Flames of Yesterday
| This article is about the Wings of Honor story. For the Beast Machines episode, see Fires of the Past. |
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| "Flames of Yesterday" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive) | ||||||||||||
| First published | May 24, 2010 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Illustrations by | Andrew Griffith and Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Wings Universe | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 44pp | ||||||||||||
A mission babysitting archaeologists turns into a showdown with Cybertron's past.
Synopsis
Magnum introduces the Combaticons to Metalhawk's Elite Guard squad, much to their bemusement and Sentinel Major is forced to explain how the name makes sense for an Autobot team. Metalhawk and Onslaught are called into a briefing, where Comm Officer Big Bang and Alpha Trion tell them about an all-female team of archeologists who've located an ancient factory, thought to hold the secrets of the origins of the Transformer race. Both Elite Guard teams are required to lend a hand.
They land the Hawk's Claw near the city of Median and meet Strika, who is supremely uninterested in any and all come-ons from the male Autobots. She leaves them to speculate what the archeologists might have found, until Flipsides arrives to lead them to a hall containing a massive urn. Glyph translates the text on the urn for them, explaining that it says it contains the "Heart of the Dragon", a mythical beast said to have attacked Hyperious. Readings suggest that the urn contains either the spark or the personality component of something Cybertronian. Rage, the leader of a small Decepticon faction named the Stormtroopers, is going to make an attempt to steal the thing — Hydradread and Drench already tried to break in before. The Elite Guard set about improving the fortifications.
Some distance away, Rage's group has stopped. Rage sends Roadgrabber ahead to breach the walls while he uses binoculars to scope out the enemy fortifications, and spots the Elite Guard presence. Roadgrabber unerringly finds the weakest point in the wall and plows though... only to discover that it's right in front of the weakest part of the floor. The other four attackers are lured into a trap by Lancer, but Rage unleashes a liquid weapon on Metalhawk which incapacitates the Autobot, and the quartet crash through the rest of the Elite Guard present.
Onslaught's group fires on the incoming Stormtroopers, only to find there are only two targets, not four. Rage and Aquablast have slipped around and broken into the main chamber. They cut the urn in half and retrieve the personality component inside, before dealing with Ironfist and Vortex. The two Decepticons pay a visit to the bunker in which the archeology team is sheltering and kill Glyph for the research she's carrying. Lancer picks this moment to appear and blow Aquablast's head off in retaliation, but Rage escapes.
As the Stormtroopers escape, the Guardsmen give chase, only to encounter Cement-Head and Terror-Tread, two hulking brutes who facilitate their leader's escape by keeping the Autobots busy. After the Decepticons have all left, pointed questions are asked about why the auto-guns weren't activated, and Flipsides says they must have malfunctioned. She reports that the archeology team going to head back to Iacon, and suggests the Guardsmen pursue Rage. They do so, and it's not long before they find Cement-Head and Terror-Tread again. Onslaught's plan to stick them together with Vortex's glue gun is successful, and the pair hardly constitute a hindrance.
The Guardsmen proceed to the Metrotitan, Rage's mobile fortress, where they're met by a welcoming committee: Buffalo Dump and three Minotorons. Weapons only make the beasts angrier, but Swindle uses a device he picked up earlier to scare them off with a high-pitched noise. Dion, Blast Off and Swindle use the beasts to get into the Metrotitan, Trojan horse style, and open the exterior doors to let the others in. Rage, who eventually intends to install the stolen personality component into the Metrotitan itself, has installed it into a somewhat smaller body as a test.
Brimstone makes a dramatic appearance, demonstrating his flame breath which can completely disintegrate anything it touches. The Guardsmen flee, though the very walls seem to shift around them to cut them off, and manage to take advantage of a surprisingly convenient door. They hit Brimstone with Ironfist's entire stock of explosive, but the dragon emerges from the explosion intact. Just as all seems lost, the Guardsmen encounter Drench, Rage's second-in-command, who's decided that Rage has gone way too far and is prepared to defect. Drench points out that the small body Brimstone is in isn't big enough to contain Brimstone's energies and is on the verge of exploding. With Drench's help, they escape the Metrotitan just as the prediction becomes reality and Brimstone explodes violently.
Back in Iacon, Magnum is suspicious of the accuracy of Metalhawk's report, but Onslaught's report is a little less embellished. He tells Metalhawk and Onslaught that he has a new mission for them in Praxium. Elsewhere, Lyzack reports on Rage's failure to her leader.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"Wow, if even Brawl doesn’t want to stand and fight, you know that running’s the better option!"
- —Dion does Furmanisms wrong.
Metalhawk: "L-Lancer! T-The... fuzzy... The fuzzy p-petro-rabbits taste like... yellow..."
Lancer: "That... That's not good, is it?"
Dion: "They had some kind of chemical weapon that knocked him out cold. He's having a little problem rebooting."
[a few moments later]
Metalhawk: "Grishy boushy makes vroom..." *passes out again*
- —Metalhawk is not here right now. Please leave a message after the beep.
Magnum: "You really expect me to believe all this? Gods, dragons... and here it says that you all died!"
Metalhawk: "Well, I may have taken a few liberties..."
Onslaught: "Perhaps you should read my report, it's probably more... accurate."
Magnum: "Hmm, Median, monsters and Metrotitan. It's all there. Minus the artistic license, of course. Well, at least it's better than Ironfist's single sentence, or Swindle's report that read like romance holo-pulp. With him being the hero and love-interest, of course."
- —The Elite Guard engages in Rashomon Style mission reporting.
Notes
- Characters mentioned who do not appear include: Landshakespeare, Thunderblast, The One, the creators, one of Dion's friends, the Covenant, Ariex, Capricun, Geminator, Libras, Scorpius, Taurotron, Virgol, Leonicus, the Constructicons, Megatron, a white and green Autobot, a big green Autobot, a golden dragon, Traachon, Lyzack's brother, and Falcon.
Continuity notes
- The beginning of the story takes place right after the end of "The Coming Storm: Part 2", with the Combaticons greeting their new comrades.
- Dion's launchers were noted to use Reverse-Higgs mechanism in his profile in the Diamond Edition of the "Wings of Honor" comic.
- The Transformers belief in The One (or Ones) as their creator originally appeared in the "Wings of Honor" comic.
- The factory in this story is obviously one of those seen by Rodimus Prime during his vision inside the Matrix in Transformers episode "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 4". The concept that the Autobots were originally created by the Quintessons as service robots and the Decepticons as military units also originates from that episode.
- Alpha Trion knows what the factory is, as he was one of the original Transformers created during the Quintesson reign, as seen in "Five Faces of Darkness" and "Forever Is a Long Time Coming".
- Glyph and Strika's appearances in this story are based on two generic seen in Rodimus' vision of Quintesson-held in "Five Faces of Darkness". Author Jesse Wittenrich interpreted the vision as more allegorical than a recording of actual events, which would make their mission moot.
- Greenlight and Lancer are the two generic members of Elita One's squad of female Autobots from "The Search for Alpha Trion". finally given names after 25 years.
Transformer references
- Dion's Nitronium launchers are named for Natron, the Autobot car from the Tyco Electric Racing Set. They're noted to being susceptible to quasar jams without modifications; Cheetor's quasar rifle had the same problem in the first episode of the Beast Wars cartoon.
- Big Bang was an abandoned Japanese concept, intended to be the Autobot leader in the post-Zone toyline, before being replaced by Star Convoy in what became Return of Convoy.
- Swindle's old flame, Thunderblast, is presumably a Generation 1 version of the Cybertron Decepticon of the same name.
- Glyph was an exclusive toy sold at BotCon 2002. Strika was an Autobot-turned-Vehicon General from Beast Machines, seen here before she became a famous general. Flip Sides was an e-Hobby exclusive, sold with the Collector's Edition reissue of Twincast.
- Over-Run's back-up drone is based on the one used by Energon Bulkhead, whose toy WoH Over-Run is based on. It's colored red and black like Quickstrike's drone, a recolored version of Bulkhead from the Energon line.
- Both versions of Generation 2 Drench are potentially made into the same character here, as the Decepticon ends up defecting to the Elite Guard with a retrofit and a new paint job.
Real-world references
- The overall narrative of the story is loosely inspired by various Greek myths, most prominently being the legends of Jason and the Argonauts. According to author Jesse Wittenrich, the decision to base it on the Greek myths came about when the Decepticon Rage was chosen to be the main villain, which reminded him of the first lines of the Greek epic poem, the Iliad ("Rage: Sing Goddess, Achilles' rage, black and murderous..."). Accordingly, there are references to Greek myths throughout the story.
- Sentinel comments that he's "a military ‘bot, not some Landshakespearian" when the others question the Combaticon name; this indicates there's a Cybertronian equivalent to William Shakespeare, presumably named Landshakespeare.
- Onslaught notes that he graduated at the top of his class at Omnihelix Academy, the name of which takes inspiration from the Omnitrix from Ben 10.
- The Ajax P-9000 Grade-B Jump Launch Accelerator takes its name from the Greek mythological hero, Ajax the Great, who played an important role in the aformentioned Iliad.
- Median is named for Medea, the wife of the aforementioned Jason from Greek mythology.
Errors
- Many, many, many proofreading errors. Those were later fixed in an updated version of the story.
- Aquablast is quite clearly killed by Lancer at one point, yet is still mentioned as being alive afterwards (presumably there was some sort of mixup with Hydradread...) This was later fixed in an updated version of the story.
External links
- "Flames of Yesterday" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club
