Assembly (OMAM)
| The name or term "Assembly" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Assembly (disambiguation). |
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| "Assembly" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Fun Publications | ||||||||||||
| Published in | Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club #67 | ||||||||||||
| Writers | Jesse Wittenrich & Pete Sinclair | ||||||||||||
| Pencils | Dan Khanna | ||||||||||||
| Inks | Jake Isenberg | ||||||||||||
| Colors | Evan Gauntt | ||||||||||||
| Letters | Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Managing editor | Pete Sinclair | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Of Masters and Mayhem | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | 2020 | ||||||||||||
Five years after their dimensional displacement, the Pretenders and Spike continue to try to learn where they are as an old enemy reawakens...
Synopsis
Five years ago, the humans of the Earth of the "Classicsverse", among the last survivors of their universe, were transported to another Earth by an unknown force. This new Earth was identical in nearly every way...but there were no humans. In the years since, people have moved on with their lives, seemingly finally rid of the Transformers. But, as they should know, it never ends...
Former Headmaster Spike Witwicky is walking on the streets of Merida, glumly reflecting on his new situation, when he's brought back to reality by a car crash. Attempting to help the young girl and her father trapped inside, Spike is unable to reach them, until the Autobot Pretenders Crossblades and Vroom, having also been transported to this Earth, arrive to help. Freeing the girl and her father, Spike and the Autobots flee the scene before their super-strength can arouse suspicion. However, one bystander seems to have taken interest in the three...
Arriving back at Spike's apartment, the three are greeted by Autobot commander Metalhawk and Spike's girlfriend, Elizabeth, who has Spike's brother Buster on an @mosferik video call. Buster, having paid for Spike's apartment, is annoyed his older brother has still not found a job, but before he can berate him anymore, Buster's young son Galen interrupts his father. Spike marvels at how big his nephew is, and uses his sister-in-law Jesse's entrance to take Galen to bed as an excuse to hang up. Metalhawk, too, is annoyed at Spike's relaxed behavior, having remembered how Spike was the responsible Witwicky brother some years ago. Spike claims that he's been responsible during these last few years, and that he's earned a little time to be relaxed. Spike then changes the subject to dinnertime, and decides to use Metalhawk's new job to pay for a nice Italian restaurant on the other side of town
Arriving as the sun sets, Spike, "Vroman", "Cross", and Elizabeth all make some smalltalk, while "Hawk" uses some of his money to pay a homeless man sitting outside the restaurant. Once they're sat at the table, "Hawk" is all business, reminding the others that they and Buster signed up with Blackrock Global to figure out what their new home has to offer. "Hawk" explains they were sent to the Yucatan to investigate a mysterious radio signal from last year, a signal that Spike previously had hoped could have been the other Autobots. Spike, however, has long since stopped believing that. After paying for the meal, Spike tries to explain to the Autobot commander that they have made some progress, but the five are interrupted by a mugger, who grabs Elizabeth. Having seen "Hawk" pay the homeless man, the mugger refuses to believe their "excuses", and fires off, as a black stain spreads across Spike's chest...
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Yucatan, the Herald of Unicron Ramjet awakes from his year-long meditation, the source of the signal the Autobots detected. Trapped on the atomic level in the Earth, Ramjet uses his cosmic senses on the universe, having been cut off from his master. Having found that Unicron has never and will never exist in this universe, Ramjet uses the energy he's built up to escape, reformatting himself into a newer, more compact body. While he may be more limited in power now, Ramjet is still able to sense a great evil...and he plans to use that power to rip this universe apart, allowing him to escape!
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
- Metalhawk: "Where were you three?"
- Spike: Saving lives, like usual. How about you?"
- Buster: "Earning a wage."
Notes
- Characters mentioned but not seen include: a dead alien robot in Spike's head, Ximena, Skyhammer, Unicron, and "something else touched by evil".
- Where are Spike and the Pretenders? The existence of this Earth and the universe they're currently in is regarded as unusual, as its native animals, though not shown, are apparently different from those we're used to.
- It has been five years since everyone was sent here. Production team comments on Another Light placed that arc in 2015, which would logically place Of Masters and Mayhem in 2020.
- Spike and friends have garnered a stalker from the looks of it! Just who exactly is this older fellow?
- Ramjet highlights the uniqueness of this reality by claiming that it is and always will be devoid of Unicron.
Errors
Continuity notes
- Spike, the Pretenders, and the rest of Classicsverse humankind vanished in "The Future Buried..." thanks to Gaea, much to their fellow Autobots' confusion.
- Spike refers to Fortress Maximus being dead, but the last we saw of him in "Invasion", the two of them were still merged together. Though in "The Future Buried...", Spike wasn't wearing his binary-bond armor...
- We last saw Ramjet in "Revelations Part 2", where Vector Prime banished him to...somewhere in interdimensional space. When we see him at the end of the issue, it looks like he ultimately landed in the universe that the Classicsverse humans now finds themselves in. Doesn't look like Ramjet's four Mini-Cons survived, though.
Transformers references
- The Pretenders seen thus far, Crossblades, Metalhawk, and Vroom, are regular human-sized instead of the usual height of Pretenders, in what is probably a nod to Super-God Masterforce. Additionally, the Mega Pretenders, along with Skyhammer, take traits of the other Autobot Pretenders from Masterforce: Vroom has a fashion model girlfriend named Ximena, placing him as the counterpart to the ladies' bot, Lander; Skyhammer is based in Germany, mirroring Phoenix; the connection is a bit weaker for Crossblades, but him being the stocky, somewhat relaxed guy in the group places him as being inspired by Diver.
- Elizabeth's ethnicity and role as Spike's girlfriend point to her being the Classics version of Lisa from "Rhythms of Darkness!".
- This is not the first story to have a "Galen Witwicky", having been preceded by the Beast Wars: Uprising story "Head Games" a year before. In that story, though, Galen Witwicky was implied to be Daniel Witwicky's son, not Buster's.
Real-world references
- Metalhawk says that they're currently in Yucatan, a state in the country of Mexico. It's not until the next issue that it's clarified that they're in Merida.
Other trivia
- As noted previously, this series is a promotion for the Collector's Club toys for 2016, with the new toy for Ramjet being shown off at the end of the issue.
