Car Show Blow Up
Car Show Blow Up is a Transformers storybook.
Vital statistics
ISBN
Writer: Dana Rosenfeld
Illustrators: Earl Norem
Publisher: Marvel Books, Kids Stuff
Published year: 1986
Pagecount: 23
Major characters: Hot Rod, Kup, Galvatron, Ultra Magnus
Summary
It's late afternoon in Metroplex and Hoist is complaining about the long day of work. Autobot leader Ultra Magnus laughs at that and implys that it's rare for Hoist to work at all. (Wait, did that say "Ultra Magnus laughed"??? Micro-continuity!) Suddenly, Hot Rod and Kup zoom in to interrupt all this witty banter. They've heard about a human car show that'll be featuring a voice-controlled robot car (and maybe Truck-a-saurus) and are, oddly, impressed enough by that primitive tech that they want to check it out.
Nearby Galvatron, his loyal leutenant Starscream, and the other Decepticons are spying on Autobot city from the shadows. Galvatron learns of the car show and says: "We will steal the robot car, rip apart its circuitry and use it to create an army of robots who will build Decepticon City for me."
Hot Rod sings "Wheeeee!" as he races towards town. "Come on Kup! I'm beating you!" (all actual dialogue). Hot Rod and Kup reach the car show and see the Decepticons arrive. They don't like the look of it and Kup tells Hot Rod to "scoot" 'cause this is too dangerous for a youngun' like him.
Meanwhile the Decepticons decide that rather than risking a serious beating at the hands of the sort of horrible and war-hardened humans that attend suburban car shows they'll play with the fuse box to cause a blackout and then grab the robot car in the confusion. (Who wants to bet Galvatron thought up this plan?)
The seasoned veteran Kup is able to sneak in successfully but then speaks his thoughts to himself aloud and is caught by Starscream. Doh! Darn dementia. The Decepticons hand Kup some really lame put downs then tie him up rather half-heartedly and leave him in the courner so he can be sure to foil their plans (such as they are) later.
Hot Rod arrives home to report on what's going down. He's driven so fast that he's out of breath. (Really, that's what it says.) And at the car show Rumble summarises the Con's plans: "Just pull this thing here and all the lights will blow. Poof! Surprise! All dark." The Autobots roll into the stadium in car mode but the Decepticons are too excited about the fuse box they've found to notice.
In the end Kup defeats the Decepticon's evil plan (such as it was) by sticking out his leg and triping Galvatron as he goes to push the switch. Galvatron falls down with a comical "OOF!" right in frount of Magnus. The Decepticons are so surprised they "forgot to fire" and "minutes later" were running away for their lives. (OK Decepticons, Repeat after me: When I am under attack I will not forget to fire back. And *should I forget* it will not take me *minutes* to decide to run for my life. sigh. )
Trivia
- This story is not obviously part of any major continuity. Ultra Magnus and Galvatron are the leaders while older characters such as Starscream and Windcharger are still alive and following their orders.
- Although Hot Rod is essentially the main character, there is not one picture of him in his robot mode.
- Even though Norem had painted his characters with Autobot and Decepticon symbols, black line symbols were superimposed over them in a very cheap manner. This appears to have been a process applied to artwork by other artists like John Speirs who didn't apply the faction symbols to his characters, and so was redundantly done to later books by Norem too.
- Warning: no actual car shows blow up over the course of this story. In fact, nothing does.
- Even for a little kid's book the Decepticon plot is pretty nonsensical. 1) They already have way more advanced technology than a remote controlled car. 2) If they "rip it's circuits apart" they can't use it for much of anything, can they. 3) How would they build an "army" from the parts of one car? It's OK, they were still probably thrown off by Ultra Magnus laughing a few pages back.)
Errors
- Starscream is painted like Skywarp on one page when he has captured Kup.
