Starscream the Mysterious Mercenary

The ghostly Starscream stalks Optimus Prime, culminating in a battle on the Moon.

Summary

Ironhide and Inferno watch as Kicker restlessly rides around Ocean City. He finally realizes that someone or something is coming.

Starscream's voice wanders down corridors, searching for his victim, Optimus Prime. Ironhide and Kicker both suspect something, but find no one. Worried for Optimus' safety, they head for HQ Central Ops. Signal Flare and Skyblast also sense something, but dismiss it.

Aboard Unicron's head, Alpha Q speaks to his new creation, Starscream -- a warrior without physical form, who cannot be harmed. They ran out of energon while re-creating him, leaving him incomplete. They send him to destroy Optimus Prime, who's hording all the energon.

Kicker senses Starscream and orders Ironhide to open fire, even though it seems like he's shooting at empty air. Starscream takes a shot at Optimus in the control center, misses, and retreats in the face of Ironhide's barrage of laser fire.

The Autobots meet with Prime and voice their concerns, but Prime says he doesn't need a bodyguard. Kicker isn't happy about this.

Outside the city, Kicker and Ironhide receive orders from Hot Shot to secretly tail Optimus around the city. Prime's already aware of it, and orders Hot Shot to get back to work, over his protests.

Prime remembers the mysterious entity that attacked him recently, and stops. He shouts a challenge to whoever it is that wants to take him on. Kicker, watching, senses the attacker and shouts a warning. Starscream attacks from the sky. The others arrive, only to find empty air. Prime leads his attacker away, intending to find out who it is.

The other Autobots are baffled by Prime's disappearance, when a space bridge appears above them. Prime drives into it, followed by Starscream. Though delayed by Starscream, Kicker, Jetfire and Ironhide follow, heading for Lunar City on the moon.

The pair meet with Lunar City's crew, who haven't seen a trace of Prime. Jetfire finds out that Prime has turned off his communicator -- he wants to deal with this alone.

A horde of Terrorcons approaches the moon. Cyclonus wonders how the Autobots figured out Optimus is on the moon. Megatron orders him to find Optimus and "that mindless menace" before the Autobots do. Within Unicron's body, Scorponok gives Demolishor a hard time over his recent defection.

Hot Shot observes the incoming Terrorcons and requests energon stars from the Omnicons.

In an empty crater, Prime shouts another challenge at his invisible attacker, who responds dismissively. Hot Shot and Skyblast arrive to help out Prime. Prime manages to get a few hits in on Starscream, who tells him he's doing this to revive Unicron.

Skyblast powers up the Autobots with energon stars and Megatron swords, which Kicker finds rather heavy compared to the Energon Sabre.

Prime is rather irrate at Starscream's plan to revive Unicron. Megatron finds Prime just as Starscream blasts him. As the invisible soldier drifts away, Megatron shouts angrily at him to identify himself.

Kicker finds Prime down and inoperative, and completely freaks out. Skyblast revives him with a series of energon stars. Megatron breaks off pursuing Starscream and heads back Prime's crater. Prime materializes "Hot Shot's blaster" and wonders why he's been granted it. The blaster holds Megatron off and sends him flying away.

Kicker is bummed about Lunar City getting trashed again, just as it was rebuilt. Prime tells him that lives are more important than cities, and to leave the worrying to him. Kicker says he'll always be there for backup.

Stats

Original airdate:

Written by:

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
		Regulars Guests

Quotes

"Aw, Megatron, trying to find Optimus is a total waste of time!"
"Scorponok will pay for this."

-- Cyclonus and Megatron aren't making any sense at all.

"Terrorcons. They're in attack mode again. We'd better beef up our defenses."

-- neither is Hot Shot

"Forgive me men, but let me have a moment while my hard drive optimizes."

-- neither is Optimus Prime, as he prepares to fire "Hot Shot's blaster"

"I get the impression that Megatron has doubts about your loyalty, Demolishor."
"He ordered me to stand guard. And that's exactly what I'm doing, Scorponok."
"Up until yesterday, you were standing guard for the Autobots. That in itself would cast doubt upon you."
"Come on, you can't be serious!"
"Relax, I was just having some fun with you. Now let's try to get along, Demolishor; that would be the mature thing to do."
"Why don't you go and leave me alone."

-- Scorponok picks on Demolishor

Other Notes

• This episode is a prime example of the general sloppiness that typifies the series. A lot of the dialog makes no sense at all, or doesn't correspond to the visuals. The scene editing jumps around rather randomly as well.

Lost in translation

• From the dialog, it would seem that Scorponok gave Megatron information about Starscream and Optimus Prime's disappearance, but this important plot point is never stated in the episode. And how would Scorponok know all this anyway?

Pain count

• "Uh?": 15
• Stock footage: 2
• We need/they want energon: 2
• It's time to: 2
• We've gotta: 4
• Let's do it: 1

Animation and/or technical glitches

• Starscream apparently bashes Jetfire away from the space bridge, but at no point are they shown in the same frame together -- Screamer swings his arm at nothing, and a second later Jetfire bounces away from nothing.
• The animation of Ironhide and Jetfire's space bridge arrival on the moon is hilariously bad.
• When we first see the Decepticons, they're flying directly above Tidal Wave (though it's not exactly clear from the animation that it's him.) A second later, Cyclonus is flying above the moon's surface.
• Megatron shouts at the escaping Starscream, but he's facing and flying the other way as he does it, as if different dialog was intended for the scene. It's not even clear that he's chasing Starscream until he quits doing so.
• "Hot Shot's blaster" is not actually shown firing at Megatron; Megs simply flies into a beam of red energy.

Continuity errors

• Why, upon hearing Starscream's disembodied voice, does Ironhide accuse the absent Demolishor of joking around with him? Has he already forgotten that Demolishor up and split last episode?
• Why do Kicker and Ironhide have to "synchronize" their communicators?
• Demolishor's voice sounds... off.
• Cyclonus seems puzzled that the Autobots have located the missing Optimus Prime, as if the Decepticons were responsible for his disappearance -- when they shouldn't have any reason at all to know he's gone missing.
• How does Prime's helicopter drone fly in the moon's vacuum?
• Prime gives the "super mode" command to detach his drone units.
• Megatron suddenly blames Scorponok for his inability to find Optimus, when the episode gives no indication that Scorponok is involved in the matter at all.
• "Hot Shot's blaster" has never been seen before, certainly not being used by Hot Shot. Hot Shot is likewise totally uninvolved in giving the weapon to Optimus.

Keywords

From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.