He's a catty cop who never lets a perp get away. He's a fishy desk jockey with no time for hot-headed traffic cops. They fight crime.
Synopsis
Cheetor chases Crumplezone and Ransack through the streets of Cybertron, disrupting the daily activities of bystanders around them. Cheetor finally catches up to them when Crumplezone decides to fly off a ramp, accidentally landing on Ransack and creating a massive crater. Cheetor's declaration of their arrest prompts the question of what crime they committed.
At the TransTech offices, chief Depth Charge chews out Cheetor for his reckless endangerment, despite the speedster's claims that the duo were committing a "moving violation". As this is the sixth incident that Cheetor's gotten himself into, Depth Charge informs Cheetor that he has been transferred to Iacon Central. The Autobot doesn't take kindly to the prospects of being demoted to "beat cop", but Depth Charge tells him he shouldn't worry; after all, what trouble could he get into in a safe, secure city like Iacon?
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
Notes
- Characters mentioned but not seen include: Blurr.
Continuity notes
- Pipes and Huffer are seen putting upadvertisement for "The Motor Master's Stunt Convoy" (see "Trivia" below); obviously, these serve as set up for the BotCon 2011 comic, "The Stunti-Con Job".
- The two generics who Crumplezone nearly crashes into were originally seen in "TransWarped" where they (or many others just sharing their bodytype) worked on creating Omega Supreme.
- A wanted poster is seen for Wasp; he's been wanted since escaping custody in "Autoboot Camp"; when last seen in-universe, he had been upgraded into the technorganic Waspinator, and was stuck on a primitive planet with Blackarachnia, as seen in "Predacons Rising".
Transformers references
Somebody wants Mudflap? That's a first!
- Derrick J. Wyatt designed Cheetor with hexagonal spots to emulate the original Cheetor without looking overly organic, but the finished toy gives his vehicle mode a full-on organic-look cheetah spot pattern. If you look reeeal close, you'll spot the reason for the spots in this comic: when Pipes tumbles from his perch, he splatters black paint all over vehicle-mode Cheetor!
- Ramhorn, Volks and Chase were all designed for inclusion in the Animated cartoon, but didn't make it into any of its numerous crowd scenes. Troop and Sepelak seem to have gone out of their way to include them here in order to give them their only fictional appearances outside of The AllSpark Almanac II, although HD releases of the third season of Animated would show that Chase did manage to barely make it into some crowd scenes.
- Plenty of new characters appear in this comic, including:
- Ransack and Crumplezone, based on the Cybertron incarnations of the characters. While those two were Decepticons, these incarnations of the characters are merely Autobot criminals, as the Decepticons have been banished from Cybertron. Ransack's body is a modified version of Rattletrap's, who was based on the BotCon 2006 Rattrap toy that was itself a redeco of the Cybertron Ransack toy; Crumplezone, meanwhile, is an all new design, based specifically on the Cybertron character's "Dark Crumplezone" upgrade.
- Road Rage, based on the e-HOBBY Generation 1 character. Her body is a modified version of Tracks', just like how the Generation 1 Road Rage was a redeco of her incarnation of Tracks.
- Excellion, based on the Cybertron character. His body is a modified version of Hot Shot's, as his Cybertron counterpart was a redeco of that line's Hot Shot. (See a pattern here yet?)
- Stampy, based on the Beast Wars Neo character. A different looking Stampy had appeared in The AllSpark Almanac II; here, his body is a modified version of Rattletrap's.
- Flashpoint, based on the 2007 live action movie incarnation of Inferno, with elements of Generation 1 Inferno's design. She can't used the name "Inferno", since The AllSpark Almanac II had established the name was taken by a Decepticon based on Beast Wars Inferno. Flashpoint's body modified version of Red Alert, whose inspiration, Armada Red Alert, served as the toy that Movie Inferno was redecoed from.
- Moscardo, an all new character, whose body-type is yet another a modified version of Bumblebee's Cybertronian form. He takes his name from Generation 1 Bumblebee's Portuguese name.
- Strongarm, based on the Energon character. He uses a modified version of Brawn's body-type.
- Just barely visible is Scrounge, based on the Generation 1 character who appeared in the Marvel The Transformers comics. The AllSpark Almanac II indicated he was thrown into the smelting pool by Straxus during the Great War; guess he survived!
- Chromia, based on the Generation 1 character. Her appearance is based on the blue Arcee-styled body from the Japanese Transformers Cards game, rather than the more Generation 1 inspired look from The AllSpark Almanac II.
- Air Raid, based on Timelines Skyfall. His appearance is based on the body-type worn by Powerglide. A different bearer of the Skyfall name would be mentioned in the bio BotCon 2011's Fisitron, based on the Generation 1 Action Master, which presumably resulted in the name change for Air Raid.
- Stungun, based on the TransTech character.
- Jackpot, based on the Generation 1 Jackpot. He was previously mentioned in The AllSpark Almanac II; his design here is intended to be the same body-type that Jazz had before coming to Earth, and the kibble indicates it turns into the Cybertronian alt-mode that Generation 1 Jazz had in the first episode of the original The Transformers cartoon.
- Depth Charge, based on the Beast Wars character.
- Amidst the chaos of the accident, an unseen victim cries "My bumper! Look at what you did to my poor bumper!", paraphrasing Armada Cyclonus's quotable lament about his butt from the Armada episode, "Overmatch".
- Aside from the wanted poster for Wasp, another is seen for Mudflap, based on the Cybertron version of the character, who had defected to the Decepticons.
- Stungun is interrogating Jackpot and Hubcap at the station, just like his TransTech counterpart did to the Generation 1 incarnations in another Sepelak and Troop-penned story, "Gone Too Far".
- Cheetor works at the TransTech Division; his toy is based on TransTech Cheetor, who is also a cop, albeit much more experienced than this Cheetor.
Real-world references
- When Cheetor catches Ransack and Crumplezone, one of the crowdmembers repeatedly mutters the word "rhubarb". This is a common practice used by background actors in film and TV, as the word does not have any harsh consonant or clear vowel sounds, making it ideal to help create indistinct background conversation.
Trivia
- Various signs and posters written in Ancient Autobot (a font created by Jim Sorenson based on the characters seen in The Transformers episode "Cosmic Rust") appear through out the story:
- Pipes and Huffer's sign is for "Motormaster's (sic) Stunt Convoy" with the starburst on the poster noting that it is "Live".
- The ramp Crumplezone flies off of is marked "Hazard"
- The (upside-down and busted-open) crates are labelled "Fragile"
- The wanted posters just say "Wanted" (duh) and list Wasp and Mudflap's names
- Depth Charge's door nameplate reads "Chief"
- The order Depth Charge shows Cheetor says "Transfer"
External links
