Flames of Yesterday

This article is about the Wings of Honor story. For the Beast Machines episode, see Fires of the Past.

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"Flames of Yesterday"
Publisher	Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive)
First published	May 24, 2010
Written by	Jesse Wittenrich
Illustrations by	Andrew Griffith and Jesse Wittenrich
Continuity	Wings Universe
Page count	44pp

A mission babysitting archaeologists turns into a showdown with Cybertron's past.

Synopsis

Magnum introduces the Combaticons to Metalhawk's Elite Guard squad, much to their bemusement and Sentinel Major is forced to explain how the name makes sense for an Autobot team. Metalhawk and Onslaught are called into a briefing, where Comm Officer Big Bang and Alpha Trion tell them about an all-female team of archeologists who've located an ancient factory, thought to hold the secrets of the origins of the Transformer race. Both Elite Guard teams are required to lend a hand.

They land the Hawk's Claw near the city of Median and meet Strika, who is supremely uninterested in any and all come-ons from the male Autobots. She leaves them to speculate what the archeologists might have found, until Flipsides arrives to lead them to a hall containing a massive urn. Glyph translates the text on the urn for them, explaining that it says it contains the "Heart of the Dragon", a mythical beast said to have attacked Hyperious. Readings suggest that the urn contains either the spark or the personality component of something Cybertronian. Rage, the leader of a small Decepticon faction named the Stormtroopers, is going to make an attempt to steal the thing — Hydradread and Drench already tried to break in before. The Elite Guard set about improving the fortifications.

Some distance away, Rage's group has stopped. Rage sends Roadgrabber ahead to breach the walls while he uses binoculars to scope out the enemy fortifications, and spots the Elite Guard presence. Roadgrabber unerringly finds the weakest point in the wall and plows though... only to discover that it's right in front of the weakest part of the floor. The other four attackers are lured into a trap by Lancer, but Rage unleashes a liquid weapon on Metalhawk which incapacitates the Autobot, and the quartet crash through the rest of the Elite Guard present.

Onslaught's group fires on the incoming Stormtroopers, only to find there are only two targets, not four. Rage and Aquablast have slipped around and broken into the main chamber. They cut the urn in half and retrieve the personality component inside, before dealing with Ironfist and Vortex. The two Decepticons pay a visit to the bunker in which the archeology team is sheltering and kill Glyph for the research she's carrying. Lancer picks this moment to appear and blow Aquablast's head off in retaliation, but Rage escapes.

As the Stormtroopers escape, the Guardsmen give chase, only to encounter Cement-Head and Terror-Tread, two hulking brutes who facilitate their leader's escape by keeping the Autobots busy. After the Decepticons have all left, pointed questions are asked about why the auto-guns weren't activated, and Flipsides says they must have malfunctioned. She reports that the archeology team going to head back to Iacon, and suggests the Guardsmen pursue Rage. They do so, and it's not long before they find Cement-Head and Terror-Tread again. Onslaught's plan to stick them together with Vortex's glue gun is successful, and the pair hardly constitute a hindrance.

The Guardsmen proceed to the Metrotitan, Rage's mobile fortress, where they're met by a welcoming committee: Buffalo Dump and three Minotorons. Weapons only make the beasts angrier, but Swindle uses a device he picked up earlier to scare them off with a high-pitched noise. Dion, Blast Off and Swindle use the beasts to get into the Metrotitan, Trojan horse style, and open the exterior doors to let the others in. Rage, who eventually intends to install the stolen personality component into the Metrotitan itself, has installed it into a somewhat smaller body as a test.

Brimstone makes a dramatic appearance, demonstrating his flame breath which can completely disintegrate anything it touches. The Guardsmen flee, though the very walls seem to shift around them to cut them off, and manage to take advantage of a surprisingly convenient door. They hit Brimstone with Ironfist's entire stock of explosive, but the dragon emerges from the explosion intact. Just as all seems lost, the Guardsmen encounter Drench, Rage's second-in-command, who's decided that Rage has gone way too far and is prepared to defect. Drench points out that the small body Brimstone is in isn't big enough to contain Brimstone's energies and is on the verge of exploding. With Drench's help, they escape the Metrotitan just as the prediction becomes reality and Brimstone explodes violently.

Back in Iacon, Magnum is suspicious of the accuracy of Metalhawk's report, but Onslaught's report is a little less embellished. He tells Metalhawk and Onslaught that he has a new mission for them in Praxium. Elsewhere, Lyzack reports on Rage's failure to her leader.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Onslaught (1) Blast Off (2) Vortex (3) Brawl (4) Swindle (5) Dion (6) Metalhawk (7) Sentinel Major (8) Magnum (9) Big Bang (10) Ironfist (11) Alpha Trion (12) Over-Run (13) Strika (14) Flipsides (15) Glyph (16) Greenlight (17) Lancer (18) Outback (31)	Roadgrabber (19) Rage (20) Drench (21) Hydradread (22) Aquablast (23) Terror-Tread (24) Cement-Head (25) The Metrotitan (26) Buffalo Dump (27) Minotorons (28) Brimstone (29) Megabolt's corpse (30) Deathsaurus (32) Lyzack (33)

Quotes

"Wow, if even Brawl doesn’t want to stand and fight, you know that running’s the better option!"

—Dion does Furmanisms wrong.

Metalhawk: "L-Lancer! T-The... fuzzy... The fuzzy p-petro-rabbits taste like... yellow..."
Lancer: "That... That's not good, is it?"
Dion: "They had some kind of chemical weapon that knocked him out cold. He's having a little problem rebooting."
[a few moments later]
Metalhawk: "Grishy boushy makes vroom..." *passes out again*

—Metalhawk is not here right now. Please leave a message after the beep.

Magnum: "You really expect me to believe all this? Gods, dragons... and here it says that you all died!"
Metalhawk: "Well, I may have taken a few liberties..."
Onslaught: "Perhaps you should read my report, it's probably more... accurate."
Magnum: "Hmm, Median, monsters and Metrotitan. It's all there. Minus the artistic license, of course. Well, at least it's better than Ironfist's single sentence, or Swindle's report that read like romance holo-pulp. With him being the hero and love-interest, of course."

—The Elite Guard engages in Rashomon Style mission reporting.

Notes

• Characters mentioned who do not appear include: Landshakespeare, Thunderblast, The One, the creators, one of Dion's friends, the Covenant, Ariex, Capricun, Geminator, Libras, Scorpius, Taurotron, Virgol, Leonicus, the Constructicons, Megatron, a white and green Autobot, a big green Autobot, a golden dragon, Traachon, Lyzack's brother, and Falcon.

Continuity notes

• The beginning of the story takes place right after the end of "The Coming Storm: Part 2", with the Combaticons greeting their new comrades.
• Dion's launchers were noted to use Reverse-Higgs mechanism in his profile in the Diamond Edition of the "Wings of Honor" comic.
• The Transformers belief in The One(s) as their creator originally appeared in the "Wings of Honor" comic.
• The factory in this story is obviously one of those seen by Rodimus Prime during his vision inside the Matrix in The Transformers episode "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4". The concept that the Autobots were created by the Quintessons as service robots and the Decepticons as military units also originates from that episode. Additionally, Brimstone mentions the original Transformers attacks that forced the Quintessons offworld, and his part in it.
• Alpha Trion knows what the factory is, as he was one of the original Transformers created during the Quintesson reign, as seen in "Five Faces of Darkness" and "Forever Is a Long Time Coming".
• Glyph and Strika's appearances in this story are based on two generics seen in Rodimus' vision of Quintesson-held Cybertron in "Five Faces of Darkness". Author Jesse Wittenrich interpreted the vision as more allegorical than a recording of actual events, which would make their mission moot.
• Greenlight and Lancer are the two generic members of Elita One's squad of female Autobots from "The Search for Alpha Trion". finally given names after 25 years.
• Dion is reminded of "an old friend" when he and the others learn that the archaeological team are all female; obviously, this is Ariel, who worked at the docks with him and Orion Pax in "War Dawn".
• Swindle brings up the Lightning Bug while talking about ancient weapons, seen in "Cosmic Rust".
• Personality components were introduced in "Starscream's Brigade", while laser cores were originally mentioned in "Divide and Conquer"; later fiction has indicated that a laser core is related to the spark, although the type of relationship varies. Here, the laser core contains the spark.
• The planet of Goo, from "Five Faces of Darkness", is mentioned at one point.
• Drench remembers having encountered Thunder Clash and his Elite Guard team, having been ripped to pieces by Landshark.
• Over-Run’s heli-drone is out of commission, its circuits having been shorted out by the fluids of the Virulent Clones in "The Coming Storm: Part 2".
• One of the engravings on the urn containing the Heart of the Dragon depicts Brimstone defeating a golden dragon; this is the Golden One from the extradimensional world of Menonia, seen in "Madman's Paradise".
• The personality components different depictions from "Starscream's Brigade" and "B.O.T." are explained here; the energon cube-like depiction from the former is the result of it glowing with "transformative energy" which reformats the vessel it is placed into a new form, like the Combaticons’ components did with the WWII-era vehicles they were placed into. It loses that energy afterwards, which causes it to look like the box covered with dials and switches seen in the latter.
• During Metalhawk’s hallucinations, he mentions petro-rabbit, a species originally mentioned in The Transformers: The Movie.
• Glyph fades to grey as she dies, as Transformers were depicted to do in The Transformers: The Movie.
• Outback briefly appears at the end of the story; he would show up as Magnum's aide again in next year's "Battle Lines" comic storyline.
• Magnum gives Onslaught and Metalhawk’s teams a new assignment in Praxium, setting up "The Coming Storm: Part 3".
• Deathsaurus promises to help Lyzack free her brother, Leozack, who was captured in "Wings of Honor".

Transformer references

• According to the author, Dion's Nitronium launchers are named for Natron, the Autobot car from the Tyco Electric Racing Set. They're noted to being susceptible to quasar jams without modifications; Cheetor's quasar rifle had the same problem in the first episode of the Beast Wars cartoon.
• Big Bang was an abandoned Japanese concept, intended to be the Autobot leader in the post-Zone toyline, before being replaced by Star Convoy in what became Return of Convoy.
• Swindle's old flame, Thunderblast, is presumably a Generation 1 version of the Cybertron Decepticon of the same name.
• Glyph was an exclusive toy sold at BotCon 2002. Strika was an Autobot-turned-Vehicon General from Beast Machines, seen here before she became a famous general. Flip Sides was an e-Hobby exclusive, sold with the Collector's Edition reissue of Twincast. A sleeper agent for the Decepticons in her original bio, it’s implied here that she works for Deathsaurus as an informant.
• Rage and the Stormtroopers were European exclusives to The Transformers toyline, released near the tail end of the line. Their water-squirting gimmick is treated as a chemical spray here.
• The Covenant were introduced in the Reaching the Omega Point storyline, the first BotCon fiction to be published. A prototypical version of the Thirteen, they were based on the astrological signs of the Zodiac; here, they are actual constellations, fulfilling the same roles as the Earth Zodiac.
• The Metrotitan, here a non-living fortress modified by the Stormtroopers to have a secondary mobile mode, is a version of the Zone Decepticon redeco of Metroplex.
• Roadgrabber was the Decepticon Pretender Vehicle released in the 1988 year of The Transformers toyline. Although not explicitly called a Pretender here, he still has his shell.
• Terror-Tread and Cement-Head were Micromaster Combiners released at the tail end of The Transformers toyline with the Cannon Transport. Here, they’re full sized Transformers, towering even over Onslaught.
• Over-Run's back-up drone is based on the drone/"Brute Mode" combiner armor of Energon Quickstrike, a redeco of Energon Bulkhead, the mold of whom Over-Run is also based on.
• Lancer calls Metalhawk "Boss Bot," the appellation Cheetor gave to Optimus Primal in Beast Wars.
• Luggie's is named for Animated Lugnut.
• Stasis cuffs are a technology introduced in the Animated cartoon, used by the Elite Guard of that universe as well.
• Buffalo Dump originates from concept art for an unproduced subline of The Transformers figures known as "Motor World". It’s unknown what exactly this would have entailed, but judging by other concepts seen alongside it, the line would have continued the Micromaster gimmick.
• Mechanometers, a unit of measurement introduced in "City of Steel" and hics from "The Magnificent Six!" are brought up several times in the story.
• Brimstone is repurposed from the Universe Mini-Con Brimstone.
• Drench notes that "Even at micro-size [Brimstone] has the power to surprise," riffing one of the taglines for Micromasters in The Transformers toyline.
• The body intended for Brimstone in the abandoned stage 2 is that of Robots in Disguise Megabolt, recognizable from its description as "green, gold, and teal".
• As seen in the quote section, Dion quips that "if even Brawl doesn’t want to stand and fight, you know that running’s the better option," riffing the Furmanism.
• Drench is reformatted into a new body after defecting, becoming the Autobot Drench from Generation 2. He’s noted to hand over his weaponry for the Autobots to reverse-engineer, referencing how the Color Changer toys also had water-squirting guns.
• Traachon was an Autobot general introduced in the Marvel UK comics.

Real-world references

• The overall narrative of the story is loosely inspired by various Greek myths, most prominently being the legends of Jason and the Argonauts. According to author Jesse Wittenrich, the decision to base it on the Greek myths came about when the Decepticon Rage was chosen to be the main villain, which reminded him of the first lines of the Greek epic poem, the Iliad ("Rage: Sing Goddess, Achilles' rage, black and murderous..."). Accordingly, there are references to Greek myths throughout the story.
• Sentinel comments that he's "a military ‘bot, not some Landshakespearian" when the others question the Combaticon name; this indicates there's a Cybertronian equivalent to William Shakespeare, presumably named Landshakespeare.
• Onslaught notes that he graduated at the top of his class at Omnihelix Academy, the name of which takes inspiration from the Omnitrix from Ben 10.
• The Ajax P-9000 Grade-B Jump Launch Accelerator takes its name from the Greek mythological hero, Ajax the Great, who played an important role in the aformentioned Iliad.
• Median is named for Medea, the wife of the aforementioned Jason from Greek mythology.
• Lancer’s role in the story is inspired by the Greek mythological character Atalanta, who joined the Argonauts after visiting her home island.
• Mount Helix (also known as the "Nest of the Gods") references the Greek myths about Mount Olympus.
• The city of Hyperious is named for the Titan Hyperion.
• Swindle is noted to sound like a "used trillium-transport salesman"; Trillium is a genus of flower.
• The Krystar iron-bear is named for the titular character from Marvel comic and Remco toyline, The Saga of Crystar.
• The Tressian Kajig— is named for voice actress Tress MacNeille and the euphemism "kajigger" from Futurama used by Hattie McDougal, who is voiced by MacNeille.
• Onslaught calls Roadgrabber the "purple ‘bot-eater," after the song "The Purple People Eater" by Sheb Wooley.
• The Sehlat Fuzz-Bear is named for the Sehlats from Star Trek.
• The Minotorons are named for the mythological creature, the Minotaur.
• Hydrahead uses a hydrospanner while working on Brimstone’s new body, a tool from Star Wars.
• At one point, the narration states "Brimstone huffed and he puffed and blew the door down," paraphrasing the fable The Three Little Pigs.
• The Turesian Tumble Snake is named for the Taresians from Star Trek: Voyager.

Errors

• Many, many, many proofreading errors. Those were later fixed in an updated version of the story.
• Hydradread is mistakenly identified as Aquablast at one point. This was later fixed in an updated version of the story.

External links

• "Flames of Yesterday" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club