Eye in the Sky

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I am the eye in the sky Looking at you
"Eye in the Sky"
Publisher	Fun Publications
First published	May 1, 2009
Written by	Trent Troop and Greg Sepelak
Illustrations by	Tom Whalen
Cover	Tom Whalen
Continuity	Shattered Glass
Chronology	Current era (2009)
Page count	29pp

The Decepticons fight to save Earth from Rodimus Prime's Autobots.

Synopsis

After Heatwave manages to locate Soundwave's stasis pod and get him reactivated, they gather up Soundwave's cassettes who have landed nearby, and go off in search of the Nemesis. They eventually find the ship's crash site, and discover there's a team of local scientists snooping around. After a misunderstanding between the scientists and Ravage, the Decepticons eventually learn that the humans—Professor Henri Arkeville and his interns—are friendly and sympathetic, and invite them on board to meet up with Starscream and Cliffjumper, who survived the crash.

Rodimus, on the other hand, meets up with his own set of human allies—the Witwicky brothers—when the three try to steal him. He takes them back to the Ark and convinces the other Autobots to accept the humans' help, though not before dealing with an attempt by Goldbug to usurp leadership. Rodimus ultimately wins by using the Ark's defenses to restrain Goldbug mid-fight (and insists that what he did isn't "technically" cheating.) After listening to advice from the Witwickys, Rodimus decides to change the Autobots' modus operandi; instead of pillaging the entire world of its energy, leaving it an empty husk as they have with Cybertron, they plan to "farm" the world of its energy in small increments, essentially turning it into a source of renewable energy and resources. Rodimus also studies Earth's transmissions and hatches his first plan to achieve this end: Hijack one of the United States' military bases, take control of the country's defense satellite, and use it to hold the planet hostage until the humans accept the Autobots as their new Mafia-like leaders.

With help from the Witwickys', Rodimus and a small group of Autobots muscle their way into the army base. The Autobots' ability to transform catches the military men entirely by surprise. Though Lieutenant McMillan puzzles out that he was done in by a "Trojan Horse" tactic when he detained the three joyriding Witwickys for trespassing on his base, he does so far too late. With their older brother, First Sergeant Bruce "Buzz" Witwicky, as their inside man, the Witwickys had already won the their hostile take-over before it had begun.

Cliffjumper, Heatwave, Soundwave and their human allies locate Crasher's pod in a demolition yard. The female transformer is rebooted and joins the group. As Cliffjumper voices his thoughts over how humans in a "backwards" dimension are not quite what he expected (he anticipated them to be caught up in much more turmoil) the Decepticons learn of the Autobots' success in gaining control of the satellite base. Using the Decepticons' human allies in a "Trojan Horse" strategy of their own, Soundwave has Ravage and Frenzy infiltrate the base. Then, he rejoins the other Decepticons as they launch a full-frontal assault to free the base from Rodimus's command. During the fight, Heatwave is able to gain access to the satellite's controller and use it to disable the Autobots' control and evacuate the base. He then turns the satellite on the base itself, destroying it, and finally crushes the controller as well. The satellite's fail-safes then causes it to self-destruct.

When President Colton hears of the situation, he decides that first, the government will continue to send orbital defenses up; second, his administration will keep a passive eye on the Decepticons and their allies; and third, the Autobots are the faction he is intrigued by first and foremost...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Decepticons	Autobots	Humans	Others
Heatwave (5) Soundwave (6) Ravage (7) Frenzy (12) Starscream (21) Crasher (28)	Rodimus "Prime" (11) Goldbug (13) Big Daddy (14) Brawn (15) Beachcomber (16) Wheeljack (17) Blaster (18) Seaspray (19) Side Burn (23) Scrounges (25)	Henri Arkeville (1) Will (2) Sephie (3) Rick (4) Butch Witwicky (8) Spike Witwicky (9) Buster Witwicky (10) McMillan (24) The General (26) Bruce "Buzz" Witwicky (27) Colton (29) Hauser (30) Clay (31)	Cliffjumper (20) Teletraan-X (22)

Quotes

"Metal monsters from the center of the earth! The government said that'd never happen again!"
[...] "Whoah, little meaty dudes! Fear not, for we come from outer space."
"The government said that wouldn't happen again, either!"

—Will is not happy about meeting Soundwave.

"Sorry 'bout the memory failure there. They only recently started making bots like you back in my dimension, you'd think it'd help me remember you better."
"Bots like me?"
"Well, yeah, because... uh... I mean you're..." (Cliffjumper waves his hands in a vague hourglass shape) "That is, you've... y'see... there's bots and then there's... oh, hey, look Heatwave's here!"

—Cliffjumper and Crasher discuss Crasher's... curviness.

Heatwave: I really don't like talking to your infoweb, I feel like I need a decon wash after every connection.
Ravage: Rilly? I think it's full of win.
Heatwave: Is that supposed to be a euphemism for—
Cliffjumper: Can we just get on with this?!

—Heatwave and Ravage discuss the internet, much to Cliffjumper's consternation.

"You dudes may be numerous, but there's one thing you don't know. I have no mouth...yet I must rock."

—Soundwave

"Hello there, I am Heatwave. I'm afraid I've got bad news. Yes, you've been hijacked by a hostile power. No, it's not them. I don't know who the 'Russkies' are, but the Autobots are worse, trust me on this."

—Heatwave introduces himself to a military satellite defense controller.

"Clay...in all the years you've known me, where have the concerns of the international community typically lain in my priority list?"
"Somewhere between National Bran Awareness Day and your alimony payments, sir."

—President Colton and Vice President Clay discuss presidential concerns.

Notes

• Mentioned characters include: Optimus Prime, Prime’s brother, Astrotrain and his crew, Blaster’s “cassette buddies”, Frenzy’s brother, and Abdul Fakkadi.

Continuity notes

• Soundwave was reformatted in “The Desert Heat!”, a two-page comic prelude to this story.
• Ravage originally appeared in his bio in issue #26 of the Club magazine, while Frenzy originally appeared in “Shattered Glass” comic. Crasher, Wheeljack, and Side Burn originally appeared in “Dungeons & Dinobots” where Beachcomber was also briefly mentioned
• Optimus Prime’s brother is Ultra Magnus; his coup was originally mentioned in “Dungerons & Dinobots” and was mentioned in several bios after that.
• Cliffjumper notes that fembots are a recent phenomena in his home dimension; the original Transformers comic presented the Cybertronians as having no biological sexes (although they’re all coded male, gender-wise). Classics Elita One’s BotCon 2009 toy bio indicated that she just appeared one day, with only Grimlock knowing her origins.
• Cliffjumper notes that a few humans on his Earth tried to take them out back in the day, referencing government group RAAT.
• Astrotrain and his crew were separated from the other Decepticons in “Do Over” during his assault on the Ark.
• Side Burn is really interested in humans. We’ll find out why later.
• Frenzy’s brother is Rumble, who was executed by the Autobots in the original “Shattered Glass” comic.

Transformer references

• Several new Shatttered Glass characters are introduced, including the first appearance of humans in this continuity.
  • Professor Arkeville is a Shattered Glass version of Doctor Arkeville, the Decepticon’s ally seen in a few episodes of the first season of the original Transformers cartoon. Like his counterpart, he has cybernetic parts.
  • Will and Rick are Shattered Glass versions of Billy and Fred, former bullies from the Armada cartoon. Will is the one that eats a lot in this version.
  • Sephie is a Shattered Glass version of Josie Beller, better known as the supervillain Circuit Breaker from the Marvel Transformers comic. Sephie loves machines, unlike her positive-universe counterpart.
  • Three of the Witwicky brothers are based on pre-existing positive-universe characters. Butch is the obscurest, his positive universe counterpart only having appeared in a coloring book, while Spike and Buster’s counterparts were the main human allies in the Transformers cartoon and Marvel comic, respectively. Buzz, meanwhile, is all new. Their father is mentioned several times; while never named, it’s fairly easy to guess that he would be called Sparkplug Witwicky.
  • Big Daddy is repurposed from live-action movie toy Big Daddy; Big Daddy is a senior Autobot, unlike his young positive-universe counterpart.
  • Brawn is repurposed from live-action movie toy Strongarm.
  • Beachcomber is repurposed from live-action movie toy Hardtop.
  • Seaspray is repurposed from live-action movie toy Storm Surge.
  • Teletraan-X is the Shattered Glass version of Teletraan I, the Autobot computer from the Transformers cartoon. X has a female voice, as opposed to I’s male voice.
  • McMillan’s the odd one out, being entirely new and untied to any concept or character in previous fiction.
• The Nemesis crashed into a mountain, like the Ark did in the original Transformers cartoon.
• The Ark, meanwhile, crashed into the ocean, with the Autobots making a tunnel to the surface, like the Victory in the original Transformers cartoon.
• Butch wants to repaint Rodimus into a cherry red, like his positive-universe counterpart.
• The Nemesis had a Reconfiguration Matrix onboard, an object originating from the bio Generation 2 Go-Bots Optimus Prime.
• Prime and Magnus being brothers originated as a concept in the 2001 ‘Robots in Disguise series with its Prime and Magnus.
• Brawn has nucleon shock gauntlets; these originally appeared in Timelines prose story “Force of Habit”. Additionally, they reference the positive-universe Brawn’s unrelased Universe/OTFCC 2005 toy, which would have had a newly sculpted pair of gauntlets to fit over his fists, and was a redeco of Energon Strongarm (who was redecoed into live-action movie Strongarm, the toy Shattered Glass Brawn is repurposed from).
• Cliffjumper calls the GODS satellite a “satellite of doom”, referencing the Transformers Kids Stuff story book of the same name.
• Autobots generally don't fly, something that surprises Cliffjumper, as his universe’s Autobots don’t fly often either.
• One of Wheeljack’s insane projects is that of created atomic supermutant alloygators; alloygators were originally mentioned in the BotCon 2007 comic “Games of Deception”.
• Goldbug confuses Frenzy with his brother, Rumble, in reference to the classic fandom debate about their positive-universe counterparts.
• Goldbug has stingers, just like his Animated counterpart.
• Goldbug begins to say that the Decepticon’s infiltration is “finished, ov-“ before being cut off by Frenzy, referencing the Furmanism.
• The pacifistic Abdul Fakkadi’s despotic positive-universe counterpart (whose depiction was an extremely racist stereotype) debuted in Five Faces of Darkness, the beginning miniseries of the third season of the Transformers cartoon as the leader of Carbombya (also extremely racist and stereotypical); here, he’s the leader of the Ottoman Confederacy, for obvious reasons.

Real-world references

• Sephie identifies Heatwave's Earth alternate mode as a "Stompbox Mobile Missile Deployer", yet another of writer Greg Sepelak's references to a They Might Be Giants song, in this case the differently-parsed "Stomp Box".
• In this universe, World War III occurred during the 1980s. In 1988 one specific attack destroyed the Western seaboard of the United States and sent most of it underwater. The combatants aside from America are unknown, but modern day enemies of the United States include the Soviet Union (which collapsed in 1991 in the real-world; the Cold War is noted to still be in effect), the United Kingdom (the Queen Mother wants to conquer America and take their land; providentially, the tensions from the early days of the United States never cooled), and the Ottoman Confederacy (this universe’s version of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed shortly after World War I in the real world; its capital, Istanbul, is mentioned by McMillan).
• Rick mistakes Soundwave’s alt-mode as the van of the Misfits from Jem and the Holograms; the positive universe version was all-black, with their name inscribed on the side, as opposed to the bright pink van decorated with three screaming banshees described here.
• Rick mentions “rebels”; combined with who the president is, and comments from McMillan (see below), it seems likely they are mirror-universe versions of Cobra from G.I. Joe.
• Ravage inquires if he “can haz humanz,” referencing the I Can Has Cheezburger? meme.
• The Shattered Glass equivalent to Twitter is Yatter, while the equivalent to iPods are oPods. The oPod’s buttons are in a diamond configuration, as opposed to the circle configuration of iPods.
• The mention of monsters from the center of the Earth are a reference to the Inhumanoids, another Marvel/Sunbow production from the same era as the Transformers with a toyline by Hasbro.
• Frenzy’s mannerisms and “angry” mode are based on the Hulk, specifically the version played by Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno in the 1978 Incredible Hulk series.
• Big Daddy’s mannerism are based on Bing Crosby.
• Beachcomber's line "Cats in the cradle! And the silver spoon!" are lyrics from the song "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin, while his line "Now's your time to burn your mind!" are lyrics from the song "Fire" by Arthur Brown.
• Cliffjumper is especially distrustful of Arkeville; their positive-universe counterparts shared the same voice actor, Casey Kasem.
• Starscream makes reference to Pete Prometheus, a fictitious space ranger they caught from Earth transmissions. Presumably, he’s based on characters like Buck Rogers.
• The GODS satellite was delivered to space by the Defiant, the space shuttle from G.I. Joe.
• Burpleson Air Force Base is a reference to the base of the same name from the film Dr. Strangelove. Like the base in the film, the general at the base is rather…unhinged.
• President Colton has a “personal vanguard,” likely a Shattered Glass version of G.I. Joe.
• The general’s lines “Who the heaven cares?” and “Well, I’ll be raptured” seem likely influenced by the DC Comics "JLA: Earth 2" graphic novel, in which several inhabitants of the Antimatter Universe Earth utter the phrase “God below,” among other inversions of phrases. The graphic novel itself revitalizes the Crime Syndicate of America/Earth-3 concept, which was one of the first mirror universes seen in fiction, predating the main inspiration of Shattered Glass, the Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror, by three years.
• McMillan notes that the soldiers fell for the “Trojan Horse gambit”.
• When the Witwickies tells McMillan that they’re working for an alien empire, McMillan sarcastically asks them if the Autobots were built by “aliens” from M.A.R.S.-the weapons company belong to Cobra ally Destro.
• The Decepticons discover Crasher's stasis pod in "Bay's Demolition Yard", a reference to Michael Bay, director of the live-action Transformers movies.
• The Statue of Liberty has a sword instead of a torch, and is golden in color, rather than the dirty green the statue is today.
• Side Burn mockingly says “blah blah blah, yackity schmackity” after Big Daddy admonishes him, quoting the catchphrase of Hugh from Taz-Mania, whose mannerisms are based on Bing Crosby as well.
• Soundwave's line "I have no mouth... Yet I must rock", is a reference to Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".
• President Colton is the mirrorverse version of Joe Colton the original G.I. Joe. Vice-President Clay is the counterpart of Hawk, while Secretary of Defense Hauser is the counterpart of Duke.
• Will’s full name, William Hayes, references wrestler Billy Jack Haynes and infomercial star Billy Mays, while Rick’s full name, Frederick Ottman, references wrestler Fred Ottman.

External links

• "Eye in the Sky" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club