Stratosphere
- Stratosphere is an Autobot from the Revenge of the Fallen franchise in the live-action film continuity family.
When a unit of Autobots needs to get somewhere fast, they turn to Stratosphere. His cargo plane mode can transport an entire team half way around the globe and then supply high-altitude covering fire when they get there. In the air, he is virtually unbeatable, and he knows it; Stratosphere thinks he can take on just about any challenge all on his lonesome, and this becomes a distinct problem when the threat is on the ground, where his combat abilities are no great shakes. As a consequence, he doesn't like to spend a lot of time on terra firma, preferring to reign supreme in the sky for as long as possible.
Fiction
Titan Magazines Revenge of the Fallen comics
During a routine sweep of British Columbia, Stratosphere lost contact with NEST headquarters when he flew through an unanticipated bank of heavy cloud over a mountain range. The cloud bank proved artificial, created by the Decepticons in order to hide their operation to reconstruct Devastator, a truth Stratosphere discovered when the partially-functional behemoth swatted him out the sky. His wings damaged by the blow and his communications nullified by a Decepticon jamming field, Stratosphere hoofed it to the Decepticons' construction site, and single-handedly took out the work-bots in a frenzied frontal assault. Construction supervisor Skywarp proved tougher to handle, and Stratosphere was floored by a single kick from the Decepticon, but luckily, before a killing shot could be delivered, Stratosphere exploited his unusual body shape by spinning over on the ground and smacking Skywarp with his wing. Realizing that he couldn't face this threat down alone, he destroyed the jamming array and radioed in his position to NEST with a request to bring the rain. Undeterred, Skywarp transformed to jet mode and came streaking towards him, but Stratosphere quipped that being brought down to earth had given him a new perspective, and he tilted the device generating the cloud bank upwards, blinding Skywarp with it. Skywarp crashed, and Stratosphere made himself scarce, meeting up with Jolt, Rollbar and Dune Runner just as the air-strike arrived. Watching the massive blast from afar, Jolt wondered if Devastator could have survived, and Stratosphere advocated not waiting around to find out. After all... any landing he could walk away from was a good one! Head in the Clouds
Toys
Revenge of the Fallen
- Stratosphere (Voyager, 2009)
- Japanese ID number: RA-17
- Accessories: Optimus Prime mini-figure.
- Stratosphere transforms into a military transport plane which is an amalgamation of a C130-Hercules for the body, a C-17 Globemaster III for the wings, the cockpit of a C-5 Galaxy and the tail of an Antonov An-225. The little (transforming) Optimus Prime mini-figure fits into the cargo hold in the aft section of the plane, and can deploy from the ramp by rotating his tail fins.
- Sadly, Optimus cannot fit in the cargo hold while Stratosphere is in robot mode, so he must be gently held and cradled by Stratosphere like a tiny war machine.
- The packaging indicates that his moving internal gears (Mech Alive) feature is located at his chest, but it is in fact located in his arms.
Notes
- Stratosphere was originally going to come with a Space Shuttle accessory that would have plugged into the hole between his plane-mode wings that would serve as his robot-mode weapon. Despite making it all the way to the test shot phase, this was ultimately removed from the final production piece.
- Stratosphere is based upon the same plane that dropped Optimus Prime to attack Demolishor in the movie.
- If you look closely, the Autobot symbol on his wings look like the Elite Guard Symbol
