The Desert Heat!

« Transformers Timelines preview comic » « Shattered Glass »
I was at the Ponderosa, rappin' to the beat.
"The Desert Heat!"
Publisher	Fun Publications
Published in	Transformers Collectors' Club website
First published	March 11, 2009
Writers	S. Trent Troop and Greg Sepelak
Art	Evan Guantt
Letters	Jesse Wittenrich
Managing editor	Pete Sinclair
Continuity	Shattered Glass
Chronology	Current era (2009)

Heatwave and Soundwave find that Earth is a strange, surreal place.

Synopsis

Having landed on Earth, Heatwave tracks a transponder signal through the night, having conversed with the "interwebs" to avoid military presence. Arriving at the signal's source in Wyatt's Roadsideaganza, he tries not to panic—but a series of animalistic assailants gives him a moment of serious freaking out. After defeating two dinosaurs and the world's largest woodchuck (having not realizes that the animal are fake), he finds Soundwave immobilized and incorporated into the displays. Heatwave kindly asks Soundwave's stasis pod to restore his comrade to functionality. The pod scans an nearby van, and Soundwave reactivates. Soundwave grabs a nearby flag, turning it into a makeshift bandana, and he and Heatwave depart in search of Soundwave's cassette troops. Soundwave sets the pod to self-destruct, to Heatwave's mild dismay—"he was a nice guy", he says.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Decepticons
Heatwave (1) Soundwave (2)

Quotes

"...that 'Interweb' said there was no military activity here, so getting caught isn't likely... assuming I can trust that system. It has a dirty, dirty mouth..."

—Heatwave reflects on the Internets

"Oh, hello, Stasis Pod D-36, are you still functioning? Oh that's great!"

—Heatwave communes with inanimate objects

"Wait...won't the humans find your pod?"
"Negatory, Dude. I just set the thing to blow!"
"Aw...he was a nice guy."
"Dude, we seriously gotta get you debugged."

—Heatwave and Soundwave discuss the former's malfunctioning processor.

Notes

• Mentioned characters include: Starscream.

Continuity notes

• This two-page comic is a prelude to the Shattered Glass story "Eye in the Sky". The Decepticons crashed in "Do Over".

Transformers references

• Soundwave's new body is based on the Universe Ironhide toy.
• The third page of the story is a full-page ad based on a 1985 promotional flyer, promoting Heatwave, Skyfall, Landquake, Breakaway, Topspin, Airazor (as both the TransTech and Beast Wars incarnations), Classics Nightbeat, and Astrotrain (as both the Shattered Glass and Unicron Trilogy incarnations).

Real-life references

• Soundwave refers to his crash landing as a "bogus journey", after Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey.
• The van that Soundwave scans is the van of the Cold Slither band. Cold Slither was a band from the G.I. Joe cartoon episode of the same name, in which the Dreadnoks pretended to be a heavy metal band. Furthering this, the face of lead Dreadnok, Zartan, is on the logo.
• The Cold Slither van is parked next to a sign for "Frog Rock", a decidedly un-frog-shaped roadside attraction from Sam & Max Hit the Road.

External links

• "The Desert Heat!" (page 1)
• "The Desert Heat!" (page 2)
• "The Desert Heat!" (page 3, advertisement)