Goin' South

Megatron and Cobra Commander fetch the Ark, and land it in Anytown, USA.

G.I. Joe A Real American Hero 140

Script: Larry Hama
Pencils: Chris Batista
Inks: Chip Wallace
Colors: Bob Sharen
Editor: Dave Wohl

• Major Transformers characters (in order of appearance): Megatron, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee.
• Originally published: September, 1993

Synopsis

We open somewhere over Canada, with Megatron leading Cobra to the location of the Ark as part of their technology exchange. Megatron disguised it as a hillock while it was self-repairing. Now, he remotely orders it into the sky. It impresses the heck out of most of Cobra, especially Doctor Biggles-Jones, who is nearly orgasmic over the chance to play with plasma impellers, photon accelerators, and anti-gravity.

"My moustache is all the clothing I need!"

They head south into the USA, and Cobra Commander has them set down in Milleville. It turns out Cobra has everyone in the town brainwashed. Cobra Commander orders the citizens out to unload the Cobra helicopters and the Ark. During the process, the containment capsule holding Doctor Mindbender breaks, and he stands up, mostly recovered from being dead.

Meanwhile, G.I. Joe has managed to notice a ginormous spaceship drifting into middle America and is sneaking into Milleville. Tunnel Rat gets a visual on Megatron and radios his findings to Mainframe (via Hawk). Mainframe and Professor Mott use some technological gifts left behind by the Autobots to radio Cybertron: "Megatron is back, and he's on Earth." Bumblebee and Optimus Prime receive this message and prepare to head back to Earth.

Several of the ongoing G.I. Joe plots are also visited in this issue, but are not relevant to the Transformers-related storyline.

Notes

• As with the previous issue, the cover title is "G.I. Joe Starring Snake-Eyes and Transformers Generation 2" but the title in the indicia is "G.I. Joe A Real American Hero".
• Our first exposure to Milleville is a sign reading, "WELCOME TO MILLEVILLE! ...A NICE PLACE TO LIVE..." This makes it the only town in America to put ellipses on its welcome signs.
• Cobra Commander asks Megatron to switch to tank mode so he'll be less conspicuous to passing aircraft. One assumes they found someplace to hide the aircraft-carrier-sized Ark.
• Cobra Commander refers to Zarana as "steatopygous". This is a medical condition that can loosely be described as "fat-assed".
• He also refers to Milleville as "uliginous", meaning "marshy".
• When Doctor Biggles-Jones comments unfavorably on all the brainwashing, Cobra Commander tells her to spare him from her "cacophemisms", meaning "bad words". He likes to show off his vocabulary, he does.
  
  
  From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.