A car finds its owner while others look for the All Spark.
Synopsis[]
Over a million years ago, Cybertron was destroyed by war and the All Spark was launched into space, with Megatron in pursuit. Its course was altered to Earth. In 1897, on an Arctic expedition, Captain Archibald Witwicky falls through the ice and discovers a frozen Megatron. When the captain chips at the ice covering Megatron's face, light from Megatron's eyes blind Witwicky, but burn a map of the All Spark into his glasses.
One hundred ten years later in Qatar, an unidentified helicopter previously thought shot down is forced to land at a military base. The helicopter is actually the Decepticon Blackout, who transforms and delivers a devastating pulse wave to the base before attempting to access files on Project Iceman. When the military cut the line and attack, Blackout deploys Scorponok into the sand, who follows a team that escapes while Blackout destroys the base. The team follows power lines to a village, but power is cut when one of the polls is sucked into the sand. Soldier Donnelly notices spikes poking through the sand and fires upon them, but they quickly disappear and Scorponok impales him from behind.
In Tranquility, U.S.A., Sam Witwicky fruitlessly attempts to sell his great grandfather's property on ePay before his father takes him out to buy a car. Salesman Bobby Bolivia sees a Camero that he didn't know was on the lot which beeps at Sam. He sells it to the Witwickys for four grand and Sam drives off. Later that evening he offers Mikaela a ride home after she fights with her boyfriend. The Camero stalls and Mikaela fixes the distributor cap. At night, Sam's car drives off and he gives chase on bicycle, while informing the police on his cell phone. He sees the car transform into Bumblebee and shine an Autobot beacon into the sky. Bumblebee saves Sam from some attack dogs and honks at Sam, who runs away. The police arrive and arrest Sam, mistaking him for the thief. At the police station, Sam explains what he saw to a disbelieving officer before his father takes him home.
Aboard Air Force One, flying over Virginia, a radio boom box transforms into Frenzy and attempts to access files and plants a virus. When discovered and attacked, he deploys shuriken which kill several agents and converts back into the boom box to avoid detection. After landing, Frenzy sneaks off and rendezvous with Barricade in police car mode. He reveals information that matches Captain Witwicky to Sam's ePay transaction and Barricade downloads Sam's address.
Featured characters[]
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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Errors[]
- Printing alignment errors throughout issue.
Items of note[]
- On page 10, Sam has a Kremzeek figure on his desk. In addition, the eBay logo on his computer screen has been changed to "ePay", possibly to avoid accusations of product placement.
- On page 20, posters on a wall in Sam's room reference G.I. Joe and real-life fansite TFW2005.
- "Bonus material 1.0": Pull-out poster of Blackout, Autobot logo pin-up, Frenzy pin-up, interview with producer Tom DeSanto and movie toy gallery.
Differences with movie[]
- Based on earlier versions of the movie's script, the issue starts with Archibald Witwicky's discovery of Megatron. In the final movie, the scene was shown as a flashback at two later points, split into two parts.
- During Blackout's attack on the SOCCENT base, a soldier cuts the hard lines with an axe, rather than Colonel Sharp doing it himself. (Also, Sharp doesn't look a lot like Glenn Morshower.)
- During Blackout's entire attack on the base, only one single shot is ever fired at him.
- Based on earlier versions of the script, Sam's home city is identified as "Tranquility". In the movie itself, it never gets named.
- Sam is trying to sell his great-grandfather's glasses via the fictional "ePay" rather than its real life counterpart eBay.
- Bobby Bolivia doesn't look a lot like Bernie Mac either. His giant afro is particularly noteworthy. This may be because IDW may not have been able to secure Bernie Mac's likeness.
- Bumblebee doesn't need to damage any cars. Bolivia is easily convinced to lower the price when Sam's dad threatens not to buy the Camaro.
- A discussion between Lennox and his crew while being chased by Scorponok takes place at night rather than in broad daylight.
- Miles complaining about Bumblebee's color was cut from the regular version of the movie, but was included in the extended IMAX edit.
- Rather than Mikaela walking away from Trent, Trent leaves her behind after a quarrel. (We don't know what exactly it was about, since we see it from Sam and Miles's point of view while they are still sitting inside Bumblebee.) Sam decides to take her home without Bumblebee having to "help" him come to that decision. What exactly happens to Miles is unclear.
- Operators on board Air Force One detect Frenzy's intrusion into their network on their own. Maggie is never seen at all (which eventually leads to a bizarre error in issue 3).
- Barricade is parked quite some distance from Air Force One, which raises the question how Frenzy is supposed to have passed that distance unnoticed. (It bordered on unrealistic in the movie, but it's flat out hilariously unrealistic in the comic version.)
- Frenzy subsequently also has a conversation with Barricade. In the movie itself, Barricade never responded at all.
- The telephone pole Scorponok takes down is of the wooden kind, rather than being a huge steel construct.
Covers (3)[]
Not a cover of Death Note.
- Regular Cover: Wraparound cover of most major movie characters by Alex Milne
- Cover RI-A: Sketch of cover A, uncolored
- Cover RI-B: Photo of Frenzy over lightened sketch cover
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