Blitzwing Bop

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"Blitzwing Bop"
Publisher	Fun Publications
First published	November 17, 2009
Written by	Trent Troop and Greg Sepelak
Illustrations by	Chad Porter
Cover	Chad Porter
Continuity	Shattered Glass
Page count	35pp

Blitzwing inadvertently becomes a musical countdown, and not the kind that sounds like Bluestreak.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Decepticons	Autobots	Humans	Others
Blitzwing (2) Soundwave (6) Heatwave (7) Starscream (10) Slugslinger (18) Sideswipe (19) Bombshell (20) Thunderwing (27) Whisper (28)	Goldbug (3) Wheeljack (4) Side Burn (5) Rodimus "Prime" (13) Elita-One (15) Swoop (16) Star Saber (17) Brawn (21) Blaster (22) Ratchet (23) Beachcomber (24)	Will (1) Professor Arkeville (9) Sephie (11) Rick (12) Big Steve Ludwig (25) Wyatt (26)	Cliffjumper (8) Teletraan-X (14)

Quotes

"So tell me about Cybertron."
"Why?"
"I've never been there, Blitzwing. Thought it'd be interesting."
"Okay. Imagine a junk yard. Now make it the size of a planet, and set big patches of it on fire. I suppose that's interesting in a horrible sort of way, but there's nothing appealing about it."

—Will finds out from Blitzwing that Cybertron is not a good tourist destination.

"If my examination of Starscream's systems is accurate, unless we can stop the subspace transmission, Blitzwing's signal will eventually cause permanent memory damage... possibly even catastrophic data corruption."
"Whoah, that means-"
"If it's not stopped, this 'rock and roll' assault will rapidly become... death metal."

—Arkeville and Soundwave engage in bad puns.

"Right now, I gots two idiot humans yammerin' 'bout venting exhaust stuck in my head. They will not shut up. An' I can still bend your fenders in a knot an' stick 'em in your reactor linkage! So up your tube with an energon cube! Capiche?!"

—Rodimus lets Blaster know who's the boss.

Beachcomber had survived the decon bath, the optic calibration process, the hallway filled with zero-friction lubricant and three chemical explosions since breaching the outer defenses of the Decepticon base. He had been thrown about, smashed and lit on fire by four puddles of organic waste.
He was not happy.
Now, however, the enemy was out of tricks, and out of places to run.
That made him happy. Insanely happy.

—Beachcomber deals with getting the "Home Alone" treatment from the humans.

Notes

Errors

• Heatwave's feelings of "joy, happiness, compassion, love, and satisfaction" should probably be "joy, peace, compassion, love, and satisfaction" to be a completely accurate reference to Aquarius.

• While Cliffjumper in-character almost calls the Stellar Spanner a space bridge, at one point the narration itself also calls it a "spacebridge".

Transformer references

• Crasher is mentioned as being granted honorary Ottoman citizenship after saving President Fakkadi.

• The Decepticons save Blackrock Oil members from the Autobots.

• Soundwave attends a joint Misfits/Cold Slither concert, and the (opposite-themed) lyrics to a few Cold Slither songs from an album Thunder Hammer are included at the back of the story.

• Astrotrain is a shuttle that crash lands in Antarctica.

• As noted in the Errors, the Stellar Spanner is essentially a redecoed space bridge.

• Jet judo is a martial art done by jets instead of to jets.

• The Stellar Spanner is labelled with Autobot letters.

• One of the Autobots' schemes involve creating drone cars at a "Roll-N-Wash".

• Brawn is a practitioner of Tekkaido.

• Rick's little sister fawns over Brad White, the "dreamy" punk-ass counterpart to some kid.

• Sephie communicates via e-mail with someone who has the username "Stormbringer99".

• Thunderwing mentions that one of the criminals he's been chasing is a crime boss named Beta.

• As noted in the Errors, when Heatwave gets sent through the Stellar Spanner, part of his trip involves the sensations of joy, happiness, compassion, love, and satisfaction, as well as a rainbow hue, no doubt coinciding with Aquarius activating the recall program that also summoned the rest of the Nexus Prime gestalt to Cybertron.

Real-world references

• The title of the story is a reference to the song "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones.

• Starscream, at some point before the story begins, fights a super-criminal known as "Arachnolord".

• Congressman Shore is mentioned, a reference to Blackthorn Shore from The Inhumanoids.

• Will listens to "The Pale Lines" on his O-Pod.

• Ratchet thinks the lyrics to "Zydrate Anatomy" from Repo! The Genetic Opera are catchy.

• Rodimus complains about being stuck listening to "Jim-Bob and Willy", a.k.a. the "Touch-Tone Terrorists".

• Beachcomber's dialogue in the story is full of song lyric snippets:
  • "Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who
  • "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas
  • "Transmaniacon MC" by Blue Öyster Cult
  • "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf
  • "PDA" by Interpol
  • "Fire Poem" by Arthur Brown
  • "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult
  • "Another One Bites the Dust" by Queen
  • "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles
  • "Nowhere to Run (Vapor Trail)" by The Crystal Method
  • "One Way or Another" by Blondie
  • "Psycho Killer" by Talking Heads
  • "Ace of Spades" by Motörhead
  • "Spirit in the Sky" by Norman Greenbaum

• Aquarius leaves a message for Heatwave to "Keep on Truckin'".

• The Cold Slither album liner notes at the back of the story have a number of references:
  • One of the album's producers is "Synergy Music Ltd.", a reference to Synergy from Jem and the Holograms.
  • Some of the song writer credits reference various members of Cobra: Buzzer and Torch from the Dreadnoks and Destro.
  • The songs "Battle Song of Liberty" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" are on the album.

External links

• Transformers Collectors' Club exclusive fiction (must be a logged-in member to access)