Linkage Part 1

Linkage #1 »
Linkage Part 1
Publisher	Columbia Music Entertainment
First published	May 1st 2003 (with Legends of the Microns 1 DVD)
Writer	Hirofumi Ichikawa
Artist	Hirofumi Ichikawa
Letterer	???
Editor	???
Continuity	Armada cartoon

The Super Stunt Team escape their pursuers and meet a new ally.

Synopsis

While the battle for the Mini-Cons rages on between the Autobots and Decepticons in a different part of the world, in a "West Coast city in the United States", the Super Stunt Team race down a busy street with a pair of mysterious machines chasing them. The trio manage to duck into an underground parking garage, but realize they can't run forever and need to take a stand.

The three scan and begin to convert a nearby car, using Redline's Powerlinx "Evolution Protocol" ability to turn it into a turbo cannon. The machines advance, and the Mini-Cons blow them away. After they celebrate their victory, the young woman who owns the car (and saw the whole thing) wonders just how the car can be returned to something she can drive home in...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Mini-Cons	Others
Optimus Prime (1)	Megatron (2)	Stella Holley (7)	Super Stunt Mini-Con Team Servo (4) Redline (5) Flat-Out (6)	Fixer Bugs (3)

Notes

Transformers references

• Optimus Prime and Megatron appear only in a single "setup" panel explaining the backstory.

• While scanning Stella's car, Servo does the same spinning-head thing High Wire does in the first episode of the Armada cartoon when he scans his alternate mode.

• Also during the scan, the Team mentions Power Plans. This would be considered an iffy reference at best were it not for this being written by Ichikawa, who is a confirmed huge geek for the Hasbro Transformers fiction elements. Also, they do not use the Japanese words for "power" and "plan", but the phonetic katakana パワープラン (pawāpuran).

Miscellaneous trivia

• The actual city this episode takes place in is vague. However, with the location of the named US cities in later issues, it's most likely along the coast of either Oregon or Washington.

• The devices chasing the Mini-Cons are not named in this issue, but are called "Fixer Bugs", the "Bug" coming from the Japanese name for the Unicron-allied Mini-Con Dead End.

• This issue, the Mini-Cons' speech is punctuated with < > brackets to indicate they're speaking in "binary" (the beeping language heard on the show).

• The fourth page of the mini-comic is a profile of Hirofumi Ichikawa, with a bust sketch of Armada Optimus Prime in place of his picture.

External Links

• "Official" Linkage mini-comic translations