Car Show Blow Up
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 "Too much fun, ah guess.... THEY ALL BLEW UP!!!" | |||||||||||||
| "Car Show Blow Up" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Marvel Books | ||||||||||||
| First published | 1986 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Dana Rosenfeld | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Earl Norem | ||||||||||||
| ISBN | ISBN 0-87135-107-2 ISBN 9780871351074 | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 24pp | ||||||||||||
The Decepticons' greatest conquest yet will come if they can steal a human made robot car!
Synopsis
It's late afternoon in Metroplex, and Hoist is complaining about the long day of work. Autobot leader Ultra Magnus uncharacteristically laughs at that and implies that it's rare for Hoist to work at all. Hot Rod and Kup zoom in to interrupt all this witty banter. They've heard about a human car show that'll be featuring a voice-controlled robot car. The Autobots are impressed enough by this primitive tech that they want to check it out.
Nearby, Galvatron, his loyal lieutenant Starscream, and the other Decepticons are spying on Autobot City from the shadows. Galvatron envies the way the Autobots collect energy from it, but can't spare his warriors to build his own such city. On learning of the car show, Galvatron devises a brilliant plan to steal the robot car, "rip apart its circuitry, and use it to create an army of robots who will build Decepticon City for me."
Hot Rod sings "Wheeeee!" as he races towards town. "Come on, Kup! I'm beating you!" Hot Rod and Kup reach the car show and see the Decepticons arrive. They don't like the look of it, and Kup tells Hot Rod to "scoot", 'cause this is too dangerous for a young'un like him.
Meanwhile, the Decepticons decide that, rather than risking a serious beating at the hands of the sort of horrible and war-hardened humans that attend suburban car shows, they'll play with the fuse box to cause a blackout and then grab the robot car in the confusion.
The seasoned veteran Kup is able to sneak in successfully, but then speaks his thoughts to himself aloud and is caught by Starscream. The Decepticons hand Kup some really lame put-downs, then tie him up rather half-heartedly and leave him in the corner so he can be sure to foil their plans later.
Hot Rod arrives home to report on what's going down. He's driven so fast that he's out of breath. Back at the car show, Rumble summarizes the Cons' plans: "Just pull this thing here, and all the lights will blow. Poof! Surprise! All dark." The Autobots roll into the stadium in car mode, but the Decepticons are too excited about the fuse box they've found to notice.
Kup heroically sticks out his leg and trips Galvatron as he goes to push the switch. Galvatron falls down with a comical "OOF!" right in front of Magnus. Galvatron is a hostage! But so is Kup. Starscream threatens to start shooting people if the Autobots don't release his beloved leader right away. But suddenly, Hot Rod sneaks in and frees Kup! The Autobots leap to freedom. The Decepticons are so surprised they forget to fire, and minutes later are running away for their lives. The audience and the robot car are safe!
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"We will steal the robot car, rip apart its circuitry and use it to create an army of robots who will build Decepticon City for me. That's what I need, robots so simple that they do not question my orders, but do as they're told — a race of slave robots!"
- —Galvatron unveils his master plan
"Really now. I may not be the youngest Autobot around, but I don't steal cars, like you rotten Decepticons are planning to do."
- —Kup skewers Starscream with his rapier wit.
Notes
- Like many 1986 storybooks, this story is not obviously part of any major continuity. Ultra Magnus and Galvatron are the leaders, while older characters such as Starscream and Windcharger are still alive and following their orders.
- Even though Norem had painted his characters with Autobot and Decepticon symbols, black line symbols were superimposed over them in a very cheap manner. This appears to have been a process applied to artwork by other artists like John Speirs who didn't apply the faction symbols to his characters, and so was redundantly done to later books by Norem too.
- Warning: no actual car shows blow up over the course of this story. In fact, nothing does.
- Even for a little kid's book, the Decepticon plot is pretty nonsensical. 1) They already have way more advanced technology than a remote-controlled car. 2) If they "rip its circuits apart," they can't use it for much of anything, can they? 3) How would they build an "army" from the parts of one car? (It's okay, they were still probably thrown off by Ultra Magnus laughing a few pages back.)
Errors
- Starscream is painted like Skywarp on one page when he has captured Kup.
- Windcharger's head is colored red instead of gray.
External links
- "Car Show Blow Up" at Steve-o's Transformers Site
