Revenge of the Fallen issue 3
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| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | June 3, 2009 (scheduled) | ||||||||||||
| Screenplay by | Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Ehren Kruger | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Simon Furman | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Alex Milne | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Kris Carter & Josh Perez | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Chris Mowry | ||||||||||||
| Edits by | Denton J. Tipton | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Movie continuity | ||||||||||||
An adaptation of the summer blockbuster of 2009.
Synopsis
Under threat of physical harm, Wheelie revealed to Mikaela Banes that he recognized the Cyberglyphics but did not know how to read them. He went on to say that Seekers would be able to read them and led them to the Smithsonian Institute where one can be found. While Sam Witwicky, Mikaela, Leo Spitz, and Seymour Simmons were searching the museum, the All Spark fragment Sam was carrying jumped from his had and attached itself to a SR-71 Blackbird on display. This roused the Seeker from his slumber. After initially appearing threatening, the Seeker then began to complain about his aches and pains and eventually became friendly with the humans. He revealed his name to be Jetfire but could not remember what planet he was on or what he was doing there. He stated his dislike Decepticons and that had defected to the Autobots some time ago.
Jetfire displayed no interest in dealing with the humans until Sam mentioned The Fallen. This seemed to jog his memory and he became suddenly serious and insisted that Sam tell him what he knows. Sam then revealed the Cyberglyphics that have been racing through his head. When he has heard enough, Jetfire transported himself, the four humans, Bumblebee, Skids, and Mudflap to Egypt via trans-dimensional space bridge. The humans didn't know why Jetfire needed to go to Egypt so they asked him to explain. Jetfire then halo-projected some of the relevant historical footage to explain.
- The All Spark created the Dynasty of Primes for the protection of Cybertron. The Matrix of Leadership was also created as a key to the harvesters and entrusted to the Primes. The Primes were not to harvest the power of a sun from a star system with life. The Fallen defied that rule and destroyed all but one of his fellow Primes. The last of the twelve created a tomb from the chassis of his deactivated brothers. He sealed himself and the Matrix inside using the last of his own life essence. The tomb is hidden somewhere in Egypt.
Jetfire also revealed that only a Prime can stand against The Fallen. While the wars on Cybertron destroyed the Prime Dynasty, one orphan was left with no knowledge of his history. Optimus Prime.
In New Jersey, Director Galloway informed William Lennox and Robert Epps that, by order of the President, the Autobots had to stand down and return to Diego Garcia.
Back in Cairo Egypt, the humans were riding in Bumblebee trying to figure out the clues to the location of the Prime crypt that were obtained when Jetfire translated the Cyberglyphics. Local authorities spotted Sam and tried to detain him. Bumblebee and the Twins lost the police, but not before Soundwave was able to pinpoint Sam's location from intercepted communications.
Sam decided he needed to get a message to Lennox and Epps, but knew calling them directly would give himself away, so he came up with a plan to deliver the message indirectly. He gave the message to William Lennox's wife Sarah who then told Robert Epps's wife Monique who then called her husband on an insecure line. While making the call appear to be about ordinary husband and wife chit-chat, Monique was able to get the true message through. Sam wanted them to deliver Optimus Prime to Egypt.
The clues from the Cyberglyphs led Sam and the others to an ancient tomb of human origin. This appeared to be a dead-end until the Twins got into an argument that became physical. Mudflap shoved Skids into a wall which crumbled revealing the tomb of the Primes. They found the remains of the Matrix of Leadership. After thousands of years, the Cybertronian artifact turned to dust, which Sam collected in his sock.
Lennox, Epps, Galloway and the Autobots then arrived in C-17s. The pilot feigned engine trouble as an excuse to jettison the cargo over Galloway's objections. The Autobots and humans aboard parachuted out of the plane. Sam and company were then attacked by Megatron and Starscream while at least 11 cometary Decepticons rained down into the action. Human communications were disrupted by an EMP burst from the Decepticons while Soundwave altered satellite imagery so that the United States military would not see anything out of the ordinary happening in Egypt.
While Simmons, Bumblebee, and the Twins drew the Decepticon's fire, Sam and Mikaela tried to get to Optimus Prime in hopes that the Matrix of Leadership dust could still revive him. Starscream was in pursuit of Sam and Mikaela when The Fallen appeared atop a pyramid.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
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Quotes
Errors
- On page 10, Mudflap is slightly miscolored, with a lot more black parts in vehicle mode than he should have.
- The Egyptian police cars on pages 10-13 sport a generic American police car deco. Police cars in Cairo are entirely black, with blue police lights.
- On page 11, the police car in the first panel has the blue police light on the left and the redo light on the right... even though it's seen in Bumblebee's rear view mirror and should therefore have the lights swapped.
- The spy satellite Admiral Morshower gets his live feed of the battle in Egypt from is somehow capable of gathering images almost from a ground level.
Items of note
- As Jetfire's dialogue shows, Furman appears to have problems adapting the movie-style humor into comic book dialogue. It appears like it's intended to come across as funny, it just doesn't really work.
- Two of the Decepticons on page 8 sport the color schemes of Generation 1 Banzai-Tron and Bludgeon.
- Megatron can still turn into a Cybertronian jet.
- At least eleven incoming comet Decepticons enter the battle.
- Simmons' nicknames for Skids and Mudflap, "Huey and Dewey", have made it into the adaptation, one of very, very few of the movie's humorous elements to do so.
- The cover image of combined Jetfire and Optimus beating up Starscream never happens.
Differences with the movie
- Wheelie's speech is imperfect in a G1 Dinobots kind of way, whereas in the movie, he merely talks with a Brooklyn accent.
- Wheelie disappears a lot earlier than in the movie, right after Jetfire transforms. As a consequence, he never defects to the Autobots.
- In the film, six Primes killed themselves to create the Tomb of the Primes. Here, 11 Primes have already been killed by The Fallen, and the 12th creates the tomb from their bodies, killing only himself to seal it up.
- The Autobots are walking onto the cargo plane in robot mode rather than being loaded onto it in vehicle mode.
- Instead of Simmons calling Lennox, Sam calls Lennox's wife. She and Epps' wife then call their husbands and give them a very poorly disguised hidden message. In the movie, the wives are never seen.
- The fight between Skids and Mudflap inside Petra is the only time they fight in the adaptation. In fact, it's one of the very few instances where the two have any dialogue.
- Galloway is still talking after he has been thrown off the plane. Gotta love those comic book conventions.
- Admiral Morshower is monitoring the battle in Egypt via a satellite feed (with the feed coming from a camera that somehow manages to take images almost from a ground level), rather than sending Predator drones.
- The Fallen literally materializes on top of the pyramid out of... somewhere, making this the first scene in the adaptation where he is seen outside his sarcophagus.
Covers (2)
- Cover A: Optimus Prime combined with Jetfire by Josh Nizzi
- Cover B: CGI render of Starscream
