The Flyin' Fox Trot
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| "The Flyin' Fox Trot" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| Published in | My Little Pony/Transformers #3 | ||||||||||||
| First published | October 7, 2020 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | October 2020 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Sam Maggs | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Priscilla Tramontano | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Luis Antonio Delgado | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Neil Uyetake | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Megan Brown, David Mariotte, and Bobby Curnow | ||||||||||||
Windblade and Rainbow Dash race to find out who's the better flier, but Misfire's intent on ensuring that neither of them cross the finish line.
Synopsis
Rainbow Dash is confident that she's the fastest pony in Ponyville, but while she's relaxing on a cloud in the sky, the super-speedy Windblade zooms past and blows her out of the sky with a mighty sonic boom. As the Autobot transforms and touches down, she introduces herself to Rainbow Dash... and what begins as friendly banter soon turns into an intense race to the finish!
As Twilight Sparkle and her friends watch from the sidelines, ponies and Autobots take their places on the starting line... and when the checkered flag drops, Rainbow and Windblade take to the air, a contest of wings versus jet engines. Windblade's faster than Rainbow Dash expected, and even uses her own airfoils to bump Rainbow Dash off-course, but the pegasus pony quickly recovers and briefly overtakes the airborne Autobot in an impressive aerobatic display before Windblade catches up and retakes the lead. Rainbow Dash sees her friends cheering her on, and swears that, on the honor of Equestria, she can't let down her friends by losing... but she doesn't get the chance to make good on that promise before an ominous rumble causes both racers to slow down.
The noise, it turns out, belongs to four Decepticons: Misfire, Ion Storm, Acid Storm, and Nova Storm. When Windblade demands to know why they've crashed the race, Misfire gloats that they're there to show the inhabitants of Cybertron and Equestria who's really superior... and if they happen to take down some Autobots and ponies with them, the better! Windblade would rather flee the Decepticons than fight, but Rainbow Dash can't take the melodrama seriously and decides to show them up by teaching Windblade how to pull off her new "Flyin' Fox Trot" maneuver. As the two fliers jink around the first barrage of missiles, Rainbow Dash explains how it's done: first, she baits Misfire into thinking she's much slower than she really is; when Misfire orders the Seekers into firing heat-seeking missiles at the pair, Rainbow orders Windblade to go left while she goes right. As the missiles converge on their respective targets, Rainbow Dash and a doubtful Windblade hold position—then blitz right back towards the Seekers with the missiles in tow, enveloping the villains in a colossal explosion! At the finish line, Rainbow Dash and Windblade hoist the trophy together, and agree to call the competition a tie... although the defeated Decepticons don't quite agree with that assessment.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Quotes
"I'm Rainbow Dash, and I'm the fastest in Equestria."
"Until I showed up?"
"Still!"
- —Rainbow Dash and Windblade
"HA! Do these guys always talk like drama villains?"
- —Rainbow Dash versus the Decepticons
"You've done this before, right?"
"No, but I've seen it in books!"
"Oh, great—"
- —Windblade and Rainbow Dash
Notes
Continuity notes
- Although she doesn't create one in the comic itself, Rainbow Dash alludes to her powerful "Sonic Rainboom" maneuver in her first conversation with Windblade.
Transformers references
- Windblade isn't the only Cybertronian to take part in the race—she's also racing against Mach Kick and Battle Unicorn, two Beast Era Transformers who become horses. Though Battle Unicorn is faithfully colored to resemble his Beast Machines toy, Mach Kick sports a vibrant teal and purple paintjob, presumably to match the technicolor ponies of Equestria.
- Misfire's accompanied by the Rainmakers; originally a trio of generic Seekers from the The Transformers episode "Divide and Conquer", Acid Storm found fame when he received a toy in 2008; Ion Storm and Nova Storm received names in 2015's "Ask Vector Prime" column, and all three have recently returned as a cohesive unit over in IDW Publishing's ongoing Transformers comic.
- Misfire himself is wielding a twin-barreled gun based on his traditional Targetmaster partner Aimless, although we're not putting that down as an appearance because there's nothing to suggest Misfire's gun is alive here.
My Little Pony references
- One of the participants in the race is wearing a mask and goggles based on the uniforms of the Wonderbolts, although the mask is colored orange instead of sky-blue.
Errors
- The first two pages of the prologue seems to depict this as the first time that Windblade met Rainbow Dash; this doesn’t entirely line up with the scene in "Transformation Is Magic", however, where Rainbow and the other members of the Wonderbolts bumped into Windblade as she was ejected from the malfunctioning space bridge.
- Spike appears as one of the many spectators taking in the race, although his spotlight story in the previous issue had him stranded on Earth with Grimlock.
- After the race starts, the words "Lorem Ipsum" are printed in the middle of the page as an error.
Other trivia
- Solicits for this comic mention a character named "Crasher" antagonizing our heroes. The blurb uses male pronouns, so it probably wasn't the pre-existing Decepticon; there are no My Little Pony characters who go by this name either, so whoever this was meant to be will likely remain a mystery...
