Plight of the Bumblebee!

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The most evil of Decepticons, Buzzsaw, aims for the crotch.
"Plight of the Bumblebee!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	January 1986
Cover date	May 1986
Story	Len Kaminski
Pencils	Graham Nolan
Inks	Tom Morgan
Colors	Nel Yomtov
Letters	Bill Oakley
Special Thanks To	Eliot Brown, for splash page design and art
Editor	Mike Carlin
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

Bumblebee is isolated and pursued by a group of Decepticons.

Synopsis

Shockwave intends to capture the Autobot Bumblebee and install a device that will make Bumblebee his slave, allowing him to conquer the Autobots.

At the Ark, Bumblebee is feeling useless after their last battle. He decides to abandon the Autobots, feeling that they would be better off without him.

Driving through the city, Laserbeak soon locates Bumblebee; a whole squad of Decepticons attacks him out of the blue. Damaged, Bumblebee evades them by hiding out in an impound lot and shutting down his systems. The ruse works, and the Decepticons withdraw, waiting for him to reactivate. Meanwhile, the Autobots have observed news footage of the attack, and mobilize to search for their missing comrade.

Later that night, a couple of joyride-seeking teens decide that a Volkswagen Beetle will make a nice inconspicuous choice of vehicles to steal. Bumblebee goes along with the theft, actually enjoying the ability to show off his better-than-average driving abilities when the pair is challenged by a hot rod driver. When his damages cause him to sputter out, one of the teens makes some repairs, restoring him to full power, but this soon alerts the Decepticons, who attack again, to the humans' shock.

Bumblebee prepares to make a last stand to defend himself and his new friends. The timely arrival of Jetfire buys him some time, but Jetfire is quickly shot down; Bumblebee cannot help him, as he must save the humans from a collapsing overpass. Surrounded, Bumblebee is saved at the last moment by the arrival of Optimus Prime and a convoy of Autobots, and realizes his true place is with the Autobot team.

Quotes

"Cheese, Waldo -- I never seen a VW that could do 200 before."

—Ernie is impressed by Bumblebee's speed.

"Oh, no! Oh, man! Oh, momma!"

—Waldo is impressed by Bumblebee's driving.

"Lessee, the doohickey is connected to the framistat, which is plugged into the thingamabob... which goes to the whatchamacallit!"

—Waldo works some repair magic.

Featured Characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Bumblebee (1) Optimus Prime (6) Ratchet (7) Wheeljack (8) Jetfire (9) Bluestreak (10)	Starscream (2) Shockwave (3) Thundercracker (4) Skywarp (5) Laserbeak (11) Buzzsaw (12)	Waldo and Ernest (13)

Errors

• On the first page, the schematics of Bumblebee that Shockwave examines are based on his toy, not his comic book design.
• "Laserbeak" is consistently misspelled as "Lazerbeak".
• Laserbeak is consistently colored like Buzzsaw.
• "Volkswagen" is repeatedly misspelled as "Volkswagon".
• As Bumblebee leaves the Autobots, he passes a sign on which Mount St. Hilary is misspelled "Hillary".
• Mount St. Hilary is apparently in or very near to Wisconsin in this issue instead of Oregon.
• The cover bears the blurb, "Bumblebee's last stand!" Actually, he had lots more stands after this one.
• It's nearly impossible to tell whether the non-Starscream jet is Thundercracker or Skywarp. He is never named, and both their Marvel Color models were solid dark blue, though the lack of red stripes on his wings tips the odds towards Skywarp.
• Shockwave refers to Jetfire just as Bumblebee's flying friend, despite Jetfire having been named by Shockwave many issues before.

Items of note

• This is the first issue not written by Bob Budiansky since Budiansky started writing the US Marvel series with issue #5.
• Comic book writer Peter David stated in an interview that he originally turned in a draft for this fill-in-story entitled "The Love Bug" and featuring Bumblebee, but artist took so long to draw it that it ended up being out of date with the toy releases—plus the script was further somehow lost—so Marvel commissioned this issue to take its place instead.
• Eliot Brown, credited for the splash page design and art of the exploded-view of Bumblebee, performed similar duties for most of the technical drawings in the Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe.
• The Decepticon base is said to be at a "makeshift fortress". This might be the fortress built out of a nuclear power plant, although in the US series, that fortress has not been featured for quite some time and was apparently abandoned. In the UK the Decepticons have been using it during this period.
• This issue was reprinted in the Titan Books collection "Cybertron Redux".
• This issue was reprinted as issue #4 of IDW Publishing's Generations series.
• Laserbeak and Buzzsaw's presence in this issue raises interesting questions, explored further in the notes for "The Bridge to Nowhere!".
• The exact nature of Shockwave's plan is never revealed, beyond "control Bumblebee".
• The issue's title is a pun on the famous piece of music, Flight of the Bumblebee.

Covers (5)

• 
  US issue #16 - Woe, woe is me
• UK issue #57 - Shockwave sets his sights high...
  UK issue #57 - Shockwave sets his sights high...
• 
  UK issue #58 - Don't shoot the kid-friendly character!
• 
  Titan TPB cover
• 
  Titan HC cover

• US cover: Bumblebee attacked by the Decepticons, by Herb Trimpe.
• UK issue #57 cover: Shockwave examining Bumblebee's schematics, by John Stokes.
• UK issue #58 cover: reuse of art from US cover with some judicious editing.
• Titan TPB cover: Blaster, Ramhorn, Bombshell, Shrapnel, Kickback and half of the Space bridge by Andrew Wildman.
• Titan hardback cover: Blaster in the Smelting pool by Don Figueroa, Gary Erskine & Chris Blythe.
• Generations cover: Reimaging of US cover, by Nick Roche.

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References

The Transformers #16: 'The Love Bug" about the character Bumblebee on a solo adventure. Pencils by William Johnson, inks by Kyle Baker. According to editor Christopher Priest (a.k.a. James Owsley), Johnson took so long to draw it that new Transformers toys came out that made the story out-of-date. A different Bumblebee story by Len Kaminski, perhaps based in part on PAD’s story, ran in its place in issue #16. There are indications that the Johnson/Baker art for the story was lost or misplaced soon after.