Cultural Appropriation

« Transformers Timelines text story » « Beast Wars: Uprising »
"Cultural Appropriation"
Publisher	Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive)
First published	December 9, 2016
By	Jim Sorenson and David Bishop
Art	Josh Burcham and Christopher Colgin
Continuity	Beast Wars: Uprising
Chronology	late 24th century
Page count	59pp

Rampage and a gang of misfits confront some of Cybertron's greatest mysteries.

Notes

• Whither Megatron? Much like how what became of Optimus in previous Uprising stories is unclear, Megatron is entirely absent from the G1-era flashback that begins this story, with Starscream apparently in charge of the Decepticons.
• The epilogue states it's been a year in-story since Galva Convoy was created.

Errors

• The opening flashback identifies the crashed Decepticon warship as the Victory, when Identity Politics claimed it was the Nemesis that brought the 'cons to Earth.

Continuity notes

• In the opening flashback, Noah wonders if the Decepticons are connected to Cobra, the bad guys of Transformer's sibling series G.I. Joe, which were previously mentioned in the cybertronix text of "Head Games".
• Continuing on from the previous Uprising story, Megatron's beast upgrade has spread like wildfire.
• Stiletto and Overshoot's story continues on from "Burning Bridges".
• During their stay in the abandoned MCSF base, Stilleto finds a pack of cy-gars-ettes and starts smoking them in honor of a deceased friend, Wolfang, who Stilleto had served with as shown in one of the flashbacks of "Burning Bridges". She mentions his death was the result of some "Builder murder case", as was shown in Trigger Warnings.
• Snapper was arrested by the Builders when he turned on Grimlock's cell back in Micro-Aggressions. Seems Hot Rod was able to keep his word about keeping the Predacon out of The Games. That the Constructicons are handling him would go with the fact Hot Rod, as mentioned in this story, was the one who convinced them to downside.
• Buckethead's inner monologue reveals Thunderwing was the one who invented the Micromasters in this continuity, and that he was responsible for Overlord's short leadership of the Decepticons, something mentioned in A Brush With Infamy. It's little surprise ol' Thunders is the one responsible for the Micros, given he's been mentioned to have tinkered in science already.
• Rampage met up with the crew of the Dinosaur in Intersectionality. His inner monologue as he attacks Buckethead name-drops all the previously established leading members of the Resistance. He dismisses Cybershark as callous, as was demonstrated pretty aptly in Head Games.
• The Renegades return, last having shown up in the begging of Micro-Aggressions, where they traded with Grimlock for information about the humans. Unsurprisingly, they've ignored the Dinobot's warnings about tangling with them.
• Vamp mentions having heard Ser-Ket complaining about humans and not being able to spread her wings, something the Predacon also did back in Head Games.

Transformers references

• The flashback is one giant reference to the old G1 cartoon: The Decepticons pulling off another fiendish evil plan, the Autobots trying to stop them, the 'cons operating out of a sunken spaceship... Cliffjumper even uses one of the Cybertronian versions of common phrases that could be found through the first two seasons. Soundwave, meanwhile, is shown speaking more like he did in the comics, rather than his cartoon-self's distinctive speech patterns.
• The Decepticons refer to their invention as the Egyptian Incantation / Autobot Destroyer, or EI/AD, a not-so-subtle reference to the old fan term for the Sunbow cartoon's long string of villainous devices of the week.
• Packrat notes the Museum of Decepticon History has a Legendisk, the central plot device of Transformers Go!.
• Stilleto mentions she used to annoy the late Wolfang by calling him "Howlinger", the original Wolfang's Japanese name. See what she did there?
• The symbol on the side of Snapper's prisoner transport is the proto-faction symbol first used by Shockwave in the G1 Dreamwave comics.
• The gang's descent into the lower levels of Cybertron and subsequent discovery of the Oracle is a shot-for-shot recreation of the scene from "The Reformatting".
• The Oracle refers to an upcoming struggle for Cybertron as being "beyond good, beyond evil, beyond your wildest imagination", which was the tagline of the original animated movie.

GoBots references

• The Diaspora was first referenced in "Ask Vector Prime" as the reason why GoBots were fleeing their native universe en masse.
• Dumper and Fitor receive brief name-drops as Stiletto examine the Monster GoBot files.
• Stilletto is left confused by the constant mention of "levels" within the same files - as the GoBots cartoon established, GoBots refer to different universes as "levels".

External links

• "Cultural Appropriation" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club