The One Where They Go to Earth

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« The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #43
"The One Where They Go to Earth"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published July 29, 2015
Cover date July 2015
Written by James Roberts
Pencils by Alex Milne
Inks by Alex Milne and Brian Shearer
Colors by Joana Lafuente
Letters by Tom B. Long
Editor John Barber
Continuity IDW continuity
Chronology Current era (2015)

A dying Swerve's mind retreats to a holomatter replica of Earth constructed out of sitcom tropes, and his friends must transmit their own avatars down to the planet in order to find him and save his life. Can the Lost Lighters survive... Swearth?

Synopsis

Today is an even weirder day than usual for the Lost Light, as the ship has suddenly found itself being chased by the planet Earth. Attempting to make contact, the only response the ship receives is a catchy song about "Swerve's", so Megatron tries to call the bartender to the bridge, with no success. The reason why is soon made horrifyingly apparent: just as Tailgate is giving First Aid a going-away present for his trip back to Cybertron, Skids bursts into the medibay with the comatose Swerve in his arms. A quick examination by First Aid and Velocity can detect no surface wounds, but Swerve is so weak that exploratory surgery to find the cause of his condition will kill him. Everyone recalls the Swerve was fine just the previous day at his bar, but Nightbeat deduces that the Swerve they all saw there, who disappeared, was actually a holomatter projection—and morever, so is the entire Earth, all somehow being impossibly generated by Swerve, where his mind has taken refuge. Tailgate, Skids, Cyclonus, Rung and Bluestreak project their own avatars down to "Swearth" (as Rodimus dubs it) to set up a base of operations and begin searching for Swerve so he can tell them where he is injured, and his life can be saved.

The team finds that the facsimile Earth is constructed out of tropes from Earth sitcoms, a product of Swerve's recent consumption of the entirety of Earth's arts and literature. Setting up base in a New York apartment, Rung, Bluestreak, and Skids go out searching, but get waylaid dealing with the escapades of their wacky neighbours. Tailgate, meanwhile, busies himself reading the only piece of literature on the planet, More than Meets the Eye, a comic book version of the Lost Light's adventures. Just as he reaches a part of the story unfamiliar to the others—the fact that Swerve opened Brainstorm's briefcase in issue #21—neighbours Ted the priest, Sheldon the dermatologist, and Jerry the stand-up comedian pay a visit to meet Cyclonus and Tailgate. They soon start bickering about past episodes, and Skids is grateful of the chance to shut them up when Rodimus calls in to check up. He, Megatron, Nightbeat and Nautica have also projected their avatars into the city to help with the search, and after getting up to speed with the farcical ways the planet functions—including its own laugh track—they begin searching nearby bars for any leads to Swerve's location.

Ted, Sheldon, and Jerry, it turns out, have locked themselves out of their apartment, and as Bluestreak works on opening their door for them, Skids confides to Rung that he did even know what room Swerve lived in onboard the ship; he had only found him by remembering which hab-suite Swerve's old roommate Red Alert have lived in. Swerve had, he reveals, actually been locked in his room for months, his body slowly degrading, interacting with others only through avatars, and nobody ever came to visit him. Hoping for a clue, Tailgate jumps to the newest issue of More than Meets the Eye, where the recap page narrated by Swerve explains what happened: exposure to the energies of Brainstorm's time-machine briefcase have created a time-loop in Swerve's holomatter systems, giving him the notionally impossible ability to project something as complex as the planet, which has been shaped into a world of fiction-made-real due to the metafictional awareness Swerve has been increasingly suffering from since he was hit with Brainstorm's meta-bomb. Realizing that the comic is a case of Swerve's subconscious trying to reach out to them, Rung looks for more such subtle clues... and finds out staring him right in the face, as Ted, Sheldon, and Jerry's apartment turns out to have the same number as Swerve's hab-suite. Rung speaks Swerve's name aloud, and the three men all turn around, then suddenly blur together, condensing into Swerve's familiar—if very surprised-looking—avatar.

Rodimus's team is in a nearby bar, talking about Earth and humans; Megatron is struggling to get to grips with the human condition, never having used an avatar before, and is struck by the fragility of the body when he cuts his hand on a broken glass after Nautica tries to tickle him. Rodimus gets an update from Cyclonus's team, but it's not good news: Swerve is unable to tell them where his real body is injured, so that the life-saving surgery can be performed. Rung theorizes that the three avatars were a program glitch the split the different facets of his personality into separate individuals, while Tailgate realizes that Swerve is suppressing his pain because he's found his "happy place" and doesn't want to leave. Swerve glumly explains that he has been thinking a lot about sitcoms lately, and how the "sitcom" of his life has changed since the beginning of "season 2", with him longer playing the role of a "main character", causing him to retreat into isolation. Cyclonus saves the day by revealing that the entire crew of the Lost Light is actually helping to search "Swearth" for him—that while Swerve may not feel like a "main character", he is important to everyone. Elated with this news, Swerve finds that his shoulder is suddenly beginning to bleed in the shape of an Autobot symbol, denoting the location of his real-life wound.

A little later, "Swearth" fades away after everyone has returned to the Lost Light and Swerve's injury—an infection in his energon stream from a years-old shoulder wound—is treated. Velocity reports on the successful surgery to First Aid over a radio, as the medical officer has already departed for Cybertron aboard a shuttle. As they talk, First Aid looks through his present, a datapad of photos and other media put together by Rewind, but stops when he finds a picture of Swerve in an older body design, standing with Ironfist. Suddenly putting two and two together, First Aid realizes that Swerve's infection was caused by a foreign object that still remains inside his body, which he has Velocity remove with all due haste: a message bullet from Agent 113, the Autobot mole within the Decepticon Justice Division, fired years ago into the Autobot symbol that used to be on Swerve's shoulder!

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Others
  • Cyclonus (2)
  • Ted (14)
  • Sheldon (15)
  • Jerry (16)

Quotes

"I suppose there's always the Wiki. Or Tumblr..."
"I told you to stay off Tumblr."
"You're right: spoilers."

—Tailgate and Cyclonus grapple with resources to understand the continuity of MTMTE


"TALK 2 ME. WHAT R U DOING? TIME IS RUNNING OUT. THOUGHT THAT WOULD BE OBV. HASHTAG PISSED."
"Even I know you don't write hashtag."

'Rodimus sends a text, but Tailgate critiques his form


"'sup?"
"We're being chased by a planet."
"Cool."
...
"Sorry, what?"

—Rodimus and Megatron


"Makin' your way on a quest today takes everythin' you got
Takin' a break from all that war stuff sure has helped a lot
Maybe one day we'll find the knights
But 'til then you wanna go
Down to D Deck and to Swerve's
You'll have more fun than you deserve
You wanna go where Megs won't go
Where the drinks all taste the same
You wanna go where Ten can't even say your name."

—The Swearth theme song


Brainstorm: "Please bear in mind that "Earth" is 400 miles away. Projecting over that sort of distance is likely to result in a rather disagreeable sensory experience."
Rung: "Might this type of sensory experience be better described as 'pain'?"
Brainstorm: "Pain, agony, torment, take your pick. Pluss there's a slight risk of (cough cough)"
Skids: "A slight risk of...?"
Brainstorm: "Excuse me?"
Skids: "Just then, you said there was a slight risk of..."
Brainstorm: "Of feedback-induced spark burnout."
Skids: "Death, in order words. A slight risk of death."


"I heard people laughing. Lots of people. Are you having a party?"
"Oh wait—that'll be the canned laughter."
"The what?"
"'Swearth' isn't like normal planets. It's... how can I put this? It's got it's own laughter track."
"There it is again! I didn't even say anything funny!"
"You probably made a face. Reactions get big laughs too. And don't be freaked out if you walk into a room and there's a round of applause and cheering."
"Eh. That's what happens normally."

—Rodimus and Bluestreak


"They're all out there, spread out across the city, across the world, desperate to find you."
"Really?"
"Yes. They need to know where you keep the keys to the bar."
...
"Tetrahexian humor. Very dry."

—Cyclonus and Swerve

Notes

Continuity notes

  • Rung is using the holomatter avatar design from the cover of issue #13, rather than the less-glamorous version from inside the issue itself. The earlier design appears in the "title sequence".
  • And speaking of Rung, poor ol' fella... even the title sequence spells his name "Rong"!
  • First Aid is departing to go and be in "Combiner Wars" crossover over in The Transformers and Windblade, which took place a couple of months before this issue was published. Though not mentioned in dialogue, we also see the sick Mirage go with him, and Groove is sitting on the shuttle too; the other Protectobots-to-be are off-panel.
  • Tailgate references the departures of Fortress Maximus and Red Alert (both in issue #21), Drift (issue #16), Ratchet (issue #41), and even Bob, who left in the big reshuffle after "Dark Cybertron".
  • Swerve opening Brainstorm's briefcase never happened on panel, but Brainstorm did express concern that someone had opened the case after it was blasted off his wrist in issue #21. Swerve had previously vowed to see what was inside the case in issue #16.
  • Ted, Sheldon and Jerry (see "Real-life references," below) each reflect a fact of Swerve's personality: Ted the priest is an embodiment of his intermittently-mentioned religiosity, Sheldon the dermatologist refers to his function as a metallurgist, the equivalent of "skin" for a Transformer (Tailgate knew the the job by the title "skin specialist" all the way back in issue #2), and Jerry the stand-up comedian is his joking slacker side. Jerry really lays into Ted and Sheldon, accusing the former's faith of not being strong enough and the latter of not doing anything important with his skills, encapsulating Swerve's self-worth issues.
  • Swerve activated Brainstorm's meta-bomb back in issue #15.
  • Nightbeat mentions having been to Earth's orbit, back in Escalation. However, see "Errors", below.
  • Tailgate realizes that Swerve has used "Rungian Re-Experience Therapy" (aka "finding your happy place"), first mentioned in a discussion beteen the pair in issue #12.
  • First Aid learned about Agent 113 and his method of delivering messages in "Bullets".
  • Okay, step back a second. ALL THE WAY BACK in frigging "Chaos", the first time Roberts wrote Swerve in a comic scene (he'd written him earlier in the prose-only "Bullets"), Swerve's left shoulder had a piece of metal riveted over it. Nothing was made of it at the time, but later references were made to him having an "old injury" in issue #21 and issue #29—the issues, you'll note, in which we now know he opened Brainstorm's briefcase, and in which the first "Swerve recap page" first appeared, respectively. We now know that metal patch was his own quick-and-dirty fix job for this old wound. And in addition to that, back in issue #13, Swerve mentioned (in response to Ultra Magnus asking where his badge was) that his insignia "got damaged". Phew. Pheeeeeeeeeeeew.

Real-life references

(cracks knuckles)

  • The title of this issue uses the same naming scheme as the TV show Friends, where nearly every episode was "The One..." in which something happened. The apartment Cyclonus's team use as a home base is also the main Friends set, recreated with some stunning accuracy by Milne. While the street name and number ("495 Grove Street") is taken from the show, the apartment number is not.
  • One of the neighbors' outrageous activities sees settling an argument with a game of paintball, a reference to Community, in which huge paintball games that got out of control were a running gag. Jerry wears a shirt emblazoned with the logo of the college from the series, Greendale.
  • When last we saw it, Skids's avatar resembled the Eleventh incarnation of the Doctor from Doctor Who. In this issue, it's based on the Ninth.
  • The font used on the "title sequence" is based on that used from the opening sequence of Cheers, while the "theme song" transmission is based on the Cheers theme tune. Cheers was about a bar, so it's especially fitting.
  • While listing off his knowledge of Earth, Bluestreak mentions the movie Inception, the internet meme Double Rainbow, beliebers and mansplaining.
  • Confused over the expression "Humanity 101" (the number being used in the manner of a university course, meaning "introductory") in reference to the "bluffer's guide" that Rewind puts together for them, Rung believes it refers to "Room 101" from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, while Cyclonus thinks it's about the British TV series Room 101, which took its name from the novel. Bluestreak insists it comes from 101 Dalmations; Tailgate isn't quite sure what a dog is.
  • Each of Swerve's three personalities is a reference to a famous sitcom character in name and occupation, though not physical appearance. Ted the priest is Father Ted Crilly from Father Ted; Sheldon the scientist (a bit of a push, but the comic lampshades it, as Sheldon corrects Bluestreak's claim that he is a scientist with a "Kind of.") is Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory; and Jerry the stand-up comedian is Jerry Seinfeld from Seinfeld.
  • The clients that Sheldon and Ted refer to while arguing with Jerry are also references to sitcom characters; Sheldon mentions a "Mrs. Simpson", alluding to The Simpsons, while Ted brings up "The Bluths", the family from Arrested Development.
  • So maybe Nightbeat's avatar being Benedict Cumberbatch would have been too on the nose, but is he supposed to be Idris Elba as TV detective Luther?
  • The bar Rodimus's team visits is named "The Jumping Shark", after the phenomenon of Jumping the shark, the point at which a piece of entertainment begins a decline in quality, appropriately derived from TV show Happy Days. Perhaps something of a meta-commentary joke on the outlandish nature of this issue?
  • The table (well, two tables pushed together) that Ultra Magnus, Chromedome, and Rewind's avatars are shown standing around when Cyclonus tells Swerve is the table used by the study group from Community. Magnus and Rewind are pretty deliberate choices for this scene, being a straight-laced rule-follower like Annie Edison, and a media-buff film-maker like Abed Nadir, respectively.

Errors

  • First Aid claims he's going to "Earth and back"; he's actually going to Cybertron.
  • Nightbeat says that he's only been to Earth's orbit, but he actually spent some time on the planet's surface in Devastation.

Crew Manifest

Other trivia

  • The first page of the issue (Cover E from issue #1, with speech balloon from Tailgate remarking that he is "lost already") is missing from the digital version.
  • Being made up entirely of re-used art, the first page of the issue, the two-page "title sequence", and the mid-story Swerve recap page all come in addition to the comic's 20 standard story pages.
  • This issue's story is, fittingly, structured like a standard sitcom teleplay: a brief cold open, a title sequence, three basic 4-8 page acts (act one being the flashback to the Lost Light, and act 2 culminating with the "ad-break cliffhanger" of Swerve's avatar consolidating), and a short "credits scene".

Soundtrack

Covers (4)

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