Chicago
Chicago is the biggest city in the American Midwest. It's full of gangsters, corrupt politicians, and, on occasion, robots.
Fiction
G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers
When the Teletran 3 supercomputer went berserk and blasted random Transformers into random points in Earth's timestream, teams of Cobras and G.I. Joe troops pursued them. One such group, consisting of the Baroness, Percy, Roadblock, and Beachhead, materialized in a dingy, dirty, dark city, and narrowly avoided getting run over by two cars full of mugs shooting tommy guns at each other. They'd landed in Prohibition-era Chicago! G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 1
The team soon attacked a group of gangsters who were using Optimus Prime as a truck. Freeing him, they next tracked down the gangsters' boss, the notorious Tommy Fingers. Fingers's favored watering hole was a jazz club that he owned; the next four Transformers were located in a garage out back.
Through the Baroness's efforts, the team learned that Fingers was planning a bank heist, using a dynamite-loaded truck which just happened to be the last of the missing Transformers. Unfortunately for the humans, one of the four garage-bound Transformers was Breakdown, who was not at all mode-locked, and he quickly activated his Stunticon compatriots. Optimus Prime and the humans fled from the Stunticons in a running firefight through Chicago's streets; the humans blasted down a suspension bridge along the way.
Coming up on the last Transformer, the Baroness blasted the dynamite, activated the Transformer (Motormaster), and all the time-displaced combatants returned to their own time. G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers II issue 2
Panini Armada comic
When Starscream wanted to draw out the Air Defense Mini-Con Team for capture, he blasted a satellite out of orbit. The Mini-Con trio managed to stop the falling satellite from smashing into downtown Chicago's forest of skyscrapers a mere ten seconds before impact, then carried it away and dropped it into Lake Michigan. Panini Armada issue 5
IDW Generation 1 comics
A counter-infiltration unit under Prowl's command parked their vessel, the Ark-19, beneath Lake Michigan, some ten miles northwest of Chicago.
Live-action film series
Dark of the Moon film
After taking Carly Spencer captive, Dylan Gould headed to Chicago. Sentinel Prime also headed to Chicago to set up few of the space bridge pillars. Needing privacy to conduct their work, Megatron ordered a huge Decepticon invasion force take over Chicago. A huge portion of the city's population was slaughtered when the Decepticons sealed off the city.
Sam Witwicky headed there to rescue Carly with the help of the ex-NEST soldier Robert Epps and a few other ex-NEST comrades. After taking a look at the Decepticon-fortified Chicago, Robert Epps realized that they had no chance of surviving all that, but Sam pressed on. As Epps attempted to dissuade Sam from rescuing Carly, Sam asked what they should, and Epps admitted that they had to give up. Soon afterward, a Decepticon Orbital Assault Carrier attacked the group. Just after killing several civilians and nearing killing Sam and Epps, the fighter was shot down. Sam and Epps looks behind them to see their savior—Optimus Prime, who gave his own answer to Sam's question: kill every last Decepticon. The Wreckers Leadfoot, Topspin, and Roadbuster proceeded to execute the pilot by tearing it to pieces.
Optimus then explained why they had feigned departure; they needed to fool the world's leaders that they were gone, so they could see the truth behind the Decepticons. As the rest of the Autobots arrived on scene, Sam inquired as to how they survived, to which Roadbuster and Leadfoot explained that the Autobots hid in the boosters of their ship, the Xantium, which splashed in the Atlantic, and then they traveled to Chicago from there. Wheelie and Brains then reiterated that Autobots would never leave Earth, and Optimus announced that they needed an element of surprise, to which Sam said he knew where to look.
Asking if Bumblebee could fly the downed OAC (which he replied with a hand shrug) Bumblebee and Sam departed for Dylan Gould's penthouse suite. Inside, Carly observed an argument between Sentinel and Megatron on the other building using a telescope. Sneaking in through the balcony, Sam confronted Gould, but Laserbeak attacked Sam as Carly appeared, then threw him over the balcony. Bumblebee's captured OAC caught Sam, who urged Carly to jump. With the boy and his girl safely secured, Bumblebee opened fire on the human collaborators, but Laserbeak sent a mini-drone dispatched by the United States military into one of the OAC's thrusters, then attacked Sam. Pinning Laserbeak above the gun turret, Sam told Bumblebee to fire, killing the aerial Decepticon before they crash-landed onto the ground. As Dylan frantically ran about the streets shouting that the Autobots were alive, Megatron ordered the Decepticon to raise the bridges into the city and find the Autobots.
Reuniting with the Autobots and ex-NEST soldiers, the group was able to use the mini-drone to warn the powers that be about Sentinel and Megatron's plan to transport Cybertron to the Sol system. Colonel William Lennox mobilized NEST for a drop into a city using wing suits. Realizing that they had to destroy the pillars, Epps team and the Autobots head into the city, but were attacked by Shockwave and the Driller, separating Prime from his trailer carrying his weapons. Optimus agreed to take the Autobots on a diversionary attack while Epps and his team made their way to a skyscraper with the necessary height and clear line of fire, but not before Que gave them some urban combat weapons, the boom-sticks and grapple gloves. In distracting Shockwave, Wheelie and Brains became separated from the Autobots.
Following this, Lennox and the NEST forces arrived in the city, but were forced to wing-suit in. As Starscream lead the aerial counter-attack, the NEST soldiers abandoned the plane, gliding away until they lost the Decepticons in a tilted building. Once Epps team made their way to the right floor for the shot, the Decepticon OACs began shooting the building, causing the portion above the line of fire to begin collapsing. A Decepticon scout jumped into the building, forcing Epps to through a grenade to distract it long enough for the humans to slide down the windows, just barely falling into the floors below. One soldier was not so lucky, and the debris fell around Shockwave. Knowing that there were humans inside, Shockwave ordered the Driller to begin eating the building, causing it to collapse onto another nearby building. As the humans evacuated onto the fire-escape on the other building, Optimus Prime, having recovered his flight tech, managed to kill the Driller, saving the humans from pursuit. Furious with the death of his pet, Shockwave fired a cluster of missiles at Optimus, causing him to become tangled in some cables as the Wreckers came to his rescue.
At this point, Sentinel Prime gave the order to launch the pillars into orbit, at the same time as Wheelie and Brains discovered a downed OAC. While Epps and his team made their way through the streets, Sam and Carly continued on in another direction. To a position where Starscream spotted them. Relishing a chance to torment a long thorn in the Decepticons side, Starscream had some fun tormenting and threatening Sam. This allowed Sam a chance to use the grapple glove given to him by Que, hitting the Air Commander's right optic. Starscream began flailing around in pain, tossing Sam through a window, which allowed him to arm a boom-stick. the commotion attracted the attention of Lennox and the NEST forces. Just as Lennox arrived, Sam managed to jump on Starscream's head and jam the boom-stick into his left eye. Now completely blind, Starscream lost whatever control he had left and began flailing about trying to get the boom-stick out. Lennox grabbed the rope Sam's glove was attached to, but was unable to cut it. they managed to hit the release mere seconds before the boom-stick went off, which killed Starscream, but nearly fell to their deaths, only just saved by Bumblebee. Once they were sure Starscream was dead, Bumblebee went ahead to the edge of the river. Dark of the Moon
Dark of the Moon Annual
NEST Satellite Orion detected the highest energon reading in Chicago, suggesting that the Decepticons were using the tall buildings as an interstellar transmission site. Transformers Dark of the Moon Annual 2012
Notes
- Out here in the real world, Chicago has twice played host to the official Transformers convention, as OTFCC 2003 and OTFCC 2004 both occurred there.
- Chicago also hosts the annual Wizard World Chicago convention, which frequently features a Hasbro Transformers display booth similar to what's seen at BotCon.
- Chicago is also a filming location for Dark of the Moon. Shooting commenced July 10 and continued through August 19, 2010.
External link
- Chicago at Wikipedia
