Botcon Comics 2006-2009 Review

This is TFG1Mike with the GeekCast Radio Network.

What you're about to hear is the All Things Transformers

BotCon Comics Review episode. I would like to

let everyone know that has children that likes

to listen to our podcast and have their children

listen when Proto Man came in. We forgot to inform

him that it was a PG episode, so please either

fast forward through those expletives. I tried

and tried and tried to get them deleted or muted

or beeped and it just wouldn't work without actually

getting rid of the conversation that we're having.

So I'm sorry about that. Also there is a popping

noise in the clip with myself and Steve Megatron.

Again, I updated the call recorder software.

I don't understand why there's a popping. I've

fixed all the call recorder stuff as far as it

echoing and stuff like that. I updated it and

I just don't understand it. It's just freaking

annoying. So I hope everyone does listen to this.

I had a fun time recording it with Proto Man,

Lupus Convoy, General Techno, and Steve Megatron.

It was just a super awesome time. We recorded

for about three and a half hours last night So

please enjoy this. I hope everyone will listen.

Thank you. And again, this is a parental advisory

Open damn it open Hello, this is TFG1 Mike and

I'm joined by my co -host and friends Steve slash

Megatron. Hello, sir. Howdy Yes, and because

we didn't want to leave Steve out on the BotCon

comic discussion and of course he was working

his ass off last night when we recorded for three

and a half hours. Yes. We are going to discuss,

he is going to discuss for us the 2006 comic.

He's going to give an overall plot synopsis which

should be less than five minutes for the synopsis.

Oh, it'll be probably under a minute. Well, yeah,

but I mean, that's an inside joke for what's

going to happen later in this episode. Nice.

He's also going to give his own thoughts on the

story as far as how he liked it in between the

Golden Disk and actually, you know, Beast Wars,

the cartoon itself. So take it away. Alrighty.

Overall, this comic starts out with a couple

of, well, it has unnamed units. One, you can

tell, turns into Tigatron. The other is Cannon

Fodder. And it begins with them chasing after

Megatron, who stole the Golden Disk. And there's,

you know, random words, as usual, between Megatron

and his comrades. And it's basically a giant

Predacon and ancient Decepticon uprising trying

to bring forth a new age of dominance and so

as usual the Maximals have their little as you

can call them like militaristic characters that

are going after these renegade Predacons who

are of course no match and the the Predacons

Of course, Get Away with the Golden Disk. This

entire comic takes place directly after the Theft

of the Golden Disk video that was also featured

at BotCon. It bridges the gap between the two,

showing how they got from the Golden Disk area

to their ship and then to the Time Warp, which

leads to Beast Wars. So a lot of just... you

know random dialogue going on throughout that

and uh... not much else other than that uh...

other than just kinda carrying the story from

point a to point b not really any room to move

uh... the end of the comic however they have

uh... razor claw in the original Predacons who

basically formed the new Predacons uh... in hiding

running the the stuff from behind the scenes

and claiming that Megatron was just a random

vessel that they would be another and now that

Razor Claw is back online, he's basically going

to take over his leaders, the Predacons. I don't

think that worked out too well for him, did it?

I don't think that worked out too well for him,

did it? Well, they never actually continued this

story. Technically, it's like Universe jumps

in after this, but it's not really because Universe

is a different thing entirely. That's one of

my issues with the BotCon comics. I know they're

supposed to be exclusive to the convention, but

it would be nice to get a follow -up story. Yeah,

I would like to actually see them spin some of

these off as side series in IDW. Yeah. Like,

you know, have an entire series of just Shattered

Glass, even if it's a four -issue mini -series,

instead of having it in the newsletter that comes

every other month, because you're only limited

to, like, five, six pages, and then you're done.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that is my main complaint about

the Shattered Glass comic. It's my only complaint

about the Shattered Glass comic. As far as the

2008 one is that it's it specifically says on

page 24 not the end at the bottom of the page

Well, it doesn't say not the end but it has the

has end and then a question mark Well on the

on on the 2006 comic maybe but you know, I have

the 2008 comic here in my hand on page 24 or

is it? Yeah, I don't have that. Well, yeah, I

know I know but I mean I'm sure each version

of the BotCon comic, the convention comic itself,

not the Diamond mass release, probably has something

where it says either end question mark or not

the end. On the 08 comic it says not the end

with an exclamation point. Which leads me to

believe the story continues somewhere, and it

would be nice if they continued the story somewhere.

Well, see, that's the thing too. The Shanderglass

was technically jumped into their universe comic,

which was also in the newsletter. That's for

the club. Because I have some of those, but it's

not really focusing on that so much. It's more

so focusing on the transtack. So I mean, it's

not really continuing. So as far as Dawn of Future

Past, how do you like the art in that book? Actually,

it's done really well and I like what they've

done with especially how the Predacons look in

their new modern age I like how they portrayed

the original characters in a Cybertronian form

considering For the most part all you see of

them if you do even see them at all before they

get their beast form is their head Other than

Megatron, which you don't see that giant form

that was just meant as a toy the outside body

armor. When he actually takes that off, that

was the exact body that you see him in in the

first episode of Beast Wars before he scanned

his new body. He was the only bot to actually

showcase his original form in Beast Wars at that,

besides depth charge. Besides the older, the

characters to come later. Yeah. What do you think

of the actual story itself? I mean, as far as

the writing, as far as the continuity between

The Theft of the Golden Disk, this book, and

then obviously what happened in Beast Wars? I

think it stayed true to the characters. And I

think it gave a good introduction because it

never actually states how they met I mean technically

in Beast Wars they'd really not met face to face

obviously I mean they still didn't meet face

to face but they he still introduced himself

on the battlefield in Beast Wars episode one

so in that it's not not quite the same but the

overall they still kept the The the characteristics

of each character and stayed true to their Beast

Wars Oh, yeah, I mean, you know, I've seen the

panels I've seen the you know, the synopsis and

it seems like it's a really really good story

I wonder what Megatron has to say Well Let's

find out At last I hold my destiny in my hands

It is time for us to leave my Predacons. And?

And while his searches have dead air. Yes. Excellent.

Just in time for their destruction. Prepare for

the transwarp jump. And hail the Maximal ship.

I want them to... I want to welcome them. Yeah.

Boy, Megatron, you're breaking up over there

a little bit. You all right this morning? Just

a little tired. Yes. Allow me to introduce myself.

I am Megatron, leader of the Predacon Army. Anyways,

that's Megatron. That's Megatron. Yes. Voices

a little crackly. It's still too early, but I

can still do the voice. That's one of the few

That I can do at any time Do we want to discuss

anything else while we are recording this for

the botcom specific comics episode well, I'm

gonna Jump a little bit into a couple of the

people involved in the toys and then other than

that I'm not really gonna go into too much detail

because I'm pretty sure it's been covered in

in full detail The story consultants are Bob

Ford and Ben Yee. Ben Yee has been running the

bwtf .com website since the creation of Beast

Wars. It was originally beastwartransformers

.com. But it changed later on to Ben's world

of Transformers because obviously it went past

Beast Wars. And he's been a major influential

source for the Transformers saga since Beast

Wars. And Bob Forward was one of the main writers

for Beast Wars as well, and even co -wrote with

the other writer of Beast Wars, Larry DiTilio,

for a couple episodes of Animated. Yep. So both

of them are no strangers to the Beast Wars continuity.

Oh, no, not at all. Actually, I got Yi's name

wrong when I was reading the information earlier.

I was looking at his name, and I was looking

at someone else's name that was Li, and I crossed

them, and I was like, oh, okay. Oops, and Tenno

was like, how can you not do that? How can you

not do that? He got his name wrong. It's Yi.

I'm like, oh, okay, well, excuse me if I'm not

up on Transformers knowledge as far as... the

comic skills, or who does the art, and whatever

else. Yeah, Ben Yi, he was just a consultant.

I mean, he's not really anything in particular

for it. But he knows his Transformers. And I

would have to say that if there's anybody that

knows Beast Wars better than me, it would have

to be him. Because he's just, I mean, I think

he's even met most of the cast from Beast Wars

as well. So I mean. But also some of the references

in the comic that kind of foreshadow later events

rat trap calls Rhinox a rhinoceros and in obviously

Beast Wars he becomes a rhino and then In the

comic he's a bulldozer. Well in Beast Wars part

one, he calls Rhinox a bulldozer. So obviously

he's referencing Pat and Future body forms of

Rhinox. Oh, yeah. Yeah, which is hilarious Yeah.

Oh, yeah. That is very rare. And in the comic,

they even touch on in the space station where

in Beast Wars, it also shows us where Rhinox

and a group of armed guards are loading up Protoform

X's stasis pod into the Axilon. Yeah. The Defense

Command Center, you see Armada Blur. You see

Cacadacon, which is one of the Triparticus Council.

In the reflection of tarantulas head Other than

that there's there's not really any big details

Other than that end clip with razor claw which

takes place 50 to 100 years after beast machines

And it stated that all of them are the original

Predacons that died at the end of the great war

So Alright, well, up next you will hear the actual

rest of the discussion, so we will see you then.

Hello, this is TFG1Mike with the GeekCast Radio

Network and All Things Transformers. This is

a special All Things Transformers. It is going

to be covering the BotCon Fun Publications comics.

Today with me I have General Techno. Hello, sir.

Hello! Have lupus convoy of what the fuck it

TFW. Oh Hey, what's up? And for those people

who like to have their kids listen I will try

not to say the F word that much anymore So yeah

today we're going to be talking about four of

the Botcon comics right now. We're just gonna

be discussing one of them, which is the 06 book

Dawn of Futures Past. This is a Transformers

Timeline comic, volume two, number one. The publisher

was Fun Publications. It was first published

September 28, 2006 at BotCon. The cover date

was fall of 06. The story is by Peter Sinclair.

Story consultants are Bob Forward and Benson

Lee. Writers, it's Benson Yee not Lee. Whatever

You don't diss Ben Yee I was looking at two different

names that had the had two E's in it was just

a anyway Benson Yee. Sorry. Excuse me. He's a

legend in the fandom You'll never get him on

this podcast This episode is for me to get into

the Transformers bot comic. So I know damn it

The writers are forest Lee and Pete Sinclair

pencils are done by Dan Kana Alex line and How

the hell do you say that? No, not my Alex's name

the next one Marcelo But there I think I know

Inks are done by Jake Eisenberg and Terry palette

and the colors are done by Wow, Drew, I'd and

huh? I don't know that Josh Perez and Thomas

dear the letters are done by June moon studio

and the continuity of it is the Beast Wars cartoon

continuity So take it away with the synopsis

techno Alright, well first of all, I'm just going

to say for people who are looking for the comics

including 2009's comic they'll eventually get

their chance because fun pub Republishes everything

through diamond several months after the convention

So you're gonna have your shot at getting it

and it's pretty easy to get all of them if you

Go to the comic store in order them. That's what

I've done for all of mine Even though I don't

like diamond per se I I will still plug them

as a way to get the comics Perhaps the easiest

way now is this are the diamond? Excuse me Are

the diamond versions different though the cone?

No, they're the same. They've got the same cover

and everything so do they have the um, oh the

schedule and Coverage of events that they see

I don't think so I think it's different because

I was late at the at the shattered glass page

for wiki and it doesn't have that they have they

it said in the shadow glass page that they had

two different covers one for the for the convention

cover and then one for the mass release cover

and they so maybe they don't have a schedule

in this or anything but they do have an ad at

the very back for uh astrotrain oh okay and a

teaser for airazor as well but anyway so it's

not a bad comic it's not a bad comic as again

it's in the Beast Wars continuity and as the

title cryptically implies it takes place right

before the Beast Wars it's an attempt to fill

in the gaps there anyway the beginning it opens

up with a couple of remol repaints of the Transformers

Cybertron I'm just trying to remember what he

was originally called. I know they repainted

them as swerve Oh clocker the Cybertron clocker

mold that our maximal security forces One of

it which we get a picture of a whole bunch of

generics in the back of this Also, I should probably

also preface this by saying that there's actually

a prequel to this comic as well, which was seen

at the convention and It wasn't fully released

until a couple of years later It was done by

uh, was it done by trent troop lupus. I can't

remember i'm not really sure to be honest, but

there was a prequel that to this comic, which

is a prequel in itself that was done, Theft of

the Golden Disk. It's a CGI short that I think

was about 10 minutes long or so, but it's pretty

well done. It basically covers the events before

this with Megatron and his crew actually stealing

the Golden Disk, and then Megatron double -crossing

his boss, Cryotek, at the same time and setting

him up while he gets away with the disk. So anyway,

this picks up right after that where we have

unit one and unit two a couple of clock or repaints

and the maximal security forces that are responding

to a breaking up the Cybertronian archives Now

unit one of significance is, it's never actually

stated in here, but it's incredibly clear that

this is supposed to be Beast Wars Tigatron. That

in itself is something to discuss, as well as

another cameo that shows up in this. And I'm

going to discuss that a bit later when that other

cameo shows up. Anyway, unit one and unit two,

unit two who interestingly enough is... painted

up like Ravage really with black and red even

though he's not supposed to be Ravage it's more

of a homage they're pursuing they're arriving

they're getting the report from Maximal Command

that the golden disc has been stolen and they're

like what's the golden disc we're not telling

you it's need to know the Maximals are dicks

as usual in Beast Wars the Maximal Imperium Anyway,

so they are basically told you have to get this

thing back. We don't want you losing using lethal

force and of course right after Yep, the unit

two starts Talking about how it's completely

ridiculous Actually, wait, it might be unit one

No, I got mixed up unit two is Tigatron and unit

one is the ravaged look -alike I'm just gonna

call him just panther just from here on out Because

the easy easier to say Anyway, so Panther basically

is like what are you guys talking about? Not

using lethal force and as expected Well, his

red is more than just a deco choice. He's also

the red shirt in that he's pretty much immediately

taken out by a green blast, which, as we see

a few pages later, is Dinobot's I -beams from

a long, large distance. He's knocked off, his

transformation cog is knocked out. The maximal

security forces tell Tigatron to go on ahead

and take out these guys. So Tigatron basically

does the whole... Alright, he's gonna be fine.

He's gonna be rescued. I'll see you in a few

nanoclicks which of course we know never happens.

So he then goes off afterwards and we then cut

to our first glimpse of the Predacons in the

archives right after having stolen the Golden

Disk here. We get to see two of the BotCon exclusive

toys and a made -up design. We get to see the

Beast Wars Megatron. in his Cybertron Red Alert

body with a new head and everything and that

giant shoulder cannon and we get to see Dinobot

in the what was it the Cybertron hoist mold yep

and we get to see him there holding off the other

Maximals Megatrons does his traditional excellent

yes At last, I hold my destiny in my hands. It

is time for us to leave my Predacons. And Dinobot,

as usual, and actually very similarly to the

beginning of Beast Wars itself, is calling into

question Megatron's tactics and saying that there's

no honor in his tactics and that they should

keep fighting or whatever and not flee. And again,

foreshadowing the beginning of Beast Wars, Megatron

just... smacks him and says, screw you, don't

you. And we get to hear a nice little line which

reminds me a lot of the last episode of Beast

Wars. Never use that word in my presence. Honor!

Bah! And then he has a great quote. Do you know

what honor is, my dear lieutenant? It's a word

they carve on a dead maximal's gravestone. We

have what we came for, and now we leave. Also

present in this scene as well is a scorponok

although he isn't any particular mold He's basically

looks like a made -up version or whatever. That's

just a hybrid of different scorponok figures

There's no real toy to represent him sadly. Yeah

but anyway, they head off Megatron's talking

about how he has his grand schemes and You know,

he's doing his bragging they get out Meanwhile

during all this we see an unidentified figure

monitoring all this it looks like a very damaged

transformer and as we're going to find out and

as we can tell just by looking at it it's actually

the G1 Predacon dive bomb like he's old and worn

and stuff you can tell by all the damage on him

but he's monitoring this from afar And it seems

he's got some role in manipulating this. He then

contacts a couple of Soundwave's former minions,

Buzzsaw and Laserbeak, who were also convention

-exclusive toys. They were repaints of Energon

Dive Bomb. Anyway, it's suggested that they were

rebuilt as well as Ravage, and he tells them

to go out and make sure that Megatron gets away

without a hitch. Because he said... All right,

I've made sure that they'll get a ship. Now,

make sure that they get away and don't let anyone

find out that you were involved. Now, is that

the entire storyline of a comic? No, that's the

first five pages. OK. Why don't you go off the

wiki page just to finish up the synopsis? Just

to kind of wrap it up a little bit. Okay, sorry,

I'm going on it like by page by page basis sort

of. No, no, no, don't go by page by page. Go

just by quick, you know, the overall synopsis

of the whole book. Okay, I figured that, okay,

I guess I was just thinking that it would be

more of a, you guys can jump in whenever to discuss

different points, so. Kind of like how you did

the movie discussion, so. I mean, we could do

that, I guess, but. I was just like, you know,

trying to get an overall feel for the book and

then we can discuss it as it goes along. OK,

all right. Fair enough. I'll speed this up quite

a bit then. Anyway, so we get to Megatron, he

gets out, Waspinator reports him and Terror Sword

jacked the ship, which they named the dark side.

Waspinator wanted to call it Buzzerbot, but he

lost the bet, but he lost the contest. Anyway,

so Tigatron is in pursuit. He sees that they

have a ship. He gets authorization to basically

commandeer ship to follow them. And he goes up

to a ship belonging to none other than a pre

-Beast Wars Airazor. Now this is where I'm going

to discuss this point. Just I want to get you

guys to chime in. Just the whole idea of having

Tagatron and Eraser before Beast Wars when, as

everyone knows, they were protoforms. See, again,

I really don't have that much to formulate an

opinion on because it's been so long since I've

seen Beast Wars. And as I said before, unless

somebody donates the DVDs to me, I don't have.

You know, I don't have the actual footage to

actually even formulate an opinion. And since

I don't have the comic, I think it's nice that

they're doing that as far as continuity goes,

but, you know, I don't know. I think that a wizard

did it. But in all seriousness, I think that

maybe the stasis pods could have technology to

regard someone back to a protoformic state. They

kind of do explain it at the end, but I mean,

it still kind of comes across that the author

like Tigatron Maryser and wanted to work them

into the comics somehow. I mean, Tigatron was

a Tigatron was the convention freebie and Areser

was an exclusive later, but I mean it just kind

of does seem like that I did read that point

and Yeah, because they're pretty much played

the same way only their names are never conveniently

given and they look a lot like they're beasts

for ourselves It would make sense and then why

they have the I don't want to say attraction

but For lack of a better word to one another

in the in the show how they get along so well

Suppose did you have a brief hint to that in

here? Yeah, I mean I'm trying to be all a shippy

here about this but why they Click together and

in the actual series So maybe it's kind of like

a foreshadowing leading up to that Well, to be

fair, the Japanese handled it differently and

instead made it more of a gay relationship. Yeah.

Simply because of the fact that they made Airazor

male and then they were kind of stuck when season

two came around and you had to deal with them

being beamed off by the V .O .C. because they

portrayed Airazor as more of a pupil of Tigatrons.

Yep. I remember that from TFCon. Who needs Prono

Man? No, wait a sec. Apologies to Proto Man,

but Just we need our bits of Japanese trivia

mixed in here and there. So Anyway, so meanwhile

the Maximals command it's implied to me that

it's supposed to be the Magna Boss trio But it

they look nothing like Magna Boss, but given

that they did the same sort of thing with the

Triparticus Council in Beast Wars itself. I'm

sleety. I'm Currently, I'm pretty sure it's supposed

to be Magna Boss. Anyway, they basically go,

okay, they've stolen the golden disc. We need

to stop them. Triparticus Council is saying,

no, no, it's not our doing. So they basically

say that we need to send whoever's closest in

the sector with a transwarp ship to intercept,

which happens to be Optimus Primal. And they're

sending them on a detour. And then it cuts to...

Axlon itself and we got our introduction to the

pre -beast force maximal crew and a cameo of

their precious cargo aka a protoform with a giant

X on it Which they've stopped over to pick up

at a space station Anyway, we get to see radtrap

and cheetor here as well as Rhinox They're all

based off of their convention bodies, of course.

Rattrap being the Cybertron Ransack mold, Cheetor

being another clocker one, and Rhinox is a Cybertron

landmine. Rattrap, what they did in the comic

as well to make him fit Ransack's head is they

gave Rattrap a little helmet. Looks like Ransack's.

As has probably been mentioned before, Rattrap's

design in this was actually the inspiration for

Rattletrap's design in Transformers Animated.

It's based directly off his appearance in this

comic and off that toy, complete with the helmet

and everything. I can't remember if it has the

helmet, I think that Rattletrap does, but...

Anyway, then we have them talking, they're wondering

about... they're upset about this whole thing

that they had to stop over and load up more junk

just a sec phone's ringing so i'll be right back

okay um just to wrap this opsis up um actually

excellent oh chromia pilot receives her mission

to stop megatron just then laser beacon buzzsaw

attacked their ship the chromia 10 arrives to

help but both of these ships are destroyed unit

two and the pilot however are part of board transfer

Okay, back. Okay. I just read the little thing

from Wiki about when the Axelon departs, because

your synopsises are extremely long. Well, I was

trying to do an in -depth review of the comic,

so which part are you at? Well, right now we're

at the part where the Axelon is departed. I mean,

you can still do an in - In -depth review of

the comic but just okay. I can split up there

easily for the overall story You know synopsis

is supposed to be quick just for the overall

story and then we can discuss it afterwards Sure.

All right. So anyway, the axon took off Primal's

explaining to his crew that they had to stop

over to do a favor for the maximal high command

Which as we all know is dumping ravage somewhere

in the alpha quadrant But he hasn't told any

of his crew what this is rat trap. Oh, that's

it means Hmm. Did you say rampage or ravage?

It's in ravage. Oh, I said ravage. I meant rampage

Yeah, they were gonna dump rampage off as was

mentioned in the episode bad spark. Was it I

think so And anyway, then the maximal command

comes and radios them and basically tells them,

yeah, we've had some Predacont thieves who stole

a ship and a golden disk. We need you guys to

go after them and intercept them. The future

depends on it. And they were like, yeah, we know

that you guys are the only ones in the area who

can respond to this. And then Primal's like.

you know i don't know we've got this delicate

cargo and like yeah we know we know what you've

got but you're the you're this is still more

important than that you need to do this right

away it's important and so primal heads off like

a good maximal and of course the he gives an

understood command wish us luck meanwhile unseen

by the axelon we've got the monitoring uh blazer

beacon buzzsaw and after the wish us luck there's

a Now, where have I heard that before from Laserbeak?

A bit of a call back to the G1 movie. Oh, OK.

With how they were spying in. So then Laserbeak

and Buzzsaw, their ship starts attacking the

Axilon to try and stop them from pursuing the

dark side, obviously. And they're doing damage,

engines offline, shields. And they're being nailed

pretty badly by the surprise attack. and they're

just about toast. And then the Chromia air -raiser

ship shows up in the nick of time and starts

attacking them. And they catch Laserbeak Buzzsaw

by surprise. You get a bit of a dogfight in space.

Their ship gets pretty much totaled. And because

of all this, Rhinox is able to get the weapons

back online and they take out Laserbeak and Buzzsaw's

ship. So Liza Beacon buzzsaw are now offline

Ironically come to think they pretty much died

the same way Ravage did Ship explosion yeah And

yeah, they take out the Predacons Meanwhile Ares

are in Tigatron. I'm just gonna quote the book

directly How's that maximal ship not good big

bot? I've got two maximal signals, but they're

faint and the reactor is unstable Not enough

time to repair them then suggestions Hmm. We

do have a few blank protoforms in the cargo hold.

I could perform a remote spark core transfer

into two of the protoform bodies, but my equipment

is not properly set up for that type of procedure.

They could lose much if not all of their core

mainframe. If it is our only choice, then do

it. We've still got a mission to complete. So

yeah, so that's their explanation for Tigatron

Air Razor. They basically, just their way of...

getting them in without them knowing any of their

past and stuff. It seems a bit Wizard did it,

yeah, as Lupus put it. Meanwhile, we cut back

to Megatron's ship. This is just about over now.

Tarantulas, meanwhile, is reporting to General

Ramhorn that he's analyzing the disk, the golden

disk and stuff, and then he's cut off by Megatron

showing up, and he tells Megatron he's got the

coordinates for where they're gonna go. So then

Megatron tells him to come back. He gets out

of his Exo suit and an explanation for that.

What they did in order to reconcile the fact

that you see Megatron's frame in the beginning

of Beast Wars compared to the toy is they made

the Red Alert suit, just a giant exoskeleton

that he gets into with extra weaponry. It was

a very nice touch. Yes, and then he gets out

and he's got the body that he had at the beginning

of Beast Wars. And just a sec which does make

him look very much like an action master. Okay.

Well, um Thanks. All right. Yeah, are you back?

Hmm. Are you back now? Yeah, the phone just rang

again. So I was just checking so listening for

the machine But anyway, so then Megatron's like,

okay, let's get ready for trains warp jump Dynabot

whines again about the whole we should face them

head -on Megatron just slap smacks him Then the

Maximals anyway, they've repaired they catch

up to Megatron Megatron signals them does his

whole greetings Maximals. I'm Megatron bragging

about how he's Well, he introduces himself primals

like you have to give back to Golden Disk Megatron's

like Stole the Golden Disk. No, there's been

a bit of a misunderstanding. Yes then Megatron

Yes, I like this. He's got some good quotes here.

It's the book is really well written to get into

the character voices as Megatron is Stole. Oh

dear. There's been a misunderstanding. Yes No

jump is ready Megatron In fact, my dear lieutenant

here will be happy to discuss our true intentions

In other words, that's his order that about to

go ahead and shoot on these guys. Mm -hmm so

then We get the very beginning of the dogfighting

beast wars right before they go through the transwarp

portal. Megatron opens the transwarp portal,

ship goes through, the Maximals go right in after

them, and it ends with a nice touch. Ratt traps,

quote, oh man, this is it. We're all gonna die.

And then we have a little bit of an epilogue

just on the last page, which takes place sometime

after Beast Machines. And we have an offscreen

voice. It suggested that this whole story is

being told in recap by Divebomb to an unseen

voice who, once you turn the page, it's revealed

that it's a beast, it's G1 Razor Claw in a new

body, which is based off of the Leo Breaker mold,

which they released at BotCon 09. That's what

the toy was based off of. Anyway, the idea that,

yeah, Megatron was a bad choice, his Megalomania.

Ended up becoming the better of him and made

him a poor pawn But now you're back here to lead

us to glory and it's razor claw talking about

how oh We're gonna beat the Maximals and yada

yada yada and they'll tremble before the might

of the Predacons and it's over Hey, and on that

be right back Alright, we're back and we're gonna

talk about the 06 comic as far as the look of

it as far as how the cover art is I've actually

got the cover art pulled up on wiki and it looks

pretty awesome Yeah, it is pretty nice I'm just

trying to read I believe it's uh, okay, it's

Joe who did the cover looking at the Looking

at the signature on the copy that I have here

and it's Jake Espin as well who did colors on

like us And yes, it does look very nice and does

do we know who are do you guys know who the character

are characters are on there because it doesn't

It doesn't list the names on the on the wiki

information start. There are all the ones who

were able to convention And your phones ringing

again It is ringing again. Get a voicemail. Get

a voicemail. You guys keep on going. I'll be

right back. OK, from what I can see in this picture,

we've got Cheetor, Waspinator, Darkside, Denobot,

Megatron, Prime, or Primal. Yes, Primal. Brattrap

and Brynox. Very, very cool. I actually like,

you know, just kind of comparison thing. I don't

like the Armada logo for timelines. I like the

regular original Transformers up and down logo

that's on the last version. I never really liked

the Armada logo. It's always really weird to

me. That's one thing that's kind of surprised

me that the club hasn't actually updated the

logo at all So you think that they'd have like

even the movie logo or something? Well, no, they

use different logos for each book No, I mean

if you look at the back of a Transformers if

you look at card back on a Transformers toy They

use the armada logo for the club logo. Oh Well,

I was talking about the actual logos on the comics

not For the last two the 07 and the 08 and wiki

doesn't have tfwiki doesn't have anything for

the 09 book yet But for the other two for transformers

timeline timelines on the 07 and 08 It's like

the original g1, you know trans the Autobot or

decepticon symbol and then formers below I like

that better than the armada thing. I Don't know.

I just it's the armada logo just never really

It didn't really look like Transformers to me

anymore. At that time, wasn't it still dealing

with the AEC trilogy? I don't know. Yeah, when

the Beast Wars came out, the AEC trilogy, that

was still going on. It was just ending, I think.

And also, pretty much all the molds are AEC as

well. So overall on a scale of one to ten, how

would you rate the actual images in the art in

this book techno? Well, the art I'd say is pretty

good. It's Dan Kanna who drew it I guess he got

his start as a fan artist who eventually got

hired on he does some pretty impressive stuff.

I mean he's not my the problem with judging Transformers

artists really in my mind is there's so many

good artists that you start to get to the point

where you you're comparing good artists to good

artists and you're trying to decide who's better

than everyone else like it's one of those cases

in that Kenna he's not one of my favorite he

does some nice stuff he's not one of my favorites

in terms of the Transformers artists like his

stuff's good but not awesome To be perfectly

honest, Alex Milne, I'm a huge fan of his work,

although only if it's colored by Josh Perez,

because Josh Perez is the only guy who can color

Alex Milne's work, as evidenced by Megatron Origin.

You've got Don Figueroa, who again, he's a really

good artist. E .J. Su is another one of my favorites,

and of course, Nick Roche. Art is pretty good,

the coloring job is pretty well done as well.

I guess it's Mr. Iden that we have to thank for

the coloring in this book. Yeah, Drew Iden, Josh

Perez, and Thomas Deer. Right, Perez, I'm guessing,

did the coloring on the concept art that's in

this book because we've got full color concept

art of Optimus Primal and Megatron in the bio

section. And given that it looks a lot like it's

Alex Milne stuff. Oh, no, sorry. It's Marcella's

stuff. Yeah. I don't know what Alex Moom drew

in this actually. He's not He didn't draw anything

I guess. Well, or did he? He's listening. He's

listed under under the pencils Yeah, he is but

I'm not sure what he drew unless he drew certain

pages in the book I don't know we can always

ask somebody who I Don't know I feel bad not

knowing this What Is this is this an issue that

someone would you know that Obviously, you know

me, you know, I I enjoy Beast Wars the cartoon

But I haven't seen it in so long. Is this something

that that I would want to pick just for overall

Backstory to kind of get myself back into Beast

Wars Well, they don't really add that much to

Beast Wars. I mean it works well as a prequel

story for setup One thing that's clever is that

they never act the only characters who actually

get named in this by their Beast Wars names are

Primal and I guess it's only primal and make

it trying to come to think Everybody else is

conveniently not given a name Well, that makes

sense considering a lot of the other characters

are based off of animal names and if they have

animal alt form yet, then Can't go around calling

a car cheetor Well, they list it in the if you

go down on on maybe it's just you know the character

pages But if you go down on the feature characters,

they list cheetor having five appearances That's

not five appearances. That's the page that they

first appear on. Oh Or is it order of appearance?

I can't remember. Yeah, it's order of appearance.

He appears fifth Yeah, they've got the names

and quotes because they don't actually appear.

And one thing that's mentioned on the wiki that's

a pretty neat touch is there's a bit where Rattrap

calls Rhinox a big rhinoceros, which is a bit

of a tongue -in -cheek reference to how he calls

him a big bulldozer in the first episode of Beast

Wars. I'm trying to think what else we can say

about this book anything that lupus. Um, I think

it was really great to toss in the protocol reference

at the end Which I'm really happy about cuz they

eventually did make the classics razor claw They

also do them on a small scale as well in one

of the box in one of the legends five packs I've

got that razor claw Me too. It was just nice

to see those and to see them add in all these

other characters and expand the universe a bit.

I really wish I actually had the comic, but I'm

sure I'll get that once I get that box set. I'll

probably try to find it on eBay or something,

just the comic by itself maybe. We should also

mention that the title, Dawn of Future's Past,

is also similar to Marvel's Days of Future Past,

which is kind of cool. Yes, what's also interesting

is just really it just It's tricky for me to

wrap my mind around the title because dawn of

futures past It's just a great reference that

it's the dawn of the Beast Wars and the futures

past is reference to it's the future But they

time traveling to the past and you know, yeah.

Oh, yeah It's a clever name. It's a clever title

very much so It's a good it's a good story. It's

a clever title. It adds a bit you have some extraneous

additions like I mean like buzz saw and laser

beak again, they're kind of plot of in some ways

you could almost see you could almost argue that

Tigatron Ares are buzzed on laser beak really

their point in the story is more to a combination

of a sell toys though That's what transformers

has always been about mind you But it's both

sell toys and to pad out the issue almost Because

if you really remove their stuff that takes out

a lot of the story in the issue But it would

still be keep all the basic plot points of Beast

Wars like they don't really add anything Other

than Oh terror Tagatron Ares are now of origins.

We didn't need to know because they were from

stasis pods anyway Very cool Alright, I think

unless we have any other thoughts on the 06 book,

we're going to move on. Alright, we are going

to talk about the BotCon 2007 Convention Exclusive

Comic, which is Transformers Timeline's Volume

2, Number 2, Games of Deception. The information

for this, the publisher obviously is Fun Publications,

first published June 27, 2007. Cover date is

summer of 07. The story is by Forest Lee, Pete

Sinclair, and Benson Yee. The writer is Forest

Lee. Pencils are done by Alex Milline, or Millen,

or however the hell you say his name. He also

does the inks. Colors by Drew Iden and Josh Perez.

Letters by June Moon Studios. The managing editor

is Pete Sinclair. Editor in chief is Brian Savage.

And the continuity is Marvel Comics continuity.

Take it away lupus. Okay, first thing to note

is that this is continuing on from the monthly

Was it monthly or bi -monthly comic? Okay, so

bi -monthly and the quick run -through is Board

the Autobot battlecruiser graviton Ultra Magnus

and his crew arrived in Earth's orbit having

followed a tip from weird wolfs abandoned nebula

and partner Monzo The crew assumes Earth in alternate

modes and heads to the surface while Huffer remains

in the ship. On the surface, Dreadwind laments

about leaving Darkwing behind, being stuck with

Bugbite's crew and the general state of the universe,

because he's so emo. Bugbite is waiting for a

contingent of Megatron's forces to arrive. Much

further south, Optimus and Jetfire return to

Autobas Prima, with the inert form of Rodimus

having barely escaped a Decepticon contingent,

which included Devastator. Prime orders Bartnett's

forces to stay away from the Decepticons. Inside

Grimlock makes contact with Springer from Magnus'

crew and flies off to meet them. Mirage observes

and follows, invisible. Starscream, Ramjet, and

Skywarp arrive to meet Big Bugbite. While Starscream

discusses Bugbite's proposal, Dreadwind and Weird

Wolf catch Wind of Mirage and blast him. Magnus'

crew observes this and is with displeasure from

a nearby cliff. Starscream is set to execute

mirage when bug bite blasts him and his crew

with modified cerebral shells getting control

of them Bug bites control is not perfect. However,

but enough for the job Okay, I have to interrupt

you just for a second. Sure is bug bite supposed

to be bombshell No, but bite is supposed to be

bug bite the old go -bots okay, cuz just going

over his name in this article as far as the links

to each character it says that he's from g1 and

I'm like I don't remember him in g1. It was a

huge part of the e -hobby repaint exclusives

of the mini -bots Okay, okay. We're all based

off of go -bots Yeah, they were all go -bots

because I mean Hasbro owns the go -bot fiction,

but they don't own any of the toys So which is

a bit of a weird thing when you think about it

anyway because that Hasbro is able to The club

decided to run with those toy redeco's and they

created a bit of a backstory for what the GoBots

are doing in the G1 universe. They expanded on

it in the club comics as well. And I guess Lupus

will get to this in the summary later. So I'll

mention it later. OK, continue. OK, where were

we? The observing Autobots are prepared for this,

however, and have a shell jammer. Sounds like

spell jammer standing by. Bugbite leads his followers

away to meet with Megatron and swoop tracks them.

At Decepticon Earthbase, Megatron consults with

the captive head of Shockwave about Bug Bite.

Bug Bite and company, with Swoop still following,

arrive at the base. Alita One arrives and disables

Ravage, who is guarding the entrance. Formalities

are short between Megatron and Bug Bite, as the

latter makes his play almost immediately, his

troops opening fire on Megatron, Soundwave, and

the Constructicons, and planting them with Cerebo

shells. Megatron retaining some free ability

under Bugbite's partial control demands an explanation

for his action. Bugbite explains that where he

comes from a parallel universe, one of quadrillions

that exist and one that has been ravaged by some

unknown action in this one. Some few manage to

escape including Bugbite who has come for revenge.

Megatron being Megatron however is not so easily

controlled. He's immune to the shell's effects.

He throttles Bugbite, who orders his troops to

defend him, just as Autobots jam the Cerebro

shells. Decepticon fires on Decepticon just as

the Autobots burst into the room firing. In the

chaos, Bugbite manages to grab a weapon that

Megatron kills him at point -blank range. Springer

destroys the Decepticon computers and the Autobots

rescue Mirage and make a clean escape, leaving

Megatron surrounded by a lot of wreckage and

deactivated Decepticons. He swears lethal vengeance.

Grimlock joins Magnus' crew as they head back

to space to continue their hunt for Pledgen.

Now, I know Techno mentioned to me that he wants

to talk about Pledgen's toy, I believe, for the

movie -verse. We are going to save that for a

toy cast, but... Yeah, when I saw that last line

I'm like, oh great he's gonna go on to you know

blather on about how great bludgeon is No, I

wasn't going to because I know he's in that story,

but they bludgeon He's only named in these comics

because you have to keep in mind that they were

written Well before we got a new bludgeon toy

Because at this point the Marvel continuity there

was a group of the Decepticon army. The most

of it was being led by Bludgeon because he was

the leftover leader and this is an offshoot in

which Megatron actually survived the crash of

the Ark into the Arctic. So you've got two factions

there. Megatron has rebuilt Decepticons from

the Ark crash and Bludgeon has the remnants of

the Decepticon army. So what it overall when

you first got this comic lupus, what did you

think of it? I was squealing like a little girl.

I I have a classic Spamboy. I am NOT ashamed

to say that whatsoever It was my first bot con

too. So I was there with my equally as geeky

brother Brickman and We were just geeking out

over every little nuance in this the little pop

-ups of the action master snarl for instance

You know all in all I I like the artwork In retrospect

though if you look at some of Alex's work currently

like his TF con classics verse litho, it seems

pretty rough But all in all it's a really solid

comic if you know what's going on Well, I mean,

I guess one thing with Alex's work as well is

this has always been a credit to the guy that

he's one of those artists who is a very fast

worker, which is Really amazing when it strikes

me in that not only is he one of the guys few

guys who can draw the movie robots, right? Because

they're like one of the hardest things to draw

but not only that but he's also one of the fastest

artists out there and his to his production speed

is just absurd. I think that the only time he

really had some problems was with Megatron Origin

and that was because he got sick while he was

doing that so they had to have Marcelo Matera

fill in for him to some extent. Now the cover,

who is on here? I mean is it supposed to be all

the convention exclusives or is it? It's um let's

see you've got Thundercracker, Dirge, Thrust,

Bug Bite, and Red Wing, Dread Wind. Yes. But

you can also see down in the corner on one of

the little hover bikes from Beast Wars, you can

see Weird Wolf. Oh, OK. Yeah. This cover is kind

of weird for me to make out images because it's

all gold like. Yeah. The diamond cover, they

don't have a picture of that one there. I've

seen the diamond one, but I don't actually own

it. What that cover is, is it's a picture of

the Autobots, actually, with Grimlock's team

jumping out of a plane, basically. So you've

got shots of Grimlock, and I think Action Master

Snarl might be in there, and you've got Swoop,

and you've just got a elite of ones in there,

and it's more the Autobot side of things, like

you've got Magnus and stuff. It's a nice cover.

Yeah, I mean, it is a nice cover for the BotCon

version. I don't know about the Diamond version

because it doesn't show one. I'm just going to

search for it. OK. As far as the Diamond edition,

it's slightly expanded version of the comic with

different cover was sold through Diamond, making

the comic available through standard comic shops.

It lacked the convention information, but added

in its place a new interior cover credits page

with CGI render of Thrust by Trent Troupe. Springer

bio lines by Dan Kahana colorist unknown bug

bite bio lines by Marcelo Matri colorist unknown

the New World Preview text illustration by Greg

Seplak colors by David Willis and some some ads

I Mean they that they show some of the of the

panels on the wiki page and it looks like a really

really good book So I may May pick it up? I don't

know. Do I actually have to read Crossing Over

Part 6 to actually understand this story? You

know what? Honestly, I didn't have all the back

issues on that. If you just pick it up, I mean,

there's going to be some things that you won't

really register like why Rodimus is damaged and

whatnot. If you can just accept that one little

bit. All the main characters that are in there.

There's a little bit of backstory for all of

them. So you kind of know what's going on So

you can just pick it up and read it for what

it is it's like just randomly going into a Episode

of b5, I guess. I mean there's backstory. There's

an overarching plot, but it's still episodical

I'm assuming by b5 you mean Babylon 5. Yep. Sorry

never got into that show Also, Mike, if you ever

manage to scrounge up the money, I do know somebody

who has the BotCon 07 box set. I don't know if

he still has all the exclusives, but at one point

anyway, at TFCon's point, you know who I'm talking

about, probably Blupus, but he had everything

including even napkins and stuff. I've seen the

I've seen the 07 set and the only ones I would

probably want from that are the are the Jets

the dirge and the thrust The other ones as far

as the toys ago the other ones they just didn't

really impress me all that much See, I'd want

the only one that I wouldn't really be enamored

with his bug bite But I'd want the seekers and

I'd want a dreadwind to put with my dark wings.

So The Dreadwing's actually pretty solid. I wasn't

sold on him at first, but he does look really

really sweet once you have him in hand. Have

you tried combining them with Darkwing? I have

not. Because there is a band combination for

the two. I've seen them. I've got two sets of

them at my house right now, but I'm so petrified

of taking them out of the box and putting them

with my classics display. They're just sticking

in the boxes up there right now. Will say however

that the the run through that we gave them was

incorrect bug bite did not die in the comic No,

there's a side story that revolved around the

go -bots going into the transtech universe and

Bug bite does show up and he says, you know Megatron

blue blows his head off in the comic but bug

bite Goes up to the other characters and goes,

you know who would really be stupid enough to

put their central processors in their head I

mean really so he ends up getting um This upgraded

body Reminds me of rebirth where brainstorms

and all you have to do is download your auxiliary

memory circuits into your chest Well, it's actually

kind of a homage as well to the original bug

bite toy because Well, he his head was basically

like his car chest If you look at a picture of

it, yeah, it's pretty ugly actually But I mean

like it's uh, he's like bumblebee done horribly

horribly horribly wrong But I mean like his head

is the his actually his head is the part that

forms classic bumblebee's chest actually His

head is like the roof of the car Yep So, I mean

his really his brain is just in the same spot

on the karma. It's just on his chest instead

of his head Now these are these comics any of

them as far as the bot -con ones are these things

that you know If you got I know I don't have

any kids But if you guys ever had kids, would

you show these to your kids? Would you in order

to kind of get them into transformers as far

as the comics go or would you something else?

I'd probably give them something else honestly

To get them into transformers. I probably wouldn't

use this I'd be more inclined to if the kids

It depends on if the kids were held back by the

yard or not. Because if they had no qualms about

the yard at all, or just the coloring quality,

the first thing I'd give them, to be honest,

would be reprints of the Marvel -run Transformers.

Because that fiction is very well written. I've

got all four of IDW's reprint volumes. And I

just find it a pity that we're probably not going

to see a fifth because of bloody Marvel -owning

Circuit Breaker. Because it ends with the primal

scream comic. So which is like right at the beginning

of all of Furman's epic stuff But you can still

get some of those singles Yes, you can get the

tightening tree paperbacks still but the fact

remains that IDW's reprints are really good They're

really well done. So I would much rather as far

as like I said before with these As far as me

versus single issue versus trade paperback or

even hardcover, I would much rather have these

as the convention exclusive books just to have

them. I mean, as I said before, I have the 08

book and I just love it. It's awesome. You guys

have any final thoughts on the 07 Lupus or Technom?

Let's see. If you were turned off by the coloring

of the Alita 1 figure that came out at this last

BotCon, In the comic, she is not that garishly

great. She's actually much, much, much lighter

pink. Also, a little thing that I did note is

that Weird Wolf is in this, and while everyone

hates on Wheelie for his rhyming, everyone's

like, oh yeah, Weird Wolf's a cool character.

Weird Wolf in the comic rhymes in iambic. Shakespearean

pentameter every sentence But he's insanely intelligent

really cool. So Yeah, all right, we're gonna

move on Alright, we're back and we're gonna talk

about the 2008 convention comic which we all

have shattered glass Before I get into any of

the synopsis for the information really quick

I just have to comment on the on the actual art

for the for the The convention cover. Oh my god

This art is awesome You've got Rodimus blur and

gold bug and gold bugs eyes actually glow red.

I mean they All of their eyes do but gold bugs

is is what I noticed the most Because he's pretty

much front and center when you're looking at

it. What just you know, you know, I I level view

and oh my god This comic is so cool. So let me

get into the information here The publisher as

we've said before is fun publications It was

first published April 24th 2008 The cover date

is spring of 08 story is done by Pete Sinclair

and Benson Yee Writer is Vincent Yee. Pencils

are done by Don Figueroa. Inks are also done

by Don. Colors, Espen... I'm not even going to

say his last name. I don't know how. I would

end up butchering that. The letters are done

by Jesse Widenrich. The managing editor is Pete

Sinclair. Editor -in -chief is Brian Savage.

Continuity is Shattered Glass. Excuse me. To

start us off emerging. Oh also, this should be

again again, do I need to actually read that

book to get it to get a grip on any of these

because I Don't know. It just it's weird the

only tie -in to that is the fact that in the

crossing over what happens is Cliffjumpers helping

out the convention Autobots and but all three

of all There's four of them at this point. There's

three of the club combiner characters who've

all met up at this point, along with Cliffjumper.

They end up all being shunted out of their own

universes. The three club ones end up in the

transtech universe, but Cliffjumper evidently

takes a wrong turn in the space -time continuum

and ends up in the shattered glass universe,

and that's how this begins. Oh, okay. So it's

classics Cliffjumper there. Oh, okay. So here's

the little synopsis that we have from the TFWiki.

Emerging from a dimensional portal, Cliffjumper

arrives to his shock on Cybertron. Almost immediately,

he is jumped by an oddly colored Triggertron

named Ruckus. Ruckus tries to make a getaway

when he is blasted by Rodimus. Rodimus takes

Cliffjumper to see Optimus Prime. Optimus escorts

the by now nervous Cliffjumper to the smelting

pool. to see Rumble's execution. Quite unwisely,

Cliffjumper tries to talk some sense into Optimus

and gets blasted for his for his pains. As a

test of loyalty, Optimus dumps Cliffjumper into

the Rad Zone. While unconscious, Cliffjumper's

body is found by Protect -a -Bot colored versions

of Scrapper and Longhall. Cliffjumper wakes up

to see both Hook and Scrapper working on him.

Needless to say, he freaks out and makes a run

for it. only to collide into Megatron. Accompanied

by Sideswipe, Sideswipe asks to see Cliffjumper

alone. Upon further inspection, Sideswipe concludes

that the Cliffjumper standing before him is not

same Cliffjumper he knew. After all, his Cliffjumper

was killed right before his eyes during an ambush.

Cliffjumper asks what the slag is going on, and

Sideswipe condenses his universe's story. Just

because we all have it, I'm gonna stop by...

by the end of each paragraph so we can discuss

this. When I first heard about BotCon08, first

of all, it was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, which

is an hour and a half away from me. So I wanted

to frigging go if it wasn't for the fact that

it was going to cost me $1 ,200. Wow. Which would

include everything, the package, the Primus package,

the hotel, all that stuff. I added it all up.

It was like $1 ,200, $1 ,300. when I first heard

about this when I first saw the advertisements

from BotCon as far as you know your world as

you know it will be shattered and I'm like What

the heck because it was like the first time I

actually paid attention to the BotCon convention

Was was last year. I hadn't really paid I mean

I had paid attention to it in 06 only because

again It was an hour an hour and a half away

from me. I live in Louisville, Kentucky. It was

held in Lexington in 06 So when this came out

I was like, oh god I gotta have that and of course,

you know the convention exclusive toys Rodimus

gold bug blur optimus Megatron Starscream and

all that stuff I Thought this was a really really

cool way to take G even though it's classic cliff

jumper I still I still see him as G one cliff

jumper as far as the character goes Taking him

out of his element out of the real G1 Cybertron

world and putting him into shattered glass. This

is just awesome. Well, it is kind of G1 Cliffjumper

because it's again the classics versus base is

an extension of the Marvel G1. And this comic

is actually interesting that regard in that there's

a lot of callbacks and reversals from Marvel.

For instance, the smelting pool was Straxus did

the exact same thing to Autobots with the smelting

pool, like dump them in and the rad zone. Again,

that was an area where you had all the empties

and the Cybertronian history that's coming up

right there. that's pretty much a page that's

a pretty much a line -by -line reversal of the

g1 backstory given an issue one of the Marvel

comic like it's it's they pretty much patterned

it exactly after that in how it's done it's a

very neat homage if you've read the original

Marvel just in terms of all the reversals they

do And cliff jumper is the characters foil is

a really neat choice because he's like the biggest

one of the biggest anti decepticon Autobots out

there Mm -hmm So he's a great choice really for

a foil for the fish out of water. Oh, yes, definitely

and um, I should mention before I continue with

the synopsis that Fertile man has actually shown

up so yes protoman answer the phone so yeah I

think we're going to be right back In this universe,

Optimus was absolutely obsessive about knowledge,

feeling unsatisfied in his original position.

He backstab and betrayed countless others to

become one of the more influential members of

society. He began preaching intolerable intolerance

for Cybertron's peaceful lifestyle. and others

who agreed with his philosophy, mainly those

who were dissatisfied, joined him. In time, Optitronix

declared himself and his followers autonomous

from Cybertron and thus they took the name Autobots.

Optitronix upgraded his followers but of course

he kept the most powerful mods for himself. When

he finished upgrading he renamed himself Optimus

Prime. One day, an Autobots began their reign

of terror. Those who refused to join the Autobots

were scrapped. Eventually, Optimus' sanity was

shattered with a shocking revelation, but no

one, not even his closest friends, knew what

that was. The Autobots did not go unchallenged.

Other Cybertronians who managed to escape the

initial massacre formed a loose resistance, but

without a strong leader to guide them. The cause

was sure to sputter out. That's when Megatron

emerged from Polyhex, United... uniting the resistance

fighters into a tightly -knit army. Megatron

had only one people on the panel, but had the

additional advantage of being able to transform

armed with technology and hiding themselves in

plain sight. The resistance became the Decepticons.

Optimus, however, managed to reproduce the technology

for his own troops to use because of that morale

has been sinking. I think this is an awesome,

awesome story. Just, you know, even though I'm

going to stop after that paragraph just because

some discussion needs to be done just because

my voice is tired from reading all of it. Why

don't you just do like a summary? Of course,

you own the book, correct? Yeah, but I didn't

want to go page by page by page because that

takes too long. Honestly, the way I'm going to

do, because I own like all the books and honestly,

I'm just going to like go through it quickly

and be like, yeah, so... Yeah, so on the first

page this happens and then shit goes down on

this page I'm pretty sure you could fly through

it quickly. Um, I mean, I'm sure I could I just

I want to keep the book in reasonable condition

You don't want to do what I did yeah 25 minutes

for a synopsis I'll fly through wings of honor.

I actually because when you mentioned I was gonna

be doing oh nine I had to dig it up. I have it

right here Now can you send us an image through

Skype or me an image through Skype for that because

there is nothing on TFWiki for the 09 comic.

Oh really? So you just need a cover or something?

There was nothing. Oh, I didn't know that no

one put up anything. I will yell at Monzo later.

I looked up the BotCon conventions and I clicked

on BotCon 2009 and I went to comics and there's

nothing there. It says, oops something's missing

please add it or whatever else. So you need just

the cover? Yeah. Because I don't think I've actually

seen a good size or a good image of the cover.

Let's see what I could do. You check the club

site? I will. Huh? You check the club site? No.

Well, obviously, I figured TF Wiki has all the

TF's information, so I figured it would be here.

I got something off of Alex's. Well, Alex, excuse

me, Alex Milne did the lithographs. Oh, okay.

He did not do the art. Did he do the cover? Well,

here I'm going to look right now. The art was

done by... It was done by Dan and Guido. The

two did it. Alex had nothing to do with the cover.

I know he did the lithographs 100 % because when

he... Yeah, when he was doing them, I got a sneak

peek at them. But anyways, you didn't hear that.

Yeah. I don't want to cost him. That's Alex Milne's

signature right there. Anyways. For the cover.

Yeah. So I'm going to go on that rock there.

Oh, you're right. You're right. That's right.

That is his signature on the rock there. Because

I'm looking at the actual cover here. He did

the cover. Why isn't he getting credited on the

inside? I don't know. So Cliffjumper is quite

out of his league asks why an Autobot in his

universe would be a Decepticon in this one. Sideswipe

confesses that he was once an Autobot and over

time he stopped believing in Optimus's cause

and was subsequently left for dead after a staged

ambush. That was when he joined the Decepticons

for the sole purpose of revenge. He's supposed

to be an offshoot of G2 Drench actually, isn't

he? As far as the time well, okay How it works.

This is a Really weird homage what happened was

in the universe toy line which came out in what

2002 or something or 2001 around when Armada

came out There was a planned toy that was supposed

to be universe drench the g2 water spraying.

Yeah color changing toy That toy never happened

ever But a few of the prototypes got out Remy's

Transformers actually owns it He did a little

photo shoot of it point is the toy never happened

a lot of people right? Oh, we want g2 drench,

but anyways fast forward to the convention They

thought it was a good excuse to finally get out

that mold somehow So there you go. It was originally

a toy that never got released in that color scheme

and now we finally did get it I guess the whole

storyline of that character of sideswipe is also

to encompass the the mold story because of the

character Wheeljack aka Rampage, I believe he

was called in micron. Yep Yeah, cuz he had his

little slash there in the chest from the whole

armada store I guess they had to somehow incorporate

the molds history Because you couldn't get past

that. Yeah. So to make them... So, just to finish

this up, Cliffjumper isn't exactly convinced,

but decides to stick around before he makes a

final decision. Back in Iacon, Blur reverts to

Optimus, while Prime spars with holodrones no

less, about the status of the Ark, but is concerned

about the launching platform's stability. Optimus

is unconcerned, and even welcomes a Decepticon

attack. Decepticon headquarters Starscream reports

on the ARK status as well, with highly concerned

Megatron listening in. As Cliffjumper and Sideswipe

enter, Megatron informs them that Optimus plans

to head to other planets to plunder their resources.

Cliffjumper exclaims by Primus he can't be allowed

to do that, leaving the others slightly confused.

Cliffjumper then provides the highly condensed

version of the Transformers origins. Megatron

is somewhat revealed to learn that A god may

have been behind their creation and says that

needs to concentrate on a plan to get past the

guards at the launching platform. Starscream

then comes up with the brilliant idea of attacking

the platform itself. With the platform's destruction,

the Ark will collapse under its own weight. Stranding

Autobots on Cybertron, albeit temporarily, to

destroy the platform, Starscream plans to use

Cliffjumper's glass gas to weaken the steel,

making it vulnerable to regular weapons fire.

Cliffjumper agrees to assist Starscream with

replicating the formula as Megatron and the others

plan the new attack. At sundown, Razor Claw and

Rampage dispatch the guards, allowing Screamer,

Dive Bomb, and Whisper to deploy the glass gas

bombs. But while the bombs hit their target,

their weapon fire fails to destroy the platform.

It soon becomes an all -out brawl between the

two sides as Megatron and Optimus trade Barb's

While Optimus spots Cliffjumper, he attempts

to destroy the traitor, but Megs takes the hit.

Finally spurred to action, Cliffjumper finishes

the job, destroying the platform and crippling

the Ark. Megatron orders the cons to retreat,

but Optimus and Rage attempts to extract revenge.

Megatron gives Optimus a parting gift before

flying off into the sunset with Cliffjumper,

who finally agrees to join the resistance. I

love this story. I wasn't sure because when I

first got the BotCon set I found it on eBay for

an ungodly amount of money that I will not repeat.

I've said it before so if other people want to

know how much I paid for it they can listen to

other episodes of various shows that I do. When

I first got this I was like oh okay comic you

know cool whatever and I just kind of like left

it in the folder with the with the um the crap.

The certificate of authenticity and then I figured

okay. Well, I'll give it a shot and I love this

book This is probably my favorite comic book

ever This book has such great art It even and

of course, you know, we all know how awesome

Botcon Shattered Glass Rodimus is seeing him

in color in the book on on the panel with the

goatee super freaking awesome and here's where

the Rodimus fanboy is supposed to jump in Oh,

don't worry. I'll have plenty to say about this

comic once I get my turn. I'm letting you rant.

It's just it is just so cool. I mean, I'm just

I know like I know I could drone on so I have

to give people their piece. I mean, it just it

just looks so cool. He actually looks larger

than life in the book than the toy actually does.

I mean, I know they have certain size classes

for the toys, but he just looks so awesome in

this. To let you know how much obsessed I was

with that figure and everything, I actually have

a mini webpage that I put up called Proto Man's

BotCon 2008 Canadian Experience, which is pretty

much a super high detail, extremely high on images,

take on all four days of BotCon while I was there.

And if you look at that first Thursday, which

is the arrival, it's just pretty much me at my

nightstand with the new Rodimus figure. I'll

get to afterwards my take on the story and how

much I liked it and stuff and how it relates

to the Rodimus figure too. So say what you're

saying and I'll get to that after. And again,

I'm looking at the page where Megatron is asking

Cliffjumper if he's alright. Megatron in the

comic... Compared to the toy again looks huge

and his I like the way his wings are in in the

robot form and in the missiles I don't think

they did it justice for the toy is the blue on

the toy just didn't look right for me As far

as the wings go And then when side swipe is recapping

the story my favorite image out of that. I think

it pages 12 and 13 Kind of like the purple sky

and then blur is in the background And I'm not

sure who's next to him But optimus is just coming

out in the purple all combines almost into one

color the only difference is you can tell from

optimus in the sky is his Greenish yellow headlights,

which is so so cool I so wish they would make

a cartoon directly from this comic This would

be so cool to see a cartoon taken directly from

this comic Hate the Starscream figure. I hate

the figure. I hate I hate him in this comic book

though I love that mold doesn't it just doesn't

look right for a Starscream character I know

the whole point of shattered glass is it's you

know Autobots are evil Decepticons are good.

I don't know. It just doesn't doesn't really

do it for me Do you not like the mold or the

deco? I just don't like the way it looks as far

as the deco is for I mean the mold of the toy

is fine I know it's supposed to be an offshoot

of Jet Jetfire or Skyfire or whatever the hell

he's called but My one question is does this

comic book continue anywhere because at the last

page 24 it says not the end Yes, it does where

club comics. Well, it's not it's okay. Well not

really club comics the club Yeah, how it works

is that if you're part of the club, M. Cypher

and Trent Troupe, who are two members of the

club and part of the Transformers community that

are lucky enough to be able to put out some fiction,

they wrote two prost stories, which are pretty

much text stories with selective images, continuing

the fiction of Shattered Glass. One is called

Dungeons and Dinobots, and the other one, to

my knowledge, Oh God, the name escapes me. There's

a second one also. Do -over? I think it's called

do -over. I don't remember any, because I didn't

read it yet. Yeah, do -over. And all of these

you could actually get if you have someone who's

nice enough, who's part of the club to download,

because they come in PDF format. So if you have

Acrobat Media. You can read them easily. Some

of them are really good reads. M -Cypher and

Trent Shoup have written really good stuff in

the past. They wrote a story called, what was

it called, Run Too Far or something, which featured

Scattershot and Jackpot. And that was a great

read. So I assume that these two are just as

great. I never got around to reading them yet.

Also, Protoman, there's other offshoots as well.

First of all, they've got two pieces of foreshadowing

in this comic for their own club comic. Yeah,

the club comic, because of Axiom Nexus, has some

shattered glass characters in it. But that wasn't

what I was thinking of, but I was thinking of

Heatwave. Oh, that's also, yeah, there's that

too. But it's because in the club comic book

there's an Alpha Trion who initially we thought

was, because it's the classics Alpha Trion mold,

we all assumed that it was a good Alpha Trion

and then it turns out it's a shattered glass

Alpha Trion. And then we also got in the club

comic books more suggestions with shattered glass

Rodimus and how he's trying to become leader,

aka the whole Starscream thing with that Rodimus

character. The big thing is we think that the

whole 2010 storyline is going to be focusing

on shattered glass. It is, I think. They've already

started it. Yeah, it's kind of leaning in that

direction because you have to realize how all

these stories kind of centralize themselves,

especially in the club comics, is around those

exclusive figures. So we had five years of those

pink guys, if we want to call them that. Mr.

Nexus Maximus and his crew. So now it's time

to kind of see where they're going to go from

there and if they don't have to stick with a

gang mold of five combiners that kind of force

the story to focus on that, then we could get

some really one shot a year stories and Shattered

Glass could be the start of that. We could get

a new Shattered Glass character every year. That's

the fact figure which would be actually shattered

glass. I think it's actually the it comes across

to me. That's actually the wrap -up of the Saga

of the combiner because that's where heat wave

is being introduced. Yeah comics are going right

now. Yeah. Well heat wave is from the shower

glass universe He's a he's one I mentioned that

I think in one of the former He cameos in the

book too He's on the he's on the wide release

cover and he also cameos on another on another

page as well. Yeah, there is no direct Next issue

No, there's nothing thus far in terms of comic

books of this yet, but I wouldn't worry too much

about it because The club is really short on

fictional material and they really need something

unique to bring in people and a lot of people

have been really Liking this a lot You're not

alone on this Like again, I guess I'll jump into

my thoughts about this was when I went to bach

on 2008 and I picked up all my stuff. I arranged

already with someone to get an extra set of the

Rodimus and Megatron 2 -pack because I'm crazy

and I have to get two of every Rodimus regardless.

Lucky enough I was able to get one through a

great fan in the community named JAlvatron. He

didn't give a crap about his Megatron Rodimus

set and so he was willing to sell it to me at

price that he got. So that was very nice of him

with no profit because he didn't care. Now, my

regret, though, was that when I got the Rodimus,

the first thing I thought in my mind was, OK,

I got the Rodimus, I'll sell the Megatron so

that I could get some of my money back. Because

I didn't really, I think it was $98 for the set,

if I remember it correctly. I'm not too sure.

I think that was it. And I figured I wanted,

I want to get some of my money back, at least,

because I only wanted the Rodimus figure. So

I sold the Megatron. I kept the Rodimus and the

razor claw mini -con that came with it. Then

the mistake happened because I had I transformed

the Rodimus. I put it on my nightstand It was

the Thursday Thursday night. I was tired. It

was 3 a .m Time to read the comic book and when

I read the comic book when I was done at the

last page I closed the comic with said damn that

Megatron is awesome. Why did I get rid of my

double? I really act I actually I'm I'm Not out

of all the transformer fiction I've read, which

is pretty much everything, I have never really

been keen on Decepticons. In general, Decepticons

are usually depicted as very characterless and

boring. With the exception of Beast Wars with

its Predacons, I've never really liked villains.

The movie verse had some interesting villains.

I was a fan of Barricade more so due to the video

games. But as a whole, a lot of Decepticons never

interested me. But it was the first time ever

that I guess when you switch the roles and make

them good guys a lot of these Decepticons interested

me and especially Megatron Megatron was just

so heroic so larger than life like there were

so many panels where he's kind of standing in

these optimist primish poses and it's just like

wow you know like this looks great why did I

get rid of the extra of this figure so I could

have a loose one on my like on my desk at home

or something it was just it's a great figure

I do understand some of the flaws that you feel

that they are, Mike, with the figure, but that

goes back to one of my previous rants that I

talked about, about gang molding, how you don't

like the blue there and stuff. That can't be

helped because if you look at the mold that it

came from, which was the Galvatron or Megatron,

if you will, from Energon, they couldn't... The

green has to go with the green with that one,

so it's the same thing. The blue has to go with

the blue. You can't get the clear blue eyes without

getting the clear blue wings. If you wanted to

change all of that, they probably would have

had to charge like, I don't know, ten bucks more

on the figure for that paint. I'm saying if you

look on page ten of the book... Oh yeah, the

comic can do whatever they want. It's just that

I'm saying for the toy, in order to achieve that

beauty, it would have cost ten bucks more in

paint just right there. So you're telling me

it would have cost 10 bucks more in paint to

try to get a more clear ice blue than the almost

dark blue that we got in the figure. Well, because

I think what they were trying to go with was

they were trying to do something for the eyes.

Because again, look at all the clear blue on

the toy. And think about it if that ice blue

was all over in all the clear blue areas of the

toy, would it have worked? Do you feel? Because

again, it's gang molding. When that toy is made

in the factory, that ice blue is all on one tree.

And everything that's ice blue on that figure

would have been ice blue on that figure would

be everywhere. You know what I think would have

been super awesome as far as the side swipe mold

with the marking through the Autobot symbol?

If it was blood red. That would have been so

cool in the book. That would have been cool.

in just the one panel looking right at you, it

would have been so cool if you had a blood red

scar through the purple Autobot symbol. That

would have been so cool. You know what? It's

a great book. I also like the way that they depict

this Optimus. I mean, we've gotten, I swear to

God, since Jaffcon 2001 was our first ever evil

Optimus Prime, which was the black Optimus. I

think it was called Black Convoy, but not in

the same way that Car Robots did it. We've got

so many evil Optimus Primes throughout the years,

and this one is the only one that's really shown

deranged evil. This guy will just gut you. I

like how he did the Hulk Hogan, puts his hand

to his ear, or auto receptor, whatever you want

to call it, and goes, does anyone have a problem

with that? I don't hear anyone. The art showed

so much character. in in in a transformer that

has a faceplate which i always say is something

that's very difficult to depict you know it's

very hard to pick a character to have like expression

with the faceplate but it is such a good job

with this optimist character and he's menacing

he's crazy he will got you i love the hanging

bodies upside down which is a complete homage

to uh... issue number five of the marvel transformer

comics were shockwave of all the other side down

it's it's just a a great job in trip and uh...

I believe it was, I think it was, was it Benson

-y? I don't know who wrote the book. I'd have

to go dig it up. It might have been Yee. I've

got it right in front of me. I think it was Benson.

I think Benson wrote it. It was Benson did a

great job writing it. Dan did a great job drawing

it. I think it was Don did, Don did one of the

lithos and Alex Milne did the other litho. It

was just a superb job. The whole set, honestly,

one of the best storylines that we've gotten.

from the fun publication sets. I wasn't crazy

about the 2005 story. Even though I'm a humongous

Beast Wars preacher, it was an okay set, the

2006 one. The 2007 set was more just a forced

thing because we just wanted our seekers. And

it's nice to get that little go -bot thing. But

the 2008 story was just something that was fresh,

new, and fun. And even the advertisement that

they gave coming up to that Vodcon saying that

we're going to turn your world upside down. kidding.

They weren't kidding. They gave us something

great. And I guess the one last thing I just

want to mention, I like how they actually made

Seekers in the Autobots by having Blurr, Goldbug,

and Rodimus be the Seekers and kind of like the

Seeker jets, but now they're cars. And you have

now, so I guess the kind of nod there is that

yeah, Rodimus is becoming the Starscream -esque

overthrow character. So that's pretty cool. But

see, I don't really mind the Rotimus characterization

of him that he wants to take over. Oh no, I don't

mind it either. It's almost a nod to everyone

that said Rotimus killed Optimus. It's almost

a nod to all those people where, you know what,

here you go, now you get your chance. He actually

does want to kill Optimus now. Oh yeah, I mean

that and the fact that... The Rodimus character

in the book doesn't, he's not like the G1 sniveling

Starscream. Oh, of course not. He does not grovel

at all. He's quite the, you know what he reminds

me a lot of Headmasters Japan's Scorponok or

Megazarek where he kind of like, he always had

a hidden agenda. He was always, you know, he

was loyal to his leader. but not in a suck -up

way, but at the same time he was planning his

overthrow through many different connections.

That's kind of what happened to Galvatron and

Headmasters, and it's the same thing that I think

is going to happen to Megatron, that's going

to happen to Optimus in this. Well, to jump in

on this with Rodimus, I've got the comic in front

of me. They put the Rodimus bio in the Diamond

comic and it's basically saying that originally

he led a team of mercenaries called the Wreckers,

which basically they were like pirates, you know,

they plunder Cybertron, prey on the weak. And

then he's basically believed in Prime, but didn't

want to answer to anyone. Then Prime hired him

and the Decepticons took out all the Wreckers

except for Rodimus. And Rodimus fought on because

he believed contracts should be honored. He got

recruited because he and his agenda is to eventually

take leadership and then turn the Autobots into

the largest mercenary group the galaxy has ever

seen. Yeah, beautiful. That said on the on the

expect card as well. Yeah, similar to that. Yeah.

The one thing, you know, I will keep drawing

connections with this being the G1. Opposite

universe because the Bizarro world is yeah, but

I mean it's the Marvel Bizarro world specifically

Yeah, if you look at page 5 where you have the

pit and you have rumble there. It's a rumble

just it's almost just like The quintessence in

the movie in the animated movie having hot rod

and cup There's it was a straxis reference more

so but that's another thing about this book that

you could just go panel by panel and see all

the little Cameos and all the little likes it

like you'll see like cyclonus, right? Yes, and

you'll see cyclonus in a color scheme And then

you can just speculate from there. Oh, is it

Psychonus and Rodimus colors? Oh, maybe it's

Blaster colors. Oh, but Psychonus was second

in command when Galvatron was in charge, so maybe

it's Rodimus. And then you'll see Soundwave in

the background. Oh, but he's in white. Oh, so

is it going to be the Soundwave MP3 player in

the iPod white colors? It's really crazy to see

all of that. I mean, even though page five shows

it as a smelting pool, just having them at the

top and then having rumbled down at the bottom

by you know where the where obviously the the

door would drop down or whatever that just reminds

me of of You know the animated movie as I said

It just it looks so much similar and I wish that

they would take Direct the images directly from

this book and make an animated series out of

it well I don't want to like shit on your parade

but I really don't see this getting animated

in any form because I think Hasbro, one thing

is that they have an obsession with how their

properties and names are depicted. So I don't

know how successful they would be at flipping

everything inside out and saying Autobots are

bad, Decepticons are good. I think that would

really confuse a lot of kids. I don't know. I

think that you could do a mere universe episode

of something like this. Oh yeah, I could see

a one shot of this, some kind of internet only

thing, maybe a direct to DVD like movie, but

there's no way I could see a full blown series

of this, like Hasbro getting behind something

like this. I would love to see it, don't get

me wrong. I would love to see something like

that, but from a logical standpoint I really

can't see them. giving us a full series. I could

see a one -shot like maybe like a DVD extra even

or an animated one. I could see even a two -parter

episode of a show because like for instance take

Batman brave in the bowl they did a two -parter

with the mirror universe in the DC universe.

Oh but Bizarro world is a piece of the DC universe

but let's not get into that. Well it's not Bizarro

world it's the earth with the Ultraman and Howlman

and Johnny Quick and those guys. Yeah it's infinite

earths and of course you know Batman and brave

and a bold. I'm sorry sucks. I Hate that cartoon.

I'm gonna argue that with you. Yeah, you won't

this is all things transformers. Damn it Yeah,

let's just let's keep it there. Yeah So lupus

has been awfully quiet. What did you think of

this? Um, okay, so Coming off of the high of

bot chrono seven I was like yeah more classics

and then we get the teaser for The 08 year and

I was like man. This is gonna really gonna suck

and all this I Really I'm not a huge huge fan,

but I like what they've done with it I like all

the little cameos that you see in the comic.

I mean you've got the The color switches for

so many different characters. You've got Am I

correct in thinking this is the first time that

the The custom class figure was included into

the magazine Give me a sec here. Let me think

custom class figure in 2007 was overkill Was

he in the comic? No, he wasn't the custom class

2006 figure was Rumble slash Rumble. Yeah that

one that was no. Yeah, this is the first time

actually you're correct Cool, because then they

didn't they didn't do it in 2005 They didn't

do a custom class though. Yeah, I mean for those

of us that were in the custom class It's nice

little like ooh. Yeah, there's nightbeat Yeah,

and I mean, you know the guy's gonna be dying

at the end of that after the security issue,

but um Yeah, it was It was really cool to see

the role reversals like, you know, oh, start

screen being like, Oh, mighty Megatron actually

meeting it to see prime being I mean, he's got

a line in there that was out of the movie. The

Oh, so one wise that just after reading that

it gave me shivers. But it's I kind of think

that when they made the new movie they might

have channeled a little bit of this prime because

he's so absolutely gory and violent. Yeah, he's

crazy. Oh God, I love it though It works it works

for the heroic movie prime that doesn't work

But for the evil the evil crazy prime in this

universe, it works. Perfect. Yeah, it's very

much so Hey, hey, what what do we see in this?

I mean, we've got that that's I mean, I want

to call my bacta tank, but the tanks of his destroyed

Enemies like you've got the machine wars Starscream

in machine wars colors. You've got Magnificus

I mean who would have seen Magnificus come out?

Yeah, right I you know, I wish that they would

have used the the slope is actually which I know

in Pia's review of Shattered Glass, Optimus said

he doesn't really like it blazoned all over the

cab, but the Till All Are Gone, it would have

been so awesome if it was actually in a bubble

in this book coming out of Optimus, because that

would have been so cool. I think that is such,

coming back to Shattered Glass overall, it is

such an interesting concept as far as role reversal,

and I wish it would do. you know even a direct

-to -video direct -to -dvd release as far as

series it is just so super cool um do we have

any final thoughts on this because we're kind

of coming up on time here don't worry i'll be

quick through mine no i mean no it's fine it

doesn't really matter but i mean just for this

for this portion of the episode it's kind of

running long and i don't want the audio to crap

out okay So do we have any final thoughts on

Shattered Glass BotCon 2008 book? Probably my

favorite of the fiction of the bunch, of the

comics. Toy -wise, ooh, I really liked the classics

first, but it's unfair to include that in my

opinion because it's kind of its own thing of

reasoning. I definitely like the toys. That's

to say, I mean, hey, it's got Rodimus in there.

But no, it's there. It's a beautiful bunch of

figures. And the comic was a really good complement

of that. Definitely a lot better than the way

that the fiction complements all the other fun

publication stuff in the past. I mean, again,

I love Beast Wars to death. But this shattered

glass thing was just so fresh and new, where

the Beast Wars thing, it was kind of something

we almost half already expected. Yeah. You know?

What about the techno? I've got a quick final

thought. This is just regarding the whole Primus

Unicron talk. It's kind of hinted at in this

comic. There's no confirmation, but my speculation

is the dark secret of this universe, especially

considering that rather than sparks, they have

embers, which are negative versions, is that

in this universe, the revelation isn't that they

were created by Primus, but that Unicron is Cybertron

in this reality. That would be crazy. And that's

what broke Optimus Prime. That would be off the

wall crazy. That's what drove them insane. That's

why they've got embers. That's why they're unfamiliar

with the Primus story. What about you, Lupus?

What's your final thoughts? Well, I want to echo

what Tecna said. That definitely crossed my mind

after the whole, you know, Primus, I've never

heard that. We'll have to talk about it later.

It's definitely... foreshadowing for a future

story but out of all of this I mean the comic

just made me wet my whistle for more and if there's

going to be another exclusive figure that's coming

out of this storyline I really really really

want to diagnose this drone with a nurse cap

yeah Unicron .com, I'm sure they'll get on it.

Or one of those garage kid guys, fun publication,

Justy Toys. I'm pretty sure someone will do Impossible

Toys. Alright, we're going to be moving on. Finally,

in this all BotCon comic episode, Proto Man is

going to talk to us about the 2009 comic, Wings

of Honor. Take it away. Ah, Wings of Honor. 2009

book, um... I guess we could say leading up to

this, we got a lot of speculation of what the

story was going to be. I remember when they were

dropping suggestions, a lot of people thought

it was going to be The Wreckers because they

said this comic is going to really wreck and

rule, or they said something like that. Yes,

they did. Of course, that was all bull. We got

an interesting take. There's only so much they

could do with the molds that they have at their

disposal, so we got the story of a young cup.

I guess it's the G1 take of the Elite Guard,

if you will, and their story of that. It's nice

to get some updated toys and some updated molds

of old characters. We finally got a transforming

Banzaitron in the form of the repaint of Mirage,

aka Shock Fleet from Energon and Super Link.

Cup was a remold and repaint of Red Alert. Lot

of little things here and there so I'll just

jump into the story pretty much the story pretty

much starts In it I guess we could take this

as this whole thing is based within the g1 continuity

g1 cartoon continuity But it's kind of a what

-if because the story opens up with it during

the transformers the movie unit like story when

Hot Rod and cup being are being attacked by the

sweeps and and cyclonus mm -hmm So they're being

attacked by them, and this is like when it was

happening in the movie where it's like They're

closing on us. You know the stripe bats of Dramadon

and you know all that shit So when that was going

down? It's kind of like a what -if like okay,

so instead of cyclone is taking out cup and hot

rod shuttle They managed to get away and hide

in an asteroid belt And then now it's like, oh,

we got away, so let's tell a story. The only

interesting dimension is that the mode that he's

in, like the mold that he's in in this comic,

is they're using his Universe Legends mold, which

is interesting. I guess it's a nice take. And

also we have a shot of Grimlock who's holding

a petro rabbit, but a stuffed animal of it. Just

kind of cute. So they all sit around Cup and

they all get ready to hear Cup tell a story while

they manage to get away from Cyclonus and the

crew from knocking them onto the planet Quintessa,

which would have happened. So it's a what if.

What if, pretty much, they got away. So Cup tells

his story. And he tells his story of the elite

guard and how he got his wings of honor. And

so it tells of a young Cup and how he's on his

first, he was recently enlisted, and he's on

a ship called the Eight Track, which is led by

their commander of this ship called Thunder Blast,

excuse me, Thunder Clash, which is based on the

UK toy of the same name. And they used obviously

the Rotomus Energon mold for this. So, you know,

he's the commander of this crew and he's joined

by Flak, who is a homage to the Micro Master

of the same name. And the new character, Landshark,

which a lot of the fans were getting behind just

because of his name. So they're on this ship

and they're just doing routine patrols and stuff

because this is just before the Great War was

starting. And then they get a transmission from

their, like, their upper commander. which is

a guy named Magnum, who looks a lot like Ultra

Magnus, actually. But it's not Ultra Magnus.

It's picture Ultra Magnus, but with extra antennas

coming out of his ears, I guess, if you want

to call it that way, to the side. He looks a

lot like Magnus, but it isn't Magnus. It's just

Magnum. Maybe it's Magnus' daddy or something.

I don't know. They never really specify who this

character is. We just know his name is Commander

Magnum. Anyways, so Magnum calls in. And he says

that there's, you know, you guys are the closest

in this vicinity. We have a problem. You know,

there's this unknown Decepticon that has appeared,

and he seems to be their leader, and he's kicking

some serious ass, and they show a picture of

Megatron, you know, like killing some shit. And

they're like... It's Beast Wars all over again.

Yeah, and so they're pretty much just like, we

have an urgent mission for you. One of our crew

was sent to deliver this important package. But

they crash landed on this planet called Beta

9. And we need you to go get this important package.

If this package falls into the wrong hands, the

war will be over. This is a very crucial package.

And when you get this package, do not by any

means open it. This package is more important

than anything. And it's locked in this special

container. Again, it's cool. They're going to

Beta 9. Again, going back to the original movie

where Cup was talking about the attack on Beta

9. It's really giving life to all of Cup's old

war stories that he was talking about in the

movie. They agree to this and so they decide

to go to Beta 9. On their way to about to land

on Beta 9, they're obviously ambushed by some

Decepticons and they crash on Beta 9. Their ship

is now pretty much completely destroyed, and

they're all stranded. They don't know what to

do. So we have some arguments happening between

Landshark and Thunder Clash about how they shouldn't

just abandon the mission. And Thunder Clash is

a very heroic leader character. The way that

they make him talk is interesting, too. I'm curious

of how this character's Thunder Clash's accent

is, because when he says, sir, he says, sa. Like,

OK, sa. So I think he has kind of like a southern

accent. Couldn't it be a British accent too?

Or possibly British, but it's interesting because

certain words he pronounces like that. Wouldn't

a British accent make sense given he was a Hasbro

Europe exclusive? Yeah, I never thought of it

that way. Yeah, that's very possible. It would

probably actually lead into another character's

way of how they talk too later in the book. That's

actually a very good observation. I didn't think

of that. Because so anyways, so they decide to

stick together and they got to find this this

Container that's so important and the crashed

ship that crashed with it So they start searching

around and then some Decepticons swoop by and

attack and it's a bunch of jets they which we

don't see very well and cup gets separated from

the group he crashes and What is happening is

you know thunder crashes like we have to leave

them. You know we have to find this package It's

crucial. You know the war is everything As they

move, march forward, they finally get met by

this group of jets. The group of jets is led

by Lyozak and two other jets, which are Skyquake

and a jet that's colored like Hooligan of the

G2 namesake. Now again, Lyozak, how he is depicted

in his talking and his speech bubbles is because

Lyozak is a Japanese toy, he is extremely Japanese.

In every panel that Wyozak is in, he even has

Japanese anime gimmetry, meaning he has the face

-changing gimmick, where they'll have weird facial

expressions, or even the sweat drop, like the

humongous sweat drop over his head. I kid you

not. They did that with him. Where when he is

frustrated, he'll have the sweat drop over his

head, and when he talks, he talks very Japanese.

That pretty shouts his attacks? Yeah, when he

made his first appearance he goes, great power

rocket swarm attack, which is very typical of

a big skirmish ensues and thunderclash, flak

and land shark fight back. And while they're

doing that, we then go to the separated cup,

who's all alone. And so Cup is alone and he's

like, ah damn, I gotta get up, you know, thank

God for my double -jointed arms, you know, which

is again a nod to the original script of the

Transformer movie where Cup was mentioned to

be double -jointed. Also because of Hot Rod's...

Repair job. Repair job of him. And then we end

up finding that Cup is being attacked by Banzitron.

And Banzai Tron seems to do a very crappy job

because Cup manages to throw them away. And then

Cup ends up getting attacked from behind by two

more of the same Seeker Jet molds, which are

Guy. And the other one is Hellbat, which is two

more of the Lyo -Zack, Lyo -Kaiser pieces. And

again these two also like kind of have some Japanese

look to them so Lyozak He excuse me not Lyozak

a hellbat he attempts to hypnotize cup to put

him into submission Because which is a homage

to help one of hell bats abilities because he

was able to hypnotize people in the victory cartoon

Listen and then homage to my Excuse me isn't

that also an homage to mind wipe from report

my mind wipe for the headmaster There was a lot

of transforming characters that were bats that

kind of possessed this ability and soundwave

possessed it so What ended up happening is before

a cup gets fully hypnotized a giant lizard comes

out of nowhere and swallows hellbat Which kind

of seemed out of nowhere, but it happens. I don't

know why it happened. It just did The whole point,

I think, of this was because as this is all happening,

we have the speech bubbles of how Cup is telling

the story to Hot Rod and the Dinobots. What happens

in the panels differs from how Cup tells the

story. It's kind of showing the geriatric, he's

flowering what really happened to what actually

happened. He gets rescued by this giant lizard

who swallows Hellbat and then Cup runs away.

Banzai Tron and what's left of the other crew

chase after him Then we go back to you know,

the skirmish that's going on between Thunder

Clash and company against Lyozak and company

We find that they're still trying to find cup

because he's you know, probably closer to the

container and we have you know, you know Skyquake

going we have to go after him and then we have

Lyozak going hi commando, you know Again, it's

more of a homage to him being Japanese and stuff.

It's funny because the way he's drawn is very

Japanesey as opposed to the rest of the art.

We then find Cup. He found the crashed ship and

he enters the crashed ship and he sees that everyone

is dead in the ship, but he doesn't know why.

He says, well, if everyone's dead in the ship,

how come they didn't steal the container? This

would have been a Decepticon attack. He ends

up finding the container with a dead creature

having its tentacles wrapped around it. And these

tentacles are all too familiar tentacles from

the G1 continuity. Oh, is this what I think it

is in terms of the Marvel comics? Well, no, this

is all based on the cartoon continuity. Oh, OK.

It's the Quintesson tentacles wrapped around,

but it's a dead Quintesson. Oh, it's a Quintesson.

I thought it was chaos. No, it wasn't so I thought

it was the matrix creature. No, no, no, it isn't

it isn't it's just a dead quintesson pretty much

and so what ends up happening is he picks up

he picks up this this container and He's told

not to open it under any means in any circumstances

And so he agrees and he does that and he leaves

with the container, but as he's leaving lo and

behold They're attacked again you know, by Bludgeon

and company, not Bludgeon, by Bonsitron. And

Bonsitron is like, you know, hand me the container

and then Thunderclash comes to help him out.

Everyone gets separated and then Cup finds another

container nearby that looks similar and he gets

an idea. So when Bonsitron gets close to him,

he says, give me the container and he hands Bonsitron

the container and runs off. Bonsitron opens the

container to find that it's actually Cups got

inside set on overload to explode. The gun explodes

in Bonsai Tron's face he falls back and then

you know Thunder Clash and everyone shows up

and arrests all the Decepticons there. As we

have Thunder Clash arresting the Decepticons

it then pans right back to inside the shuttle

where Cup is telling the story and lo and behold

Cyclones and everyone finally caught back up

with the shuttle with scourge in it But now it's

a different take from the movie instead of cyclone

is taking out the engines He actually breaches

the shuttle with Scourge and his sweeps much

to Grimlock's happiness Grimlock and the dyno

bots transform and rip the shit out of excuse

me. I shouldn't have sword just ripped the slag

out of out of Scourge in them. They are beat

up heavily to the point where we have all that's

left is Scourge just like walking around on it

and all beat up and then Cup throws his gun at

Scourge and Scourge holds it and lo and behold

the gun is overloading and it blows up in Scourge's

face. In the end, it's just the Dinobots and

Cup and Hot Rod standing over the beaten debris

that is Cyclonus and Scourge and the Sweeps,

which is a different take on what would have

happened in the movie, where they would have

crashed on Quintessa. Very much so. After that

happens, then they go back, and then Cup's like,

okay, let me finish the story now, now that this

little battle is done, and it shows that they're

in... Commander Magnum's office saying you guys

have done a great thing How you know this this

package is more important than anything that

the war could ever need And to you know and while

we can never speak of this story ever Because

it's super it's like beyond classified top secret

We want you know Autobot High Command want to

award you the wings of honor, which is the highest

rank that we could give. And so he sticks the

wings of honor on all the members, which is Thunderclash,

Flak, Landshark, and Cup. And it's the Autobot

Elite Guard logos, pretty much. And then Hot

Rod then turns to Cup and goes, so whatever happened

to that container, Cup? I mean, what was in it?

And Cup's like, I never found out, lad. But whatever

it was, I hope it did what it was supposed to

do. And then they show Alpha Trion, or A3, opening

that container. And it's the Matrix of Leadership

shining back. And he has the blueprints for Optimus

Prime behind him. Is that actually in the book?

Yes. OK, I definitely saw that comment. It's

a foreshadowing. So pretty much it's before A3

created Optimus Prime and gave the Matrix to

him. Okay, I definitely want that book it so

it's a it's it's interesting because and that's

how it ends It's interesting because the story

itself seems like a what -if a different take

of how the movie would have been Like that main

story with the shuttle because it's it's straight

out of that where they're being chased by cyclonus

and Galvatron in the swoops But the end result

is different because they end up kicking the

hell out of them but what's interesting is just

the whole prequel story of it and suggesting

to you know How the matrix was was brought to

Alpha Trion and how important it was and it's

just I love that kind of stuff any kind of prequel

Material it's a it's a great little book You

know, it's it's not the best of stories, but

it's a nice little touch that they did I like

that it ends with that I would have liked to

know more about this commander Magnum character.

He's kind of like They show a lot of him, but

they don't mention a lot about him One weird

thing is in commander Magnum's office. He has

a photo of chromia Which is weird, so I'm curious

what if he's related to her in some way I'd like

to know who this character is because is he ultra

Magnus? Is he not ultra Magnus? Is he a pre ultra

Magnus? I don't know but It's really interesting,

you know I like the little nods in it. I like

how they handled Lyozak, how he was very Japanese

-y is the best way to put it. I mean, there's

this one panel where Landshark is punching him

in the face and he just has the humongous Japanese

-like anime gaping expression with the big sweat

drop on the side of him and that's just a complete

nod. All of his font for his lines in the comic

are done in a very Japanese calligraphy style.

Well, everyone just has regular English font.

Right. So he's, you know, they're really playing

out that he was based on a Japanese character

and he's very Japanese. Right. Like one of his

lines is, you had a good fight, but it was ultimately

futile. The righteous glory of the septicons

will make us invincible. You know, something

completely out of like a bad samurai movie, you

know, or wasn't Leo's act the only figure that

sold the figure that sold out almost immediately?

Well, the reason why there's there's there's

because of that. There's a double edge to that.

Part of the reason why Leo Zach sold out was

that, on top of him being the free figure, they

had a very enticing deal at BotCon 2009. At the

club store, if you bought the BotCon 2000 set

Descent to Evil box set, Which, by the way, was

the worst selling box set of BotCon Fund publication

to date. They have so many left over, it's not

funny. But they were so desperate to get rid

of it that if you buy a BotCon 2007 box set,

for I believe it was $298 American, you will

get not one, but two free Lyozaks. Two, if you

bought the box set. So that actually, for a lot

of people it was like, wow, you buy the box set

and then you put those two Lyozaks on eBay and

you paid for your box set. Easy. And then you

still get to keep your own Lyozak that you got

from your direct box set that you got. So a lot

of people went to BotCon. and left with the 2009

box set, the extra figures, their Lyozak, and

then the 2005 box set, and then two more Lyozaks.

So they left with three. And that's why it sold

out, because a lot of people bid onto that offer.

You know? See, I kind of want Lyozak, if only

because I don't have the mold, the colors look

neat, plus the fact that he's a totally Japanese

character. Oh yeah, it's great what they did

with him. I like that they went in that direction.

And now that I think more about Thunderclash,

you're completely correct, techno, about how

his voicing was done. It was probably done in

a UK idea. The other characters, you know, Flak

is represented as the guy with guns, you know,

and Landshark is depicted as the guy with the

fists. He's the tough guy who uses his fists.

Flack is the guy with the guns, and Thunderclash

is the commander character who's kind of generic.

So all we had was kind of young Cup, and young

Cup is very much a young Cup. He's very, I guess

the word is, eager to please. He's very, yes

sir, okay sir, anything you say sir. He was very

happy just to be on the first, because this is

like his first mission in this comic. And it

was a very important one at that. So anyways.

That's my take on it, and it's a good one. Again,

I still think the Shattered Glass one is the

best of the bunch, but this is a pretty good

book, too. It's got its nice share of hot rod,

which is nice, to give a biased opinion, but

I still think the Shattered Glass book is better.

But if you want some good old G1 prequel story,

and this is where you get it at. And the only

follow -up story to this, I guess if you want

to really be anal about that, is on the BotCon

website, Dr. Smoove, who's done a lot of CG on

YouTube of Transformer stuff, did the cup advertising

the Elite Guard. Yeah, the Elite Guard videos.

So, and technically in continuity, That's after

this comic happens. This is after now cup is

part of the lead guard. So now he's advertising

it So that's the only follow -up fiction we could

give you is that little clip there Very cool,

and we are going to be moving on