Space Opera Part 1: The Stars My Destination

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"Space Opera Part 1: The Stars My Destination"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	May 18, 2011
Cover date	May 2011
Written by	Mike Costa
Art by	Guido Guidi
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Editor	Andy Schmidt
Assistant editor	Carlos Guzman
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2011)

Rodimus finds himself stranded on a desolate planet, where he encounters potential allies.

Synopsis

As the dead Rodimus Prime floats through space, he drifts into the atmosphere of a planet and crashes to the surface. Two thugs notice this and examine the body, thinking it reminds them of the Jangle Man. When they try to remove the Matrix lodged in Rodimus's chest, the Autobot returns to life, though still unconscious. The thugs then decide to take Rodimus to "the Admiral" in hopes he will help them get off-planet.

Rodimus awakens at the Admiral's headquarters, an Ilxian starship, and the Admiral tells him that he bears Rodimus no ill will, but that he must use the Matrix as a power source to get off-planet. Before he can try though, Rodimus uses his arm blasters to free himself. He transforms to get away, which surprises the aliens.

The badly damaged Rodimus hides in a cave, but is surprised by a Chaosteros, which attacks him. The beast runs off though when he hears music. Rodimus thanks his savior, but is flabbergasted to find out it's Wheelie, who disappeared millennia ago. Wheelie takes Rodimus to his own ship for repairs, which Rodimus tries to figure out what happened. Garnak tracks him down, but is easily subdued. He explains how they crashed, and about the Admiral's experiments that ruined the planet's atmosphere. Garnak doesn't have any loyalty to his former bosses, so he agrees to help Rodimus and Wheelie escape the planet instead.

The group trick the Admiral and Codder into leaving the ship, and Rodimus speeds inside with Garnak while Wheelie calls a Chaosteros to keep the two aliens busy while the ship is prepared for takeoff. Rodimus hooks up the Matrix to the ship's power source and goes offline while Wheelie pilots the ship to Cybertron.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Others
Hot Rod/"Rodimus Prime" (1) Wheelie (6)	Codder (2) Garnak (3) Admiral (4) Chaosteros (5)

Quotes

• TBD

Notes

Continuity notes

• Hot Rod states Wheelie went missing around the time he joined the Autobots, a story which was later told in Autocracy, a series set over four million years ago. Though this seemingly relegates the events of Spotlight: Wheelie to the distant past, the aforementioned issue of Robots in Disguise's revelation that LV-117 travels through time makes it unclear how much time Wheelie really spent on the planet. He seemingly arrives after the departure of Turmoil, who visited the planet thousands of years in the past, but before the arrival of the Reflector trio over 70 years before present day.
  • Time travel also makes it unsure if Wheelie's distress transmission from Spotlight: Optimus Prime was in "real time" or an echo bouncing through space.
• The Admiral is a member of the Ilxian race previously appeared in Spotlight: Blaster. The one seen stranded here must have been stranded on LV-118 some time before that Spotlight as the Ilxian who appeared in Spotlight: Blaster knew of Cybertronians while the Admiral who appears in this story thought that Wheelie could be unique in the entire universe.
• Codder and Garnak are members of the same orc-like species who appeared briefly in Spotlight: Drift.
• Hinted at but not expressly stated this issue is the fact that this planet is not LV-117 from Spotlight: Wheelie; the following issue would identify it as an evident neighbour, LV-118.
• The monster that bedevils our cast is a Chaosteros, and an Arachnosaur can be glimpsed in the background on page 3, both species previously seen in Spotlight: Wheelie. It's fairly illogical to think that these animals would have evolved identically on entirely separate planets; a year and a half later, Robots in Disguise #10 would explain that Wheelie brought them with him.
• Following on from the cliffhanger of Spotlight: Wheelie that hinted at the presence of Quintessons on LV-117, the ship that Wheelie has come to LV-118 in is a Quintesson Cruiser. Further, Wheelie's claim that he "Came by trial" evokes the Quintessons' famous "trials", which might have something to do with where Wheelie got that lovely necklace of Sharkticon teeth too—something he also wore in the storybook, "The Story of Wheelie, the Wild Boy of Quintesson".
• Along with the teeth, Wheelie is wearing the translation device of his alien buddy Varta, last seen in Spotlight: Wheelie, whose absence is not explained in this story. Varta's fate would be revealed in the aforementioned Robots in Disguise #10, in which he was shown to be killed by a time-travelling Bludgeon before the events of this issue. That issue would also show that Wheelie had to relocate from LV-117 to 118 because the planet was destroyed by mysterious forces, later revealed to be Unicron. However, that issue would erroneously depict both Wheelie and Varta wearing translation devices, missing the implication that Wheelie wore the device in Varta's memory!

Real-world references

• The story is likely named after The Stars My Destination, a 1956 science fiction novel by Alfred Bester.

Errors

• On page 2, Garnak is twice referred to as Codder, meaning either their colors or speech bubbles are switched in those panels.
• On the last page, as the ship blasts off, colorist Joana Lafuente appears to have misinterpreted the curved spire seen earlier in the issue in the background as just being more contrails surrounding the ship. They're colored translucent to show the moon behind, with Lafuente even appearing to have drawn in the missing curved outline of the moon that was intended to be obscured by the structure.

Covers (3)

• Cover A: Rodimus in the cross hairs of Wheelie's slingshot; art by Marcelo Matere and colors by Joana Lafuente.
• Cover B: Rodimus' hand reaches for the Matrix as it floats through space; art by Guido Guidi and colors by Andrew Dalhouse.
• Cover RI: Uncolored version of Cover A.

• 
  Put that down or you'll shoot my eye out, kid!
• 
  Must...reach... plot... device...
• 
  Wheelie hates turbo-revin' punks.

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Reprints

• The Transformers, Volume 5: Chaos Theory (November 2, 2011) ISBN 1613770901 / ISBN 978-1613770900
  • Collects The Transformers (2009) issues #19–23.
  • Bonus material includes art from most covers.
  • Trade paperback format.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Volume Eight (May 7, 2013) ISBN 1613776276 / ISBN 978-1613776278
  • Collects Heart of Darkness issues #1–4, and The Transformers (2009) issues #19–31.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 49: The Iron Age (May 30, 2018)
  • Collects Ironhide issues #1–4, and The Transformers (2009) issues #19–20 & #21: "Space Opera—Final Tableaux: Orphans of the Helix".
  • Bonus material includes Casey Coller's Ironhide sketchbook.
  • Hardcover format.

• 
  Volume 5: Chaos Theory – cover art by Nick Roche
• 
  The IDW Collection Volume Eight – cover art by E. J. Su
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 49: The Iron Age – cover art by Don Figueroa and Casey Coller