Departure: Difference between revisions
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*Ramulus and Primal Prime pinch [[Action Master]] Optimus Prime's big entry in "[[End of the Road! (US)|End of the Road!]]". Primal Prime will later borrow an Ultra Magnus pose from ''[[The Transformers: The Movie]]''. | *Ramulus and Primal Prime pinch [[Action Master]] Optimus Prime's big entry in "[[End of the Road! (US)|End of the Road!]]". Primal Prime will later borrow an Ultra Magnus pose from ''[[The Transformers: The Movie]]''. | ||
*The Mutants' origin as failed Megatron experiments is their tech spec origins to a tee. | *The Mutants' origin as failed Megatron experiments is their tech spec origins to a tee. | ||
*The story takes a stand on fandom's [[Cyclonus (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity|"Was it Bombshell or Skywarp who became Cyclonus?"]] debate by having Skywarp standing next to him. | *The story takes a stand on fandom's [[Cyclonus (G1)/Generation 1 cartoon continuity#Who_is_Cyclonus.3F|"Was it Bombshell or Skywarp who became Cyclonus?"]] debate by having Skywarp standing next to him. | ||
===Real-world references=== | ===Real-world references=== | ||
Revision as of 20:07, 29 September 2016
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 We've seen this cover layout somewhere... | |||||||||||||
| "Departure" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | 3H Productions | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | July 13, 2001 (BotCon 2001) | ||||||||||||
| Story | Glen Hallit | ||||||||||||
| Script | Glen Hallit | ||||||||||||
| Art | Dan Khanna | ||||||||||||
| Lettering | Richard Starkings and Comicraft | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Rob Gerbracht, Jon Hartman, Dan Khanna | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Universe | ||||||||||||
The Oracle gathers a motley crew of Transformers and sends them on various missions.
Synopsis
- In the near future, Daniel Witwicky (now grown to adulthood) and Wheelie are killed while engaged in a battle against a horde of Nightbirds. This sends Daniel's friend Arcee into a deep state of depression. Rodimus and Springer talk about undergoing the Maximal Upgrade.
Three hundred years later on Vehicon-controlled Cybertron, Optimus Primal and Nightscream are transporting the three Deployers while under attack from Vehicons. They are rescued by Ramulus and Primal Prime, who take them to meet the rest of the Wreckers team. Apelinq recounts for Optimus their mutual battle against Shokaract, which Optimus does not fully remember.
In the Oracle chamber, the Wreckers are joined by the Mutants and Dinobots. The Oracle, after propounding vaguely at length, sends the three teams on a series of missions. Optimus and Nightscream are deemed to "have witnessed too much", and their memories of these meetings are purged.
Meanwhile, Megatron has created two new Vehicon generals to hunt down these new wayward Cybertronians.
The Wreckers meet up with Rodimus, who has been trying to convince the morbid Arcee to join them. After she bids them leave, Fractyl gives it one last try, to which Arcee is more open... only for Fractyl to get blown away by the arriving Vehicon generals. Furious, Arcee blasts Quake and Blastcharge out of the way and attempts to heal Fractyl.
Looking for a starship, the Wreckers arrive at Shuttle Complex Ohm in Dodecahex, only to find it overrun with Vehicons under Spy Streak's command. A battle ensues. The arrival of the Wreckers' air support (Cyclonus, Skywarp, and Rotorbolt), as well as Arcee and the newly-Transmetalized Fractyl, turns the tide against the Vehicons. Blastcharge gets sliced in half by Fractyl while Tigatron vaporizes Quake. The Wreckers escape on the shuttle, leaving Spy Streak trapped in the rubble as Cyclonus detonates explosives that destroy the entire complex. Megatron observes their escape and advises them to run while they can.
In space, the Wreckers have little time to relax, as a stowaway has showed up and started beating up passengers for no apparent reason. He says his name is Devcon...
Featured characters
(Characters in italic text appear only in the past or in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots/Maximals | Decepticons/Predacons/Vehicons | Others |
|---|---|---|
Dinobots
|
|
Robots
Computers
|
Notes
Continuity notes
- "Depature" and the following issue, "Betrayal", will make a number of references to plot points and events from the 1980s cartoon. This is in contrast to the previous Shokaract stories, which nodded more to the comics.
- This is the first time the Wreckers appear outside of Marvel UK.
- What did Doctor Fujiyama the Not-So-Famous Scientist learn from his prior experiment? Zilch!
- In 3H continuity, the Maximal Upgrade is coming in almost immediately after the Pax Cybertronia is signed.
- Springer refers to Rodimus as "kid" and the guy protests he's Rodimus "now", implying this is Hot Rod changing his name and he isn't currently the Matrix-bearer. Whoever is running the Autobots (presumably a resurrected Optimus) goes unmentioned.
- Amusingly, Optimus Primal realizes that Primal Prime uses his old body, the Primal Prime toy being a redeco of Optimal Optimus, but fails to note the same with Apelinq, who is a redeco of Transmetal Optimus Primal.
- It's only here that we learn people did not die in a big explosion when Shokaract went up in "Departure". Instead, transwarp portals were opened to get everyone to safety between panels! It's not stated who opened the damn things though. The panel art implies Soundwave is opening at least one.
- Many new characters are protoforms abandoned on Earth after the Beast Wars, explaining what happened to all those pods that surely should have spawned a new toy if not for CGI budget.
- The Oracle's memory wipe of Primal and Nightscream is intended to make sure this issue doesn't conflict with the events of the television show. Within the story, however, it is not real clear why they shouldn't know there are other Maximal survivors.
- Blastcharge is a Great War veteran we just never heard of before.
- Megatron refers to the Dinobots as "a ragtag group... from the bowels of our planet".
- Fractyl has lost a friend, which is almost certainly a reference to his fellow BotCon Pred Vice Grip. Nothing specific is said and this may have been intended for "Primeval Dawn".
Errors
- Cybertron is celebrating peace on page 7 but this is several months after the treaty. Is it a really long party?
- There's a living Sandstorm seen in the flashback panel to the "greatest legends" zapping Shokaract. Problem is, at that point he was very dead!
- When the Oracle is first addressing the crowd, all the text in the speech bubble ("It will soon be...") is repeated in the next bubble.
- The Oracle keeps calling T-Wrecks "T-Rex".
- The appearance of the Grand Mal places this story within the second season of Beast Machines, but Optimus Primal is still refered to by Tigatron as the extremist from the first season, rather than the seeker of balance that he had since become. This is a double error as Optimus doesn't do anything extreme and his big look of obsession is over beating up Megatron.
- No other character but Optimus brings up that this vast horde of Transformers could all go and take out Megatron.
- Optimus and Nightscream have their memories wiped, but they'd travelled 100 kilometres in search of the Deployers, who are now with the Wreckers, so shouldn't this lengthy gap and lost equipment leave them with more questions than it prevents?
- Becoming a Transmetal was unprecedented until the Beast Wars and was presented as something that required transwarp explosions or weird science, yet Arcee became one centuries ago!
- Megatron has a scene devoted to his new generals but Spy Streak is completely absent, yet there he is suddenly showing up at the battle and sentient. Primal Prime even says "the two generals" in the page after Streak speaks, implying he apparently isn't one.
- Rotorbolt's excessively loud in his alternate mode, but as we don't have the WHUPWHUPWHUP sound effects until "Betrayal" there's no actual sign of this beyond a line.
- The two generals belong to Apelinq and Prime! Then Apelinq disappears a page later and Tigatron kills Quake instead, and then Apelinq comes back. You bum, Apeling.
Transformers references
- The shuttle that the Autobots, minus Daniel and Wheelie, use to escape the horde of Nightbirds is actually the Autobot Sky Garry from Return of Convoy. The transport it drops is a Micro Trailer, though here, there's nothing "micro" about it!
- As Arcee looks sullenly at the image of her and Daniel, the weapons seen mounted on the wall nearby are Hot Rod's photon pistols (drawn to toy-accurate specifications), and the laser-sword and shield he used during his duel with the auto-combatant in The Transformers: The Movie.
- For Rodimus, undergoing the Maximal Upgrade means a change from his original cartoon character model, magenta coloration and all, to an accurate rendering of his original Generation 1 toy.
- Ramulus and Primal Prime pinch Action Master Optimus Prime's big entry in "End of the Road!". Primal Prime will later borrow an Ultra Magnus pose from The Transformers: The Movie.
- The Mutants' origin as failed Megatron experiments is their tech spec origins to a tee.
- The story takes a stand on fandom's "Was it Bombshell or Skywarp who became Cyclonus?" debate by having Skywarp standing next to him.
Real-world references
- The Nightbirds are functionally identical to each other, but their accent colors vary between blue, orange, red, and purple. This is a reference to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, whose bandanas were the same colors.
Production notes
- This issue debuted at BotCon 2001. The Wreckers title would be rebranded as part of the Universe storyline the following year.
- This issue also contained "Primeval Dawn Part 1" as a backup story.
- The inside cover has a row of insignias. The Decepticons are left out but the Blendtron symbol is here, as referencing a then-little seen anime passed on by internet rumours is the sort of thing 90s and early 00s nerds loved.
