...Perchance to Dream
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| "Perchance to Dream" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Marvel Comics | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | 3rd February - 10th March 1990 | ||||||||||||
| Writer | Simon Furman | ||||||||||||
| Art | Andrew Wildman, Staz and John Stokes | ||||||||||||
| Lettering | Glib and Stuart Bartlett | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Marvel Comics continuity/Earthforce | ||||||||||||
Five Autobots remember their past mistakes, and Galvatron prepares to muck up UK continuity forever.
Synopsis
The Ark is unoccupied for an unknown reason, and an alternate-reality Galvatron sneaks on board. Using a probe device he calls a "mind bug", he looks through the memories of the injured and offline Autobots, trying to find ones with dark sides that he can permanently unleash, now that he knows their brain patterns, creating a new army!
His devices probe Prowl, Ironhide, Sunstreaker, Wheeljack and Silverbolt, causing them all to dream about times on Earth when they committed questionable acts:
Prowl
He remembers trying to stop the Battlechargers during "Decepticon Graffiti!", when his aggressive approach and their response left a trail of devastation. Optimus stepped in, telling Prowl that, as an Autobot, he couldn't endanger humans like this, Prowl thought to himself, "Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire!"
Galvatron chuckles, musing to himself that with that thought, Prowl has become exactly what he's looking for, then turns to his next subject...
Ironhide
Ironhide remembers finding himself near a siege, where unnamed terrorists were holding hostages. Believing the hostages would be killed if the police went in, Ironhide attacked in full force to intimidate the terrorists into surrendering. However, the police came in at the last moment and ruined the effect, prompting the lead terrorist to try and detonate his suicide bomb. Ironhide had to kill him by freezing him in place and berated the police as "dumb organisms".
This too, pleases Galvatron.
Sunstreaker
Jazz and Sunstreaker were on a covert recon mission to scout out Fortress Sinister (sometime during "Power Play!"), but the Autobot pretty-boy blew it by showing off, attracting the attention of Thundercracker and Skywarp. The Decepticons attacked, injuring Jazz, and, scared at the thought of being made "a mess" himself, Sunstreaker abandoned his comrade and deliberately drew the Decepticons near the US military encampment so the humans would drive them off. Sunstreaker congratulated himself and admired how he'd saved his good looks, while many soldiers lay badly wounded as a result of his tactic.
Galvatron is amused by this and welcomes Sunstreaker to the team.
Wheeljack
Wheeljack remembers running into Ravage at the Blackrock Aerospace Plant, following the Dinobot hunt. He wanted to find the technology used to make Jetfire so he could repair the injured Autobots, and so made a deal with Ravage: In return for the technology, he'd brainwash Jetfire into returning to the Decepticons. Despite not trusting Jetfire, he backed out at the last minute. He later found out Ravage had destroyed the factory, meaning he'd almost betrayed his comrade for no end result.
However, back on the Ark, the mind bug has awoken Wheeljack from his slumber...
Silverbolt
Silverbolt remembers battling Menasor, a battle where Superion was needed, despite (still!) not being fully tested. This time, the process worked, but it also caused the Aerialbots to see inside one another's minds. His secret fear of heights revealed, Silverbolt caused Superion to go savagely berserk.
Galvatron's probe accidentally causes all the Autobots to revive. Making himself known, he uses his mind-control device on Wheeljack and Prowl. However, as Autobots, they're easily able to deny their baser instincts, and they shoot him down without warning. Galvatron is then sent into a comatose state by a device Wheeljack created, leaving him trapped in Autobot custody and dreaming of being defeated over and over again.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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- † appears in flashback
- ‡ appears in Galvatron's dream
Continuity
The flashbacks all take place before "Afterdeath!". With the exception of Ironhide's, they make specific reference to past stories, either directly placing themselves at a certain time (Prowl, Sunstreaker and Wheeljack) or being more vague (Silverbolt). They can all slot into past continuity with no problem.
The framing story, by contrast, doesn't fit with contemporary continuity. As the Ark is flying, it has to be before "On the Edge of Extinction!", but there is no point when these characters could be revived and then killed again in time for their Nucleon revival. Furthermore, the story starts off the Earthforce run, which sidesteps the US continuity entirely.
The Galvatron in this story doesn't fit into continuity any better. The Dinobot Hunt! trade paperback from Titan pegs him as "the alternate-reality Galvatron from US #67," aka Galvatron II. That's frankly impossible to reconcile, but par for the course in these stories.
Items of note
- Sunstreaker was ripped in half by Shockwave back in "The New Order" and not seen online until "Totaled!", when he was killed again. He doesn't know who Galvatron is, suggesting he was only brought online shortly before "Totaled!" and was not briefed on anything. This is the first story to have him back for any length of time.
- "Perchance to Dream" follows the same format—flashback-based character vignettes with a framing story—as the earlier "Aspects of Evil!".
- Reprinted as a self-titled, digest-sized trade paperback by Titan Books in August 2006. It was collected with the UK Thunderwing stories and the 3-part Irwin Spoon story that ended the Earthforce run.
- At one point, Galvatron's mind bug examines Brawn as a possibility, before Galvatron rejects him as unsuitable, regretfully noting that Brawn's brute strength would have been an asset. From Galvatron, that's quite a compliment!
- Galvatron has read Shakespeare, or at least the start of Hamlet, Act III.
- Prowl's reactivation by Galvatron's mind bug is referenced in his A to Z profile update in the Transformers Annual 1991.
