Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac

Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac
Ratchet's going to have his hands full cleaning these two up.
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 19, 2009
Written by	Jim Sorenson and Bill Forster
Continuity	Transformers Animated
ISBN	ISBN 1600104878 ISBN 978-1600104879
Page count	220

Transformers Animated: The AllSpark Almanac is a lusty happy love-letter written to MediaWiki for our carnal pleasure.

Contents

• Foreword, by Derrick J. Wyatt
• Introduction, by the authors
• Interstitial A: Transformers Hero
• Chapter 1: Autobots
• Interstitial B: Lighting
• Chapter 2: Decepticons
• Interstitial C: Transformations
• Chapter 3: Humans
• Interstitial D: Opening Credits
• Chapter 4: Events
• Interstitial E: Titan Magazines
• Chapter 5: Culture
• Interstitial F: Design Evolution
• Chapter 6: Detroit
• Interstitial G: Bee in the City
• Chapter 7: Settings
• Interstitial H: Backgrounds
• Afterword, by Marty Isenberg
• A Word from Hasbro
• Acknowledgments

Notes

This book is an encyclopedic examination of the entire Transformers Animated storyline universe. It presents exhaustively thorough character profiles and summaries of the first 2 seasons of the cartoon and the Animated Arrival comic book...all written completely in-universe, in the form of "interviews" with the characters or excerpts from their journals and other in-story media.

"Interstitial" interludes are presented out-of-universe and describe the design process behind the art, animation, and locations, as well as brief story summaries of the Titan Magazine Animated issues. Elements of toy design are covered as well, but comparatively briefly.

References

There are an insane number of obscure references to Transformers minutiae culled from the 25-year history of the franchise, as well as other sci-fi and entertainment franchises as well. Basically, all proper nouns and names refer to something or someone, even if that someone is a possibly non-existent character only mentioned once in a letters page of a foreign comic. And that's before we start talking about the numbers: Almost every seemingly incongruous alphanumeric string is a reference to another franchise, be it a Star Trek stardate or a Terminator's official designation. And that's just the content in English—about a third of the book's pages have large stretches covered in Cybertronix. Deciphered, these include non-Transformers-related passages, such as extensive, verbatim quotes from diverse sources ranging from Tennyson's Ulysses to Max Headroom.

Transformers references

• Pg 9a – Sorenson and Forster hail from universal stream Quadwal -3760.925 Theta. Universal streams are a means of classifying the numerous Transformers universes devised by authors Greg Sepelak and Trent Troop, which first appeared in the Transformers Collectors Club story, Withered Hope. This particular classification, however, makes no sense, save for the “Theta” suffix, which indicates a “spoken word” or “live performance” scenario. The “-” sign also indicates they're from an evil parallel universe, akin to the Shattered Glass fiction introduced at BotCon 2008, the only other universal stream to be marked like this. “Don't ask,” the authors say.

• Pg 9b – The Reverse-Pretender technology used by Sorenson and Forster is a reference to several 1980s Transformers toy commercials, which featured a child leaping into the air and transforming into Ultra Magnus.

• Pg 15 – Optimus Prime's axe is identified as a Solitarium ultra-axe. Solitarium is a mysterious and powerful element featured in the Japanese Robot Masters storyline.

• Pg 20a – As mentioned in his tech spec, Ratchetis a Protihex Medical Mechanical graduate.

• Pg 20b – Lockdown refers to Ratchet with the nickname “Cool Hand Lube”. This was an epithet coined for the original G1 Ratchet by writer Bob Budiansky, who included it in his original Transformers Universe bio. While it didn't make it into the finished Universe profile, it did appear in an early version printed in Marvel's Transformers Comics Magazine digest collection.

• Pg 34 – Unnamed in the Animated cartoon, the alien planet visited by the young Optimus, Sentinel and Elita-1 populated by giant spiders is here given the named Archa Seven. Presumably, this puts it in the same system as Archa Nine, from the BotCon 2002 comic story, Betrayal.

• Pg 35 – Sentinel Prime's shield is dubbed a Skyboom shield, after the Mini-Con weapon from Armada.

• Pg 44 – Ratchet recalls an old flame from Crystal City, a Cybertronian city that originally appeared in the Generation 1 cartoon episode, The Secret of Omega Supreme.

• Pg 55 – Omega Supreme's profile contains numerous references.

The language describing Omega's strength deliberately hearkens back to Generation 1 Omega's Transformers Universe profile, describing how he can pulverize “steel cubes” of impressive volume and hit diminutive items from a great distance with his head cannon. Numerous Cybertronian units of are used in the process; Omega is said to be able to like 600,000 kilo-units (a measurement used by Bulkhead in the Animated episode Rise of the Constructicons); the dimensions of the aforementioned cube are given in mechanometers (used in the Generation 1 episode, City of Steel and mentioned twice more in the book); and the distance at which he can blast a small object is given in hics (from the Marvel UK 1991 annual story, The Magnificent Six!, and used once more in the book).

Omega is also noted to be armed with concussion blasters (the personal weapon of Generation 1 Soundwave), pulsar bombs (used by the Predacons on two occasions in the Robots in Disguise cartoon), quasar beams (Generation 2 Blowout and Beast Wars Cheetor both wielded quasar cannons), friction cannons (G1 Runamuck was armed with a friction blaster) and aquasting missiles (weapon of choice of the Beast Wars Fuzor Injector).

And finally, Omega has armor enhanced with rheanimum, a metal-strengthening gas which appeared in Marvel's Generation 2 comics.

• Pg 60 – Mentioned here and restated on pg 127, Megatron's swords are forged from tironium, an extremely tough metal mentioned in the Beast Wars episode “Power Surge”. As noted in his tech specs, his armor can deflect anti-proton lasers.

• Pg 66 – As on his toy packaging, Lugnut is referred to with the nicknamed, the “Kaon Krusher”.

• Pg 74 – Shockwave's cannon can fire blasts from anywhere in the electromagnetic spectrum, just like Generation 1 Shockwave could.

• Pg 77 – Swindle's gyro gun and scatter blaster are named after the weapons of the original Generation 1 Swindle.

• Pg 81 – Starscream claims to be the handsomest 'bot “this side of the Benzuli Expanse”, a region of space introduced in IDW Publishing's Spotlight: Galvatron.

• Pg 83-84 – Having gone unnamed in the Animated cartoon, Thundercracker, Sunstorm and Skywarp were all given names and powers derived from their Generation 1 counterparts when they were released as toys. The liar and female clones did not get toys, but The AllSpark Almanac carries on the trend; the liar clone is named Ramjet and is noted to have a reinforced nosecone for mid-air collisions, while the female clone gets the brand new name of Slipstream (which was previously revealed at BotCon 2009).

• Pg 88 – Numerous weapons used by Lockdown in the Animated cartoon are here given the names of similar weapons from other corners of the Transformers multiverse. He is armed with sleep nets (from the Generation 1 coloring book, Bumblebee to the Rescue!), nova spray (from the 2007 movie Glu mobile phone game), and a lightning whip (the personal weapon of the G1 Pretender Cloudburst). His chainsaw is also described as being “micro-serrated”, language frequently used to describe the beak of Generation 1 Buzzsaw.

• Pg 94 – Swindle plans to imitate Angry Archer's antiquated dialect to help facilitate his next deal with the Darkling Lords of Prysmos. This is a reference to the 1987 Hasbro toyline, Visionaries; Prysmos was the planet upon which that series was set, and the Darkling Lords were the villains of the franchise.

• Pg 101 – The name of Prometheus Black's company is given as Biotech Unbound, referring to the Greek poem, “Prometheus Unbound”, which was also the title of a Beast Machines episode.

• Pg 103 – In the Animated cartoon, the bat-monster is noted as having formerly been Meltdown's lawyer. Here, Captain Fanzone notes that the shark-monster was his stock broker. In addition, he calls it a “Seafood Louis creature”, after the crab salad notable among Transformers fans for having been served at several BotCons.

• Pg 105 – Solon Kitakaze is named after Deathsaurus's cyborg son from the infamously kooky Victory manga.

• Pg 112 – An observation of the events of the first issue of the Animated comic by the trans-dimensional Vector Prime, one of the original 13 Transformers, introduced in the Transformers: Cybertron series. He uses the aforementioned Universal Stream classification system to catalog this manuscript, identifying the Animated cartoon universe as “Malgus 1207.26 Alpha”. The designation is later used again on pg 117.

• Pg 116 – Presumably, the trans-dimensional magazine Venus is named for Beast Wars Blackarachnia's voice actor, Venus Terzo. Whatever currency its cover price is in, its represented with a “B” in Predacon Cybertronix! In addition to the large illustration of Animated Blackarachnia wearing the crown, shoulderpads and cape donned by Generation 1 Starscream for his coronation in The Transformers: The Movie, the cover contains numerous references, many of them to some very obscure characters and concepts.

“Sparkmate” is a term used in the N64 Beast Wars: Transmetals video game, to describe Tigatron and Airazor's romantic bond.

Chain of Command is the title of a Beast Wars episode.

Clio is a Decepticon Powermaster mentioned by Blaster in the letters page of issue #315 of Marvel UK's Generation 1 comic. She is pitted against Lyzack, sister of Decepticon Breastforce warrior Leozack, who appears in the final issue of the Victory manga.

Manta Ray is a Beast Wars McDonalds Happy Meal figure, who was established as being female by IDW Publishing's Beast Wars Sourcebook. She is up against the equally aquatic Scylla, from Beast Wars II.

Flamewar and Nightracer are both BotCon exclusive female Decepticons, from 2005 and 1995, respectively. The match-up has a deeper meaning; Nightracer was created by notorious Decepticon fan Raksha, and some fans believe that Flamewar's personality is based on Raksha, though her creator Ben Yee denies it.

Revenge of the Fallen's Pretender Alice teaches readers how to disarm a foldspace warhead, a weapon which appears in the second issue of the UK's 2007 live-action movie comic.

The magazine's gossip columnist is Freezon, the Decepticon car included with Tyco's Transformers Electric Racing Set released in the 1980s. She is dishing the dirt on Lugnut and Strika's relationship, which was established in Strika's profile, published in issue #24 of the Transformers Collectors Club Official Magazine.

Beta Maxx is the partner of BotCon 2007 exlusive Alpha Trion, while Caliburn is partnered with 2004 exclusive, Megazarak. The cover identifies them as Mini-Cons, despite the fact that no previous writings ever done so (Caliburn is explicitly a Micromaster, while Beta Maxx has only been referred to as an Autobot). Funnily enough, in late 2008, author Jim Sorenson was involved in an argument on the Transformers Wiki about Beta Maxx being a Mini-Con... hmmmn. Anyway, they're talking to Cybertron Thunderblast.

• Pg 119a – Most of the weapons Swindle sells Lugnut and Blitzwing, and the planets he gets them from, are established, if obscure, Transformers items and locales. Most of them were named in the comic story this page covers, Everything Must Go but a few more things are named here. The full list includes:

• An anti-gravity cannon (from the Find Your Fate Junior book Desert Flight) from the planet Andellor (from the second issue of Blackthorne's Transformers in 3-D comic).
• A triple-crusher cannon (the personal weapon of the G1 Seacon Nautilator) from the planet Talos Four (probably derived from a mistake on TFWIKI.Net, which misspelled Taros Four from the Transformers Collectors Club story The Dark Heart of Sandokan in this manner for a time).
• A decompression pump from Torkulon (as seen in the Generation 1 episode Webworld).
• Glass Gas (the personal weapon of G1 Cliffjumper) and a Digital Impact Mace (the weapon of choice of BotCon 2000 exclusive toy Apelinq) from the planet Dahros (a misspelling of the planet Darhos, from The Headmasters anime episode, Find MegaZarak's Weak Spot!!.)
• Super glue from the Menonia (an other-dimensional world visited in the G1 episode Madman's Paradise).
• An omega bomb (from the G1 episode The Quintesson Journal) from Ganzvort (mentioned in G1 Rewind's Transformers Universe profile).
• Two nemesis shields (from the Armada Playstation 2 video game) from Garo and Com (both from the Beast Wars Neo episode, Mach Kick Voluntarily Enlists!?; “Com” is a misspelling of the planet's correct name, “Comb”).
• A Chaosmaster bomb (from issue #4 of the Marvel Generation 2 comic) from Xeptos (a subatomic planet mentioned in the biography of the eHobby exclusive toy, Magnificus).
• Circuitry repair patches from Cheyne (from issue #63 of the Marvel Generation 1 comic).

• Pg 119b – Optimus's evaluation form is rendered in the style of classic Transformers Tech Specs, but not any one particular design. The training exercise from the comic story “Survival Skills” is revealed to have taken place on Kaiba-5, a planet mentioned in the 2007 live-action movie video game as having been destroyed by Ironhide.

• Pg 124a – The events of Attention Surplus Disorder from The Arrival #2 are rendered as an issue of the Detroit Powell Press, the newspaper which appeared in the Animated episode, Three's a Crowd. The lead story is written by Irwin Spoon, a journalist who appeared in a three-part story in Marvel UK's Generation 1 comic. The article contains several references to numerous other characters and concepts of varying obscurity.

• Quake-Maker is a supervillain from the UK's Animated comic, later pictured on page 152.
• The Mechanic is a human criminal who battled the Autobots in two issues of the Marvel's original Generation 1 comic.
• The Jack Boys are a motorcycle gang from the Super-God Masterforce cartoon.
• Jake Lomax is a mob boss from issue #13 of Marvel's Generation 1 comic.
• Jacob Lee Bonaventure is an industrialist from IDW's Hearts of Steel mini-series.

• Pg 124b - The sidebar on the page also makes numerous references:

• “Defensor United” refers, of course, to the Generation 1 Protectobot combiner. The team is thrashed by real-life football team West Ham at Tigatron Stadium, the venue named for the Beast Wars character, which appeared in the Animated episode, Five Servos of Doom.
• In the Animated universe, the Generation 1 Decepticon ally, mad scientist Doctor Arkeville, is the surgeon general! He recommends Ding Dongs (favored by the President of the United States in the live-action movie!) as a cure for the Hate Plague, a rage-inciting disease that appeared in the Generation 1 two-part episode, The Return of Optimus Prime.
• Racing queen Junko Shiragami is a human female from the Binaltech Asterisk toyline (who was in turn based upon Kelly from Robots in Disguise). Here, she is dating scientist Michael Avery, who appeared in the 2007 movie prequel novel, Ghosts of Yesterday.
• Street Demon racer Roxy Sparkles (earlier named on page 105) is here noted to be a member of the band Purple Fungus, who were a favorite of Buster Witwicky in the Find Your Fate Junior novel, Attack of the Insecticons.
• “Princess Ringo” was the nickname by which Kiss Players character Ringo Chikuma preferred to be known. Here, she has recently visited Mont Porte, the country that is home to the Super-God Masterforce Headmaster Junior Minerva.

• Pg 125 – Adverts on this page refer to:

• Dancitron, a musical event named for a dance club from the Generation 1 cartoon episode Auto-Bop. Cold Slither is playing here, a band from the G.I. Joe cartoon episode of the same name, created as part of an evil Cobra plot. The piece of music composed as their signature tune was used as incidental music in several Transformers episodes.
• Wyatt Toys, the toy store named after Animated art director Derrick J. Wyatt which appears in several episodes of the cartoon. The advert notes that the store sells Diaclone and Microman figures, the two toylines that were Transformers' progenitors.
• Roadhog Horton's Motorcycle Show, named after Randy “Roadhog” Horton, a member of the bounty-hunting motorcyclist Roadjammers from issue #46 of the Marvel Generation 1 comic. His show also features autograph signings from Rorza, a reference to the Rocket-Cycle Racer from Rigel III of the same name from issue #44.
• A horror movie named “Monster from Mars”, an elaborate reference to the movie of the same name that was the central plot element of Monstercon from Mars!, issue #45 of the Marvel comic. In said issue, Decepticon Pretender Skullgrin starred in the title role; this poster features a monster designed to look like Skullgrin in the style of Meltdown's fusion creatures, in reference to the fact that Skullgrin's fellow Pretenders Submarauder and Bomb-Burst were the base for the two fusion creatures in the cartoon. In both the original comic and this version, the movie is directed by Rollie Friendly and stars Jake Colton and Carissa Carr; this version also adds Karen Fishook, an actress from the Generation 1 cartoon episode, “Hoist Goes Hollywood”. The movie's soundtrack is by the High Rollahz, a band featured in the “Keepers Trilogy” novel, Hardwired.

• Pg 127 – Unnamed in the original comic, “Bots of Science”, Ratchet here notes that he has dubbed the cure for Cosmic Rust “Corrostop”, which was, of course, the name of the cure invented in the Generation 1 episode that originally introduced the disease (and was later name-dropped by Rodimus Prime in the Animated episode, TransWarped). Its ingredients include Ingredient X (also a component of Corrostop in the G1 episode in question) and razon gas, from the Kid Stuff storybook When Continents Collide.

• Pg 134 – The Elite Guard ship is here given the name the Steelhaven, after the craft commanded by Fortress Maximus in the Generation 1 Marvel comic.

• Pg 136 – Sari's notebook paper is decorated with an illustration of “Hello Nekomimi Pop-Star”, a chibified, “Hello Kitty”-style version of Nekomimi A from the Energon episode, “Distribution”. Nekomimi B appears on pg 147 in a similar fashion.

• Pg 138 – The brand of the tire in the Garbage-O's logo is Wheeljack Tyres!

• Pg 139 – References on the back of the Garbage-O's pack are copious.

• In the “fueltritional facts” box alone, there are references to mercury sauce, a favorite of the Mecannibals from the Marvel Generation 1 comic; Rarified Energon, introduced in the Transformers Collectors Club magazine storyline, Crossing Over; Energon Z from Zone; budianskium basil (referring to Transformers writer Bob Budiansky); grated gears (a serving suggestion for ants by Beast Wars Rampage in Transmutate); and janick jaAm (see below.)

• The word jumble unscrambles to read “You lived like a warrior ans died to an hero”, an infamous quote from the late-1990s fanfic by MG-Dinobot, “Dinobot's Old Technology”, which was itself a misquote from the Beast Wars episode Code of Hero. The quote went on to become one of the most famous online memes from that era of Transformers fandom. The answer at the bottom of the page, however, claims it actually says “WhY mY ShOuldErs hUrT?”, a tortured quote from British fan Blueshift's famous re-scripting of the first Armada pack-in mini-comic. This was also the source of the above-mentioned “jaAm” line, which was since been immortalized on the license plate and packaging bio of the 2009 Universe Hot Shot figure.

• Illustration B in the “spot the difference” puzzle is, of course, Generation 1 Grimlock's character model.

• Pg 145 – Ultra Magnus's memoir is prefaced with a haiku from “Sky-Byte, Decepticon poet”, referencing the loveable haiku-writing Predacon Sky-Byte from Robots in Disguise. He has to be Decepticon here, of course, because there are no Predacons in the Animated universe. In the course of this page, Magnus mentions mitotic sparks, a term from Magmatron's Beast Machines toy bio, the Angarix Sector, a region of space introduced in the Generation 1 episode, The Quintesson Journal.

• Pg 148 – Megatron refers to the act of branding the Constructicons with the Decepticon symbol as the “Rite of the Deceptibrand,” after the Autobot equivalent, the “Rite of the Autobrand”, from issue #14 of the Marvel Generation 1 comic.

• Pg 161 – Starscream uses the expression “a few lipoles short of a nest”, referring to the metal-eating bat-creatures native to Jupiter's moon Io, from the Generation 1 multi-part episode, Five Faces of Darkness.

• Pg 164 – Lockdown's spaceship is named the Death's Head, after the bounty hunter from the Marvel UK Generation 1 comics. , but has been upgraded using parts obtained from the planets Jörmungandr (from the Beast Wars Neo episode, A Battle Fought Alone) and Taxxon (a world of alien centipedes from Animorphs), and the Jabbi-Ko (aliens mentioned in the Marvel Generation 2 comics). Vandarian holographic technology (from the same planet as the Vandarian fuzz-worms mentioned in a Mini Mayhem! strip on the Transformers Collectors Club website) and cybertitanium cables (made from the metal introduced in the Japanese Generation 2 storyline).

• Pg 170 – Bulkhead describes candy as being like Ultra-Energon for kids, referring to the super-charged form of the Transformers' customary fuel that first appears in IDW Publishing's Infiltration series.

• Pg 174 – Newscaster Lester Black is revealed to be the great-nephew of Hector Ramirez, the news reporter created by Sunbow writer Buzz Dixon, who appeared in G.I. Joe, The Inhumanoids, Jem and the Holograms and the Transformers episode Prime Target.

• Pg 178 – Mayor Edsel is revealed to be the nephew of famous actor Harold Edsel, who appeared in the Generation 1 episode Hoist Goes Hollywood.

• Pg 183 – The Sidney Biggles-Jones Memorial Solar Fusion Plant is named after the scientist from the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe storyline that led into the Generation 2 comic. Scientists named as working on solar fusion are Brian Jones (from Energon), Daichi Onishi (the Japanese name of Doctor Kenneth Onishi from Robots in Disguise), Peter Morris (from the Marvel UK Generation 1 comics) and Felix Adle (named after Professor Adle from The Stargate Battles manga, who did not have a given first name).

• Pg 200 – The generic Sumdac Systems technicians are named Eddie Fairchild and Matt Conroy. These are the names of two prototypical characters who existed in the development phase of the Generation 1 cartoon, who eventually evolved into Spike Witwicky and Chip Chase.

• Pg 203 – Noted architect George R. Apple. G.R.Apple? Anybody? Anybody? C'mooon!

• Pg 206 – The Nemesis is equipped with a Grand Mal class force field, named after the Grand Mal, the giant fortress-cum-giant head occupied by Beast Wars Megatron in the latter stages of the Beast Machines cartoon. It has a cybertroid alloy star drive (just like the Generation 1 Nemesis, as mentioned in the G1 episode Microbots), and has the most sophisticated sensor array this side of the Eshems Nebula, a region of space introduced in IDW Publishing's live-action movie-based Defiance series.

• Pg 207 – To escape the damaged Nemesis, the Decepticons used Devolan escape pods. The planet Devola was the site of a huge victory for the Decepticon Tidal Wave in the Armada universe.

• Pg 211 – The crashed Decepticon ship on Archa Seven is named the Twilight, after the flagship from the Marvel Generation 2 comics.

Real-world references

Too many to count here! (But see External Links below.)

Errors

• Page 33: The Magnus Hammer is referred to as a "Stormbreaker" hammer instead of "Stormbringer," a previously-given name for the weapon.
• Page 95: The "d" is left out of "Powdered Sugar."
• Page 133: "...have tried harder to recruit the Dinobots as allies, but I was so angry at Prowl's deception that I..." is repeated immediately following the first use in the third paragraph.
• Page 145: The "c" is left out of "First (and Second) in Flight."

External Links

Full annotated listing of MOST hidden references in the Almanac