd specifically. How hard? Ubernerd asks you what were the first two aircraft to attack Blackout in the first film...
• Way Past Cool: A pimping of the Revenge of the Fallen video game.
• Law and Disorder: Letters, art and photos from readers, answered by Barricade and Ironhide.
• Starscream's Stars: Comedy horrorscope, replacing Arcee's Soulmates.
• Posters, one of a All Hail Megatron cover and one of what was going to be this issue's cover (see below).

Free Gift

• "FREE DOG TAGS", as with the last #1.
• "Sticker Album & Stickers!" — a Transformers Animated sticker album with some Movie bits attached to the middle, and a few stickers.

Win a Walk On Part

In the best competition ever, Titan is offering one lucky reader a chance to win a cameo appearance in a Transformers comic!

Reprints

• All Hail Megatron issue 1

Law and Disorder

Barricade: "I'll have nothing to do with this ridiculous letters column if I have to powershare with Autobot scum—especially one who smells like Toilet Duck and old cooking fat!"

"Letting children of any age watch Transformers: The Autobot Propaganda Movie is a direct violation of the Decepticon Earth Occupation Charter.... the only good bit in that entire sorry shambles was when the dog peed on Ironhide. I almost passed coolant laughing."
"Decepticon Earth Occupation Charter? It seems your logic is as bad as your combat skills. Remember that time Bumblebee kicked your rusting metal ass across that empty lot?"
"I'm not going to dignify such prattle with a response."

"Perhaps if you want IDW stories so badly, you should go to a comic shop and buy them."
"What my neurally challenged Decepticon 'friend' means is there are no plans to reprint 'Reign of Starscream' or other [Movie-based] IDW story arcs right now."

Barricade: "Younger readers? Pah, all they do is write in to fawn over that brightly coloured dishwasher, Bumblebee, or whine how Jazz dying in the 2007 film is 'unfair'."

Notes

"Okay, there, we've done a Dreamwave homage. Now stop emailing."

• A very different cover to the one previewed last issue (again).
• Why no plans to reprint the IDW comics is unknown: Titan announced "All Hail Megatron" would last twelve issue, so this wasn't a space issue. Most likely it was to avoid having to tie into anything or avoid contradictions, something that had driven plans for the strip in Vol.1, or be contradicted; at the time, IDW's available tie-ins would be Transformers: Alliance, covering similar ground to the Titan strip of NEST and Earth-based stuff, and the 'how the war began' story Defiance which would lumber them with backstory. "All Hail Megatron", meanwhile, hit the sweet spot of being G1 for older fans and being very new-reader friendly, "here's Megatron and he's punching a city". (It would also make a thematic sequel to "Megatron Origin" which ended last month, as AHM referred to the Decepticons having gone sour after their origins as an uprising)
• Training Day kicks off a series of meet-the-new-toys stories, with Skids and Mudflap as the spotlight characters doing the meeting. [1]
• Star Screams has given Starscream a nervous breakdown, and the Autobots have seized the chance to gain co-ownership of the letters.
• You think Barricade's speaking for Titan's editors when he comments on the IDW reprints...?
• A Dutch fan writes in to complain that #23's quiz erred by saying the Ark was called the Ark, when it never had a name in the cartoon, and in saying Metroplex was on Cybertron. Barricade loves this because it proves Starscream gets things wrong; Ironhide admitted that they should've specified which continuity they meant with the Ark question, and says he'll look the fan up if he ever needs an archivist in the Netherlands!
• The editorial page corrects the wrong credits for Megatron's Revenge.
• The wordsearch asks you to find the Cybertronian locations, and it's a nerd's delight! We're asked to find Cybertropolis, Kaon, Polyhex, Tarn, Vos, Tyger Pax, Simfur, Kalis, Iacon City, the Rust Sea, Helex, Nova Cronum, and even J'nwan. Someone did their homework!
• The Next Issue page refers to #2 as "2.2" and #8 would refer to this issue as "2.1", hence the "2." numbering used on the wiki!
• 'Law and Disorder' features fan art of an updated version of Blurr.