Aerialbots over America!

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« The Transformers (UK) #89–90 »
"Aerialbots over America!"
Publisher Marvel Comics
First published June 1986
Cover date October 1986
Writer Bob Budiansky
Penciler Don Perlin
Inkers Ian Akin and Brian Garvey
Colorist Nel Yomtov
Letterer Janice Chiang
Editor Michael Carlin
Continuity Marvel Comics continuity

Bombshell controls a human with a cerebro shell and is challenged by the Aerialbots.

Synopsis

Recent arrival Bombshell uses a cerebro-shell to force hydroelectric engineer Ricky Vasquez to bring Megatron into the plant at Hoover Dam, as part of a plan to steal the plant's energy and transport it to Cybertron. Meanwhile, Skids returns to the Ark with Donny Finkleberg to inform them that seven Autobots were accidentally transported to Earth. Optimus Prime sends Jetfire and Finkleberg to investigate. The Autobots then receive word of the invasion of the hydroelectric plant, and the Aerialbots, recently created by Wheeljack using the stolen combiner technology, are dispatched to deal with the situation.

"Can you fly this plane and land it?"
"Surely you can't be serious!"
"I am serious. And don't call me Shirley."

Only the Aerialbot leader, Silverbolt, has been given a complete personality, and the other Aerialbots are not yet programmed to defend human life. When the Aerialbots combine into Superion, Silverbolt must fight to influence the combined form from within in order to keep Superion from killing Vasquez. Forced to disassemble rather than kill Vasquez, the mission seems doomed to failure.

But Vasquez, seeing his daughter break through the police line to call out to her daddy, breaks through the cerebro-shell's programming, and fires Megatron into the space bridge, causing it to return to Cybertron. As the Aerialbots fly away, Bombshell hitches a ride on Silverbolt's wing.

Meanwhile, at an airstrip in New Jersey, the newly-formed RAAT unloads and processes their cargo - the seven Autobots who recently arrived from Cybertron! Their heads are removed and hung on the wall at the behest of the unit's leader... Circuit Breaker!

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Humans

Quotes

"But can we depend on this feeble fleshling?"
"Does iron rust red? With one of my cerebro-shells planted in his brain module, he'd eat nuclear waste if I asked him to. Fleshling, there's a grease spot on my foot. See if you can clean it... with your tongue!"

—Shrapnel prompts Bombshell to be a jackass.


"But Ratchet, he's a human! Humans don't rust!"
"But they sweat!...Bring the human back after you dehumidify him."

—Skids and Ratchet


"I'm pleased you are still functional, Skids. We thought you were dead."

—Optimus Prime, showing very little concern.


"How can we believe him? As Robot-Master he went on television and lied about us, gave all the Autobots a bad name! Let me do a little corrective surgery on him, Optimus - I'll get the truth out of him piece by piece.

—And Ratchet showing very little morality.


"Pull my trigger, fleshling! Pull my trigger!"

—Megatron says terrible things to a mind-controlled Ricky Vasquez

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

"Dirge, do you like movies about gladiators?"
  • Dirge's wings and cockpit are pink on pages 10 and 15.
  • Ramjet is colored just red and black in 2 panels at the bottom of page 16.
  • Blaster's head is blue on the last page.
  • The Coneheads' conversation after initially driving off the Aerialbots is several flavors of screwed up, presumably due to misdirected speech balloons:
Thrust: "We showed them who's boss of the skies, right, Thrust?"
Dirge: "Right, Ramjet!"
Ramjet: "..."

In the IDW Transformers Classics reprint, this is changed to have Dirge reply "Right, Thrust!" but only that's changed.

  • For the most part, Silverbolt's jet mode actually makes an attempt to be in scale with the rest of the jets! It's even used in the plot as he carries a wounded Slingshot on his wing.
  • Page 17: Slingshot's missing the damage he received from Ramjet's attack; he's also colored blue instead of white.

Continuity errors

  • On page 12, Jetfire refers to a game they played on Cybertron. Yet, having been given life on Earth (immediately preceding issue #14), Jetfire has never been to Cybertron. It's possible he's making it up just to freak out Donny.
  • Megatron seems to need the fleshling to pull his trigger to be able to fire, yet in previous issues Megatron would fire in gun mode without anyone pulling the trigger.
  • The security guard doesn't notice that Ricky is carrying a large gun.

Continuity notes

  • This issue takes place on July 4, 1986.
  • The Insecticons and second year Decepticon jets first arrive on Earth in this issue. Megatron states that he modified the Insecticons' alternate forms to resemble Earth insects... including giving them the ability to shrink. Of note, this implies that those were their Cybertronian forms we saw back in issue #17... even though they pretty much looked the same as their Earth modes.
  • For UK readers, this story was set up in "Target: 2006" as Megatron there orders the troops to Earth. Similarly, the Aerialbots have been in the works since "Second Generation".
  • Prime is seen nursing an injury he received saving Skids' life in issue #19. This injury would play a big part in the next couple of issues.
  • The Insecticons, the Coneheads and the Aerialbots all get to show off their special powers - Thrust's engines force Skydive to land; Dirge broadcasts his fear-frequency; Fireflight uses his fire-fog missiles; Ramjet flies straight into Slingshot; Slingshot uses his VTOL capabilities; Air Raid uses his torque rifle; Shrapnel zaps Slingshot; Kickback kicks both a door and Air Raid.
  • The narration pegs Superion's height as "eight stories" - roughly 100 feet or 30 and a half metres.
  • The cliffhanger reveals the Cybertron Seven were captured off-panel during or soon after issue #19. We'll see how in the next issue.
  • Superion here endangers human lives due to bad programming. This will impact on every subsequent Superion story at Marvel UK, where they'll be a badly functioning menace.

Real-life references

  • The issue is mostly set in and around Hoover Dam, in the Black Canyon; a tour guide reels off facts and figures about the dam including its service area of Nevada, Arizona and California. The Vasquez family lives in Boulder City, Nevada. We also stop in at the Ark, in rural Oregon, and get an epilogue set in southern New Jersey.
  • Both a reporter and a bratty kid curiously identify Silverbolt's alternate form as an SST (supersonic transport), rather than the less generic, more commonly known Concorde.

UK printing

  • The injury Prime is nursing in this issue is actually the source of a subtle continuity change between the US and UK comics. The cause of the injury is different depending on which version of the comic you're reading:
    • In the US version, Prime was wounded fighting to save Skids during "Command Performances!", 2 issues previously. In the UK version, there was a 17-issue gap between this story and "Command Performances", so the hole in his side was repaired, and he was later re-injured in exactly the same spot.
    • The exact origin of Prime's new injury remained a mystery until issue #100. All we knew at this point was that Prime was somehow damaged while he was displaced in limbo during "Target: 2006".
  • In a similar vein, it is a little odd, in the UK print, to hear Optimus refer to the arrival of the Cybertron Seven over the space bridge as the most significant turn of events since the Transformers landed on Earth, when his Autobots have spent the last nine issues or so in the company of Ultra Magnus, an Autobot sent over the Space Bridge from Cybertron, and fighting Galvatron, a Decepticon from the future. Unless his troops just didn't tell Optimus about Magnus.

Issue #89:

Issue #90:

  • Back-up strips: Spitfire and the Troubleshooters - "Beginnings" and Robo-Capers

Other trivia

  • In the issue's publication info on page 1, the cover date is printed as October 1987 rather than 1986. (The month is correct, as Marvel consistently listed issues four months ahead of their release date.)
  • When this issue was reprinted in Classic Transformers Volume 2, the image of Circuit Breaker was replaced with a silhouette and the speech bubble with her name was removed for copyright reasons.

Bot Roster

  • Autobots: 16 active as the Aerialbots come online. 5 rogue Dinobots, 7 held captive by RAAT, 14 in repair bay. (42 total)
  • Decepticons: 17 active as the Coneheads and Insecticons arrive on Earth; 7 offline. (23 total)

Changes in the IDW Transformers Classics reprint

  • On page 4, panel 2 the Ben-Day dots on the roof of Ricky Vasquez's car have been removed, and replaced with a flat tone. Oddly, similar stippling effects elsewhere on the page have been allowed to stay intact.
  • An attempt has been made to fix the bad dialogue on page 16, panel 5 (see the Artwork and Technical Details section) -- but only Dirge's dialogue has been corrected so the panel now reads:
Thrust: "We showed them who's boss of the skies, right, Thrust?"
Dirge: "Right, Thrust!"
Ramjet: "..."

Covers (3)

  • US cover: Aerialbots vs. Coneheads, by Herb Trimpe.
  • UK issue #89 cover: Insecticons control Ricky Vasquez, by Robin Smith.
  • UK issue #90 cover: reuse of art from US cover with new coloring by Robin Bouttell.
  • US issue #21 - Wait, wrong way!
    US issue #21 - Wait, wrong way!
  • UK issue #89 - Actually, Slaves of the Insecticons is a different book altogether.
    UK issue #89 - Actually, Slaves of the Insecticons is a different book altogether.
  • UK issue #90 - UK Silverbolt seems to be a robo-racist.
    UK issue #90 - UK Silverbolt seems to be a robo-racist.

Advertisements

  • None yet identified.

Reprints

  • Transformers: Showdown TPB (Titan Books, 2003)
    Transformers: Showdown TPB (Titan Books, 2003)
  • Transformers: Showdown HC (Titan Books, 2003)
    Transformers: Showdown HC (Titan Books, 2003)
  • Classic Transformers Volume 2 (IDW Publishing, 2008)
    Classic Transformers Volume 2 (IDW Publishing, 2008)
  • The Transformers Classics, Vol. 2 (IDW Publishing, 2012)
    The Transformers Classics, Vol. 2
    (IDW Publishing, 2012)
  • The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 6: Target: 2006 (Hachette Partworks, 2016)
    The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 6: Target: 2006
    (Hachette Partworks, 2016)
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