Of Flying and Falling
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| "Of Flying and Falling" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| Published in | Synergy: A Hasbro Creators Showcase | ||||||||||||
| First published | March 27, 2019 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | February 2019 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Mairghread Scott | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Sara Pitre-Durocher | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Joana Lafuente | ||||||||||||
| Edits by | Megan Brown | ||||||||||||
A little bird spawns an unprecedented transformation
Synopsis
[edit]On the desert plains of prehistoric Earth, Dinobot lurks in the tumbleweeds only to be spied by Airazor's "falcon eyes" and attacked by her shoulder cannons. Emerging from the folliage, Dinobot protests that Airazor didn't have shoulder cannons in beast mode. Turning to robot mode, Airazor instead says she'll use her "wrist-blasters", smugly waving her flight advantage in Dinobot's face, prompting him to lunge at her, revealing the whole thing to be an imagined scenario acted out by a young Mairghread Scott and her younger sister.
Reflecting on these events, Mairghread notes that, despite not always getting along with her sister, both loved Beast Wars, despite the lack of women in the cast. What drew Mairghread to Airazor was the fact that the avian Maximal was not a girl in the traditional sense (which was good because girls are lame). While female heroes did exist on other cartoons, they wound up needing rescue more often than not, or swooning at the feet of their male counterparts, despite ostensibly being "just as good as the boys." Airazor, by contrast, was born in battle and proved her worth, not by speeches, but by punching Predacons. Until she became Tigerhawk. And though her sister gave up on Beast Wars, Mairghread never forgot the falcon, even if she never bought a toy, nor did she forget her love of "male" entertainment throughout her life.
And in 2013, Mairghread found that she wasn't alone when the online fandom petitioned Hasbro to make their newest Transformer a female. Pitching to write for the character, Windblade, Mairghread was hired and opened the doors for an increasing female interest in the Transformers brand.
All thanks to one falcon.
Featured characters
[edit](Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Maximals | Predacons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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Notes
[edit]- This story was one of two autobiographical stories published in Synergy, the other being "The Stage", by Katie Cook, author of IDW's My Little Pony comics.
Continuity notes
[edit]- Mairghread notes that Airazor was "born fighting," an accurate summary of "The Spark." Airazor punching out Terrorsaur is redrawn from that episode, though it adds Waspinator who, despite appearing in the episode, was, rather unsurprisingly, defeated long before Airazor came online.
Transformers references
[edit]- Tigerhawk is drawn based off his pose in Genesis: The Art of Transformers, which we use on his page, rather than any pose he struck in the cartoon.
Real-world references
[edit]- Mention is made of a "whole movie" about female Velociraptors.
Reprints
[edit]- Reprints The Gathering #4, The Transformers: Windblade (vol.2) #6, "Of Flying and Falling" (from the Synergy anthology), Transformers: Beast Wars #9: "Thicker Skin", and The Transformers: Sins of the Wreckers #3.
- Also includes a reprint of the "Optimus Primal vs Megatron!" toy pack-in comic.
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Transformers: Best of the Beasts; cover art by James Biggie
