The Coming Storm: Part 3
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| "The Coming Storm: Part 3" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Fun Publications | ||||||||||||
| Published in | Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club #33 | ||||||||||||
| Story | Rik Alvarez & Pete Sinclair | ||||||||||||
| Writers | Pete Sinclair & Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Pencils by | Dan Khanna | ||||||||||||
| Inks by | Frank Milkovich | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Thomas Deer | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Managing editor | Pete Sinclair | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Wings Universe | ||||||||||||
Metalhawk's squad and the Combaticons embark on a mission to take out some of the Decepticon leaders.
Synopsis
Weeks after their debriefing back at the Elite Guard Headquarters, Metalhawk, Onslaught, and their teams go about their missions. Onslaught is reminiscing about one of his more humorous missions when he is interrupted by a suspicious vehicle hauling cube-shaped objects. As the truck speeds off, one of the cubes falls off and turns out to be a Decepticon. Metalhawk leaves it to the Combaticons to interrogate their prisoner in an abandoned structure. A loud scream is heard, and Metalhawk's concern is answered when Onslaught walks out and informs him that their prisoner initiated a self-destruct sequence (in reality, Brawl executed him). The Combaticon commander also informs Hawk that he was able to get information on where their target was located.
Both teams finally reach their destination at a well protected fortress, and Onslaught issues his plan: Metalhawk drops explosive charges from overhead, Vortex looks out for where the enemies will scatter, Swindle sneaks inside the officers' hideout to drop a fog grenade to flush out the rest, Over-Run, Dion, Ironfist, Brawl, and Blast Off distract the gunners, while Onslaught snipes the Decepticon leader. It all goes accordingly, and Onslaught has everybody covertly regroup. The bots congratulate each other, but on the contrary, Onslaught soon grows weary of the rather low difficulty of their mission, and decides that he and the rest of the Combaticons will investigate further. Metalhawk wishes them the best of luck and heads back to Cybertron to inform Magnum of their victory.
Later, the Combaticons appear bound, beat, and seemingly defeated...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"So the Decepticon says, 'I may not have a gun, but I have a bomb!' And pulls the pin. Wouldn't you know it was a dud? So there he is, optics darting between us and the useless metal sphere in his hand, and he still has the gall to say, 'I AM THUNDERWING! ONE DAY YOU WILL ALL PAY FOR THIS!' I was afraid that not even the stasis cuffs were going to shut him up."
- —Onslaught regales everyone with a war story.
Onslaught: "Ironfist, do you have the charges?"
Ironfist: "Do I have the charges? Who do you think you're talkin' to, mate? An' I've been tinkerin' with them since Praxeeum. You kin expect them to be bigger an' louder!"
Metalhawk: "Bigger?!"
Onslaught: "Louder?!"
Ironfist: "Oh, yeeh! You kin count on it!"
- —Ironfist, cheerful Autobot mad bomber extraordinaire.
Notes
- Characters mentioned include: Thunderwing and Blue Bacchus.
Continuity notes
- A caption box indicates this chapter takes place weeks after the previous one, which lead directly into "Flames of Yesterday".
- The Decepticon the Combaticons interrogate is one of the "cubeformers" seen in Transformers episode "War Dawn".
Transformers references
- Two Decepticon warlords are mentioned: Thunderwing, the Ultra Pretender from Generation 1, and Blue Bacchus, one of the Crossformers from Victory.
- The fortress Shadowcaster's Decepticons are operating out of is based on Generation 1 Trypticon's city mode.
- Shadowcaster was originally meant to be Fearswoop, but due to the BotCon 2010 Generation 2 theme, he was renamed and recolored to be yellow and grey. Nevertheless, Fearswoop never actually appeared in "Generation 2: Redux". One of the generics by his dead body, meanwhile, is based on Generation 1 Thrust.
- While the Decepticon seen in the final panel is unnamed and in shadow, the details on his legs point him to being Victory Deathsaurus using his BotCon 2005 toy body, who had already appeared in the prose story "Flames of Yesterday".
Real-world references
- Onslaught mentions a location named Praxium, named after a company logo writer Jesse Wittenrich would see on the sides of trucks during his college years.
- Over-Run tells Brawl he's slower than a Slitheen slime snail, named for the Slitheen from Doctor Who.
- Swindle hopes the Decepticons have a Zardak Power Converter (named for the Convertors toy that was based on the Macross Valkyrie toy, much like Jetfire. A Transformers version of Zardak would later show up in "A Team Effort".) or a Regilian Shield Generator (named for the alien turtles from Star Trek, although the species name is meant to be spelled "Rigellian").
