Space Opera Part 1: The Stars My Destination

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File:IDW TF 19A.jpg
"Space Opera Part 1: The Stars My Destination"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	May 18, 2011
Cover date	May 2011
Written by	Mike Costa
Art by	Guido Guidi
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Editor	Andy Schmidt
Assistant editor	Carlos Guzman
Continuity	IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2011)

Rodimus finds himself stranded on a desolate planet, where he encounters potential allies.

Synopsis

As the dead Rodimus Prime floats through space, he drifts into the atmosphere of a planet and crashes to the surface. Two thugs notice this and examine the body, thinking it reminds them of the Jangle Man. When they try to remove the Matrix lodged in Rodimus's chest, the Autobot returns to life, though still unconscious. The thugs then decide to take Rodimus to "the Admiral" in hopes he will help them get off-planet.

Rodimus awakens at the Admiral's headquarters, an Ilxian starship, and the Admiral tells him that he bears Rodimus no ill will, but that he must use the Matrix as a power source to get off-planet. Before he can try though, Rodimus uses his arm blasters to free himself. He transforms to get away, which surprises the aliens.

The badly damaged Rodimus hides in a cave, but is surprised by a Chaosteros, which attacks him. The beast runs off though when he hears music. Rodimus thanks his savior, but is flabbergasted to find out it's Wheelie, who disappeared millennia ago. Wheelie takes Rodimus to his own ship for repairs, which Rodimus tries to figure out what happened. Garnak tracks him down, but is easily subdued. He explains how they crashed, and about the Admiral's experiments that ruined the planet's atmosphere. Garnak doesn't have any loyalty to his former bosses, so he agrees to help Rodimus and Wheelie escape the planet instead.

The group trick the Admiral and Codder into leaving the ship, and Rodimus speeds inside with Garnak while Wheelie calls a Chaosteros to keep the two aliens busy while the ship is prepared for takeoff. Rodimus hooks up the Matrix to the ship's power source and goes offline while Wheelie pilots the ship to Cybertron.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Others
Hot Rod/"Rodimus Prime" (1) Wheelie (6)	Codder (2) Garnak (3) Admiral (4) Chaosteros (5)

Quotes

• TBD

Notes

• Another member of the Ilxian race previously appeared in "Spotlight: Blaster". The one seen stranded here must have been stranded on LV118 some time before that Spotlight as the Ilxian who appeared in Spotlight: Blaster knew of Cybertronians while the Admiral who appears in this story thought that Wheelie could be unique in the entire universe
• Codder and Garnak are members of the same orc-like species who appeared briefly in "Spotlight: Drift".
• Hinted at but not expressly stated this issue is the fact that this planet is not LV-117 from "Spotlight: Wheelie"; the following issue would identify it as an evident neighbour, LV-118. That said, the LV system evidently shares fauna between planets; the monster that bedevils our cast is a Chaosteros, and an Arachnosaur can be glimpsed in the background on page 3, both species previously seen in "Spotlight: Wheelie".
• Following on from the cliffhanger of "Spotlight: Wheelie" that hinted at the presence of Quintessons on LV-117, the ship that Wheelie has come to LV-118 in is a Quintesson Cruiser. Further, Wheelie's claim that he "Came by trial" indicates that the Quintessons are once more out there in the universe and Wheelie was a victim of one of their infamous "trials". Which is presumably how he got that lovely necklace of Sharkticon teeth too—something he also wore in the storybook, "The Story of Wheelie, the Wild Boy of Quintesson".
• No mention is made of Wheelie's alien buddy Varta, last seen in "Spotlight: Wheelie", although as a few years seem to have passed since the events of the spotlight, there may be an in-story reason for his absence.
• The story is likely named after The Stars My Destination, a 1956 science fiction novel by Alfred Bester.

Continuity notes

• Hot Rod states Wheelie went missing around the time he joined the Autobots. This indicates that Wheelie was lost hundreds, possibly millions of years ago.
• If true, this certainly means his distress transmission from "Spotlight: Optimus Prime" was not in "real time", but an echo bouncing through space.
• The events of "Spotlight: Wheelie" are therefore apparently relegated to the distant past, instead of the present or near future as they were originally considered.
• This further confuses the timeline for the Reflector trio, who were all rather unambiguously killed in "Spotlight: Wheelie", and yet appeared in All Hail Megatron and the Ongoing series, which we now know are subsequent events.

Errors

• On page 2, Garnak is twice referred to as Codder, meaning either their colors or speech bubbles are switched in those panels.

Covers (3)

• Cover A: Rodimus in the cross hairs of Wheelie's slingshot; art by Marcelo Matere and colors by Joana Lafuente.
• Cover B: Rodimus' hand reaches for the Matrix as it floats through space; art by Guido Guidi and colors by Andrew Dalhouse.
• Cover RI: Uncolored version of Cover A.

• Put that down or you'll shoot my eye out, kid!
  Put that down or you'll shoot my eye out, kid!
• Must...reach... plot... device...
  Must...reach... plot... device...
• Wheelie hates turbo-revin' punks.
  Wheelie hates turbo-revin' punks.

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