Desert Flight
From MediaWiki
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 "Dang-it, his card-art's too dynamic! In the cartoon, we'd have hit him by now!" | |||||||||||||
| "Desert Flight" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Ballantine Books | ||||||||||||
| Imprint | Find Your Fate Junior | ||||||||||||
| First published | 1986 | ||||||||||||
| Writer | Jim Razzi | ||||||||||||
| Illustrator | William Schmidt (interior pencils and cover painting) | ||||||||||||
| ISBN | ISBN 9780345330727 ISBN 0-345-33072-2 | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 73 | ||||||||||||
Cosmos is sent to investigate an explosion that seems to indicate Decepticon activity. He discovers a secret Decepticon base where they are developing a weapon they once tested on Cybertron, the anti-gravity gun. The Autobots engage in a hellish attack in order to destroy the weapon before it can be used to send all life on Earth flying off into space.
Synopsis
Featured characters
Notes
- Dirge seems to be the Decepticons' air-commander here. Not only does his signature fear-inducing engine noise get a lot of play, but Optimus immediately identifies the sound of a distant explosion as unique to Dirge's concussion missiles, due in part to its sheer loudness.
- Smokescreen calls Powerglide by the nickname "P.G.". We'll just assume it's an abbreviation and not his rating.
- A notable scene has the Decepticons getting drunk on gasoline.
- This story also features the Anti-gravity base and Magna-mike.
- Beachcomber to Smokescreen on counteracting their floating: "Transform, -- We're heavier in robot form, and that will help us fight the weightlessness better." WHAT? As many questions as this poses about the laws of physics in this micro-continuity-nexus, the most nagging one arises from Smokescreen and Beachcomber having alt-modes that don't require explicit size-changing: does EVERY Transformer here just randomly shift mass in and out of subspace when they transform? It wouldn't be the only alternate dimension at play either, because...
- When Laserbeak's shot hits the beam from the anti-gravity gun, the force of the two blasts rips open a hole in time and space! Anyone who falls into it floats through a sort of limbo-void where time slows down!
- Cosmos is able to catch Buddy in the soft chair of his cockpit, saving him from a fall in midair. That means he must have the ability to pop open the whole top of his saucer mode, the disk which forms the top of his torso and contains his head. Said cockpit has controls that allow Buddy to pilot him, which is awesome, but odd considering his alt-mode isn't an Earth vehicle.
- This book was available individually, or as part of a six-book box set with the other five "pre-Movie era" books in the series.
