Club Con
| This article is about the island starship vacation resort. For the Marvel Comics issue which featured it, see Club Con!. |
- Club Con is an island starship from the Marvel Comics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Club Con is an Alpha class Decepticon starcruiser cleverly disguised as a tropical island to hide it from Earth's humans. It's state-of-the-art, has a maximum of 13 thousand kilowarps of transdimensional thrust, and is covered in fake palm trees and genuine sunshine. It is likely powered by a stolen Hydrothermocline.
It was constructed in the Caribbean Sea, where the Decepticons ran "Club Con", a vacation resort designed to cover their search for the Underbase.
The ship is heavily armed. It sports massive laser cannons, and has defensive artillery hidden under, well, just about everything. Within the ship, prehensile wires line the inside of the its ventilation system, and will strangle anything that moves.
In case an intruder climbs up the side of the island base, there is an area of piping that will spring-release and throw the intruder up over the top of the starcraft, where the top of the glass dome will open and a spear will launch out of the top of a palm tree, piercing the intruder's torso. Wow!
Fiction
Marvel Comics continuity
After Megatron's apparent death, Shockwave moved the Decepticons' base of operations to an island in the Caribbean Sea, intending to consolidate their forces near Cobra Island, the headquarters of their human allies, the terrorist organization Cobra. Gone but Not Forgotten! Some time later, after stealing raw building materials and technology from the humans, they finished the move. Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom
The time-displaced Galvatron approached the island base, so Shockwave, afraid that Galvatron would overthrow his leadership of the Decepticons, dispatched the Seacons to dispose of him. They failed, and Galvatron entered the base and confronted Shockwave, announcing that he had only arrived to talk and suggested that Shockwave's actions betrayed his insecurity over his command. Of course, this was all part of Galvatron's plan, and he left the island base without further incident. Enemy Action!
Soon, Ratbat kidnapped Buster Witwicky and Shockwave held the boy hostage to keep the United States military from blowing up the island. Still, the Autobots attempted to rescue him, and Buster's brother Spike Witwicky (who was binary-bonded to Fortress Maximus) commanded the Targetmasters in a raid across the island. However, the island's artillery defenses overwhelmed them and the Targetmasters were forced to retreat. The island base, too, retreated, covering up its palm treed surface with a glass dome and rocketing into Earth's orbit. Spike was undaunted and followed the island starship into space, where it managed to trash both Fortress Maximus and their other Headmaster partner, Cerebros. The Desert Island of Space!
Ratbat led an ambush on both Fortress Maximus and Grimlock's respective Autobot contingents while Grimlock and Blaster dueled for leadership on Earth's moon. While the Decepticon forces overwhelmed the Autobots on the surface of the moon, the island base attacked the Autobots from above, protected by a force field. However, Grimlock's energo-sword was able to cut through the force field, allowing Blaster to shoot the island base with his electro-scrambler. When the island base wobbled out of control, Ratbat was forced to order a retreat. Totaled!
The island base returned to the Caribbean and the Decepticons advertised themselves as Club Con, an island vacation resort. Buster, who they still held captive, was declared "king" of the resort, which once again caught the attention of Spike and the Autobots. Blaster and Buster's girlfriend, Jessie, were sent to investigate Club Con and rescue Buster, and discovered the Decepticons' true purpose. Grand Slam and Raindance, Autobot cassettes, had been stranded underwater on Earth hundreds of years ago and contained information on the legendary Transformers database, the Underbase. Club Con!
Successfully retrieving the cassettes and keeping Buster Witwicky captive, the Decepticons moved their island base to Antarctica, hiding the tropical island inside an ice cave. There, Soundwave finished installing Realvision into the base's systems, allowing Ratbat and Starscream to view the information contained in the cassettes. After crawling through the ventilaton shafts and slipping past some graspy tentacle wire things, Buster also was able to secretly view the tapes. The Flames of Boltax!
Shortly thereafter, Ratbat's crew came in contact with another group of Decepticons led by Scorponok. After a really boring tour of the island base, the two Decepticon factions battled until they were interrupted by Starscream's plot to use the powers of the Underbase for himself. Cold War!
The Decepticons teamed up with the Autobots, prepared both the island base and the Semper Tyrannis for space travel, and left Earth to search for Starscream. Though the island base arrived just in time for its weaponry to blast Starscream as he had begun to grasp the Underbase, they were a moment too late. Partially empowered by the Underbase's energies, Starscream threw the Semper Tyrannis through the island base, destroying both. Dark Star
