Starscream: The Movie (comic)

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This article is about the comic book. For the in-fiction film it covers, see Starscream: The Movie (film).
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Thundercracker in:
"Starscream: The Movie"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published February 28, 2018
Cover date February 2018
Written by John Barber
Art by Priscilla Tramontano (pg. 1-12, 15-35, 38-40), Andrew Griffith (pg. 13-14, 36-37)
Colors by John-Paul Bove (Tramontano pages), Josh Burcham (Griffith pages)
Letters by Shawn Lee
Editor David Mariotte
Continuity IDW Generation 1 continuity
Chronology Current era

Thundercracker's dream comes true when Starscream hires him to make a movie about his life.

Synopsis

From the top of his tower, Starscream sneers down at the sight of Optimus Prime meeting with a crowd of supporters in the streets below. On screens behind him, the the classic film The Birth of Cybertron plays; Starscream is rewatching this story of the foundation of Cybertronian civilization in hopes of picking up some decent empire-building tips and tricks. Rattrap doubts it will help much, but he is proven wrong when Starscream suddenly has an unexpected brainwave...

At the Earth embassy on Cybertron, Thundercracker is working on the screenplay to his biopic about G.I. Joe operative Chuckles. Ambassador Marissa Faireborn is too busy with paperwork to have time to answer his questions about human biology, but paperwork has to take a back seat when someone starts knocking loudly on the door. Starscream sweeps in, drinks in hand, but he's not here to see Marissa—he's here with a job offer for Thundercracker. He wants him to make a film about his life!

Thrilled at the prospect, Thundercracker quickly assembles a production team: Seaspray builds the sets, Proxima handles cinematography, while Tankor handles "make-up," painting lead actor Acid Storm grey so he can play Starscream. Unfortunately, there are script problems almost immediately; the uncharacteristically heroic-sounding accounts Starscream relates of adventures from his past—how he rescued a helpless 'bot from brutal Autobot thugs, his first meeting with Thundercracker and Skywarp, and how he watched with remorse as Megatron destroyed Air Force One during the Decepticons' Earth invasion—ring false to Thundercracker, so he decides to talk with other 'bots to gather more reference, so he can write a more accurate screenplay.

First, he meets with ex-Seeker Dirge at Maccadam's Old Oil House, who hasn't trusted Starscream ever since that time they captured the Autobots and sent them through the space bridge to Insecticon-infested Cybertron, when Starscream suggested Dirge go through the bridge first instead of him—a change in places that led to Dirge being stranded on the planet. Next, Thundercracker heads to G.I. Joe base Lemuria on Earth for a long-overdue reunion with Skywarp, with whom he is willing to bury the hatchet, despite Skywarp shooting him the last time they saw each other. Skywarp remembers how he and Thundercracker actually met Starscream; they were both underappreciated students at the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology when he turned up to recruit them. Soon after, he suggested the pair rebuild themselves to look like him, after which they joined the Decepticons; a move that, today, Skywarp reckons was purely to cause confusion over his own identity so he could hide from defrauded taxpayers.

Armed with this new knowledge, Thundercracker decides to question Starscream on what being a Decepticon really meant to him. Starscream declares that for him, being a Decepticon meant having his greatness be ignored, until Metrotitan appeared and declared him the "Chosen One," finally meaning everyone had to listen to him. Hoping to gain more insight on Metrotitan and his prophecy, Thundercracker consults Alpha Trion, who expresses doubt that the prophecy was anything more than a damaged 'bot telling a random story. Still, Trion notes, stories have power, and a real storyteller uses that power to present truths, instead of exploiting it to spread lies.

Inspired by Trion's words, Thundercracker's desire to make his movie all about the "truth" turns him into a bit of a dictator on-set, with the cast (now including Flamewar as Rodimus!) and crew growing more and more frustrated. Thundercracker visits Marissa to talk through his problems: he wants to tell a true story, but it's obvious that Starscream won't want his actual personality accurately portrayed on-screen. Thundercracker really wants to make the film, hoping for it to be his big break into Hollywood... but if he can't tell the story truthfully, is he just selling out? Marissa sighs and calls for her assistant Rashid Nasir to fetch her the phone number of a man who can help: former superhero and current actor, Richard "Bulletman" Ruby.

On Earth, Thundercracker screens a completed portion of his film—showing Starscream meeting with Megatron shortly after his return from the planet's wilderness—for Ruby, who judges it to be too heavy on "talking heads" and "historical stuff," suggesting that what human audiences want out of a movie about giant robots is explosions and excitement. Thundercracker initially scoffs at the the notion, remembering all the old message board arguments that sprang up over changes made to his favorite sitcom Nurse Whitney and how they seemed to prove people don't know what they want. Still, that show inspired inspired Thundercracker onto his current path, and that, he concludes, is what people really want: to be inspired!

Fueled by his new revelation, Thundercracker re-writes the movie's script again, which is the last straw for Acid Storm, who quits the production. Encouraged by Buster, Thundercracker decides to play the lead role himself... but as soon as he has made the decision, Swift arrives on set to announce that Starscream has been arrested and impeached following a confession of all his crimes at the electoral debate. Thundercracker is not dissuaded, however—it'll make for a fantastic ending!

Thundercracker completes the film, managing to portray Starscream's rise and fall fairly accurately, "warts and all." He visits the incarcerated Starscream in his cell to show him the finished product; Starscream puts on a brave face, dubbing it "delightful but irrelevant," and pointing out that he no longer has any need for it, now that he's in prison. He urges Thundercracker to forget the whole thing, but Thundercracker is determined to see the film released... and Starscream just can't have that. Starscream requests that prison guard Beachcomber deliver a message to a "friend" for him—a message that instructs two Badgeless officers to intercept Thundercracker as he takes the space bridge back to Earth, redirecting the bridge to the dead colony of Prion, where they intend to kill him to prevent the film from getting out. Unfortunately for them, just because he's become an artist doesn't mean Thundercracker's lost any of his elite Seeker skills: he kills his two attackers in a matter of seconds.

Continuing on to Autobot City on Earth, Thundercracker is given a message from Richard Ruby by Aileron. Visiting Ruby at his office, Thundercracker is dismayed to learn that, while he was making his film, Rumble and Frenzy were making an action movie of their own, which has already been released! Worse yet, it completely bombed, souring audiences on "Cybertronian cinema." Thundercracker's film winds up getting dumped on some obscure direct-to-digital-distribution platform, and the ex-Decepticon is left dejected, thinking himself a failure who has been kidding himself about his new direction in life. He returns to Cybertron to share his woes with Marissa, but while visiting the embassy, he receives a phone call from Space Battle director J.J. Hackensack. Hackensack has watched Thundercracker's film, and he sees potential in it. He invites Thundercracker to go into business on a new movie with him, and Thundercracker gleefully accepts.

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks or imaginary sequences.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Humans Others

Quotes

"Hey, Marissa. How come humans don't grow to giant size when they get hit by nuclear explosions, you know, the way ants and lizards do?"

—Thundercracker mixes reality and fantasy


"The paint will come off, right? I don't want to go out on the streets looking like this. I'm a green guy—that's like literally my whole thing."

—Acid Storm isn't wrong


"Last time I saw you, you shot me in the face."
"Eh. You deserved it."

—Thundercracker and Skywarp reunite


"As for the so-called Dark Cybertron prophecy... tales repeat, and we see ourselves in them. You are a storyteller, are you not? One must consider all the pieces of the story one tells. Every small element has meaning. Every fragment creates worlds. Starscream realizes this, and uses narrative to his advantage. A real storyteller uses the power of myth to present truths."

—Alpha Trion on the power of stories


"I really love the big dinosaur you moved into. It's classy."

—Thundercracker on Trypticon's use as the Earth embassy


"'You're what made me what I am, Megatron. The whole time I was a Seeker, what I was really seeking—was your love..'"
...
"People don't talk like that."

—Acid Storm critiques Thundercracker's work


Thundercracker: "Where on Cybertron will we find somebody that knows all the lines, understands the material, and is the correct shape to play Starscream?"
Buster: "ARF!"
Thundercracker: "No, I could never... well, I suppose I could. In fact, I guess I'm the only choice that makes sense. Should we paint me?"
Proxima: "How about I just digitally change your color in post-production?"
Acid Storm: "What?! I spent every day getting painted and now you bring that up?!"
Thundercracker: "You already quit, Acid Storm! Go home!"


"This will be the next Birth of Cybertron, except, you know, not hella-racist."

—Thundercracker on his finished movie


"Two guys try to kill me, and I take them down in seconds. Meanwhile, the king of the world gives me resources to make a movie, and I can't even tell you how to watch it. I think you need a video game console or a subscription to something."

—Thundercracker laments


"You must a hot ticket over there—a real triple threat."
"You're thinking of my friend Blitzwing."

—J.J. Hackensack and Thundercracker

Notes

Continuity notes

  • Though released on the same day as Optimus Prime #16, the events of this story take place between issue #14 and issue #15, running parallel with the 2017 Till All Are One annual, in which Starscream's confession and incarceration take place.
  • The movie Starscream watches, "The Birth of Cybertron," was previously mentioned in issue #4.
  • Thundercracker's been working on his Chuckles biopic since learning about him from Chameleon in issue #3. Here, we see an imaginary sequence based on a portion of the screenplay, which is Thundercracker's re-imagining of the events that took place in 2011's Cobra II #13, when Chuckles killed himself blowing up Cobra's Section Twenty island base with their own nuclear missiles. Thundercracker's pretty off-base when he says that the way he's written it must be just how it happened in real life; rather than a dramatic face-off with Cobra Commander, Chuckles was with Xamot Paoli at the time, having already killed Cobra Commander with a headshot. Also, the missiles weren't Cobra weapons aimed at the world; they were the payload of a docked Cobra submarine that Chuckles used to blow the island up without any greater world-saving objective.
  • Additionally, how they look in this sequence isn't how the characters looked in "real life"—but then, it's not as if Thundercracker has any way of knowing this. Chuckles sports the trademark Hawaiian shirt of his classic G.I. Joe appearance and seems to be modeled on the Howard Chaykin cover art of the Cobra series rather than how he looked in the Antonio Fuso interiors; Cobra Commander, meanwhile is wearing the uniform of his successor, Krake. Of course, Krake was the only Commander known to the world at large, so it makes sense that's how Thundercracker would picture him.
  • Rashid Nasir used to work at the White House; we met him when Dire Wraiths attacked it, as seen in The Transformers: Revolution one-shot, the events of which Thundercracker refers to in this issue.
  • Proxima is a Camien introduced in More than Meets the Eye #41-42. When last we saw her aboard the Vis Vitalis, the ship was returning to Caminus; presumably it did, and she then came to Cybertron via the space bridge.
  • One of the imaginary sequences Starscream dictate to Thundercracker retells the events of All Hail Megatron #3, in which Air Force One was shot down. In the actual story, it was Starscream who shot the plane down, not Megatron, as in his retelling!
  • Dirge recalls the events of All Hail Megatron #7, when he and Deluge were stranded on Cybertron with the Autobots and let at the mercy of the Insecticon swarm. He previously recounted how he escaped the beasts back in Robots in Disguise #3.
  • Hi-Tech is sad to hear Thundercracker has given up on his "Susan Journeyer" screenplay, proving that he wasn't just humoring Thundercracker back in The Transformers #45 when he was attentively listening as he read it out—he really did like it!
  • Skywarp and Thundercracker meet for the first time since All Hail Megatron #12.
  • Skywarp and Thundercracker are revealed to have attended the Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology, which was secretly where Shockwave trained super-powered Outliers, as seen in More than Meets the Eye #11. The pair's "Outlier" status was first confirmed in their profiles in the Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook; Skywarp notes he wasn't allowed on the "away team" while Windcharger was, referring to the team who aided Optimus Prime on his mission in More than Meets the Eye #11.
  • Starscream is noted to have "conned his way into" a job as a "precinct senator" when he met Thundercracker and Skywarp; we previously saw Starscream working in a senatorial capacity in Autocracy #2, set some time after these events.
  • Skywarp recounts how he and Thundercracker rebuilt themselves to look like Starscream, at Starscream's suggestion. Their physical similarity had previously been remarked on in All Hail Megatron #6, in which Skywarp explained that the Seekers' shared body-type was taken to "honor their commander."
  • Starscream remembers the events of the 2012 Robots in Disguise annual, in which Metrotitan dubbed him the Chosen One. The mystery surrounding Metrotitan—who appeared to die at the end of that story, only to turn up alive, inexplicably buried on Earth, in The Transformers #54—is acknowledged but not actually explained; Alpha Trion appears to be positing that the Titan from the annual was not Metrotitan, but that makes little sense, since Starscream and Rattrap recognized them as being the same in The Transformers #55.
  • Alpha Trion opines that good storytellers use the power of myths and legends to present truth, a callback to Optimus Prime #10 where Trion shared this wisdom with Onyx Prime.
  • Trypticon was established as the Earth embassy on Cybertron in issue #14. The protoform dubbed "Sideswipe" by Arcee in that issue has physically developed a lot more since we last saw him, having taken on physical features similar to his namesake.
  • Marissa gets Richard Ruby's phone number from Ayana Jones, who has it after meeting him in Revolutionaries #3.
  • The portion of his film that Thundercracker shows Ruby is a dramatization of events seen in Robots in Disguise #13. Thundercracker notes that Megatron had a different body (his stealth bomber form) in "real life," but he's changed it to a more traditional Megatron-looking appearance for the movie to keep things simple.
  • To portray the Decepticon uprising from later in issue #13, a panel is just lifted from the issue itself, rather than redrawn with "actors."
  • Scenes from the finished film that Thundercracker shows Starscream includes dramatizations of the events of Robots in Disguise #16 (with Sky-Byte playing Metalhawk) and the Till All Are One annual (with Aileron playing Windblade).
  • The repercussions of Beachcomber helping Starscream play out over in Optimus Prime #16.
  • The dead colony of Prion was previously seen in The Transformers #57.

Transformers references

Hasbro references

  • One of the posters in Richard Ruby's office is for a movie named Sigma 6. Named after the mid-2000s anime-influenced version of G.I. Joe, it was previously established that Ruby had starred in the sequel to this movie (Sigma 6 2: Retribution) in Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #1. Looks like he must have been in the original as well.
  • Aileron mistakenly calls Ruby "Jem."
  • J.J. Hackensack is a character from the Parker Brothers board game "International Movie Maker," who Richard Ruby was previously noted to have worked with back in the 80s in Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #1. Making Hackensack the director of Space Battle turns him into a reference to J. J. Abrams, director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, though visually, he's based on original Star Wars director George Lucas, with his silver hair and beard and propensity for plaid shirts.

Real-life references

  • Hi-Tech compares Thundercracker's "Susan Journeyer" screenplay to Dogville, a 2003 avante-gard film alternately considered both a masterpiece and "pretentious and exasperating."
  • Hackensack compares Thundercracker to Orson Welles, who was also a writer-director-actor "triple threat."
  • Richard Ruby points out that when humans associate Cybertronians on the big screen with explosions and excitement... which surely can't be a reference to anything, can it?
  • Thundercracker derides The Birth of Cybertron as being "hella racist;" as mentioned elsewhere, the film seems to derive its title from the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, which was also... well, hella racist.

Errors

  • In Dirge's flashback to All Hail Megatron #7 on page 10, Viewfinder has been drawn based on his Generation 1 toy, rather than the cartoon-based appearance he had in the actual comic.
  • On page 13, the sign outside the Academy calls it the "Jhiaxus Academy," rather than the "Jhiaxian Academy."
  • On page 22, while thinking back on Nurse Whitney, Thundercracker says the title character's mother was played by "Karen Fishnet," instead of "Fishook." That can't be deliberate, surely!
  • On the final page. J.J. Hackensack identifies himself as the director of the "Space Wars" films, rather than "Space Battle."

Other trivia

  • The story is followed by a "credits" page, listing all the Transformers who worked on the film, and giving "special thanks" not just to the other fictional characters involved, but to the many real-life artists and writers who worked on the comics that inspired and informed the story—not just the Transformers titles, but the G.I. Joe comics that told the stories of Chuckles and Richard Ruby, and Skywarp's time on the team.

Soundtrack

Covers (2)

  • Regular cover: Starscream and Thundercracker on the red carpet, by Priscilla Tramontano
  • Subscription cover: Thundercracker holds a press conference to announce the movie, by Andrew Griffith and Josh Burcham; based on the iconic shot from Citizen Kane of Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane in front of a poster of his own likeness.

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