Departure

« Transformers: The Wreckers No. 1 » «
"Departure"
Publisher	3H Productions
Cover date	July 13, 2001 (BotCon 2001)
Story	Glen Hallit
Script	Glen Hallit
Art	Dan Khanna
Lettering	Richard Starkings and Comicraft
Editor	Rob Gerbracht, Jon Hartman, Dan Khanna
Continuity	3H Beast Wars continuity

The Oracle gathers a motley crew of Transformers and sends them on various missions.

Synopsis

In the near future, Daniel Witwicky (now grown to adulthood) and Wheelie are killed while engaged in a battle against a horde of Nightbirds. This sends Daniel's friend Arcee into a deep state of depression. Rodimus and Springer talk about undergoing the Maximal Upgrade.

Three hundred years later on Vehicon-controlled Cybertron, Optimus Primal and Nightscream are transporting the three Deployers while under attack from Vehicons. They are rescued by Ramulus and Primal Prime, who take them to meet the rest of the Wreckers team. Apelinq recounts for Optimus their mutual battle against Shokaract, which Optimus does not fully remember.

In the Oracle chamber, the Wreckers are joined by the Mutants and Dinobots. The Oracle, after propounding vaguely at length, sends the three teams on a series of missions. Optimus and Nightscream are deemed to "have witnessed too much", and their memories of these meetings are purged.

Meanwhile, Megatron has created two new Vehicon generals to hunt down these new wayward Cybertronians.

The Wreckers meet up with Rodimus, who has been trying to convince the morbid Arcee to join them. After she bids them leave, Fractyl gives it one last try, to which Arcee is more open... only for Fractyl to get blown away by the arriving Vehicon generals. Furious, Arcee blasts Quake and Blastcharge out of the way and attempts to heal Fractyl.

Apelinq remorselessly steals someone else's catchphrase. ("Choom")

Looking for a starship, the Wreckers arrive at Shuttle Complex Ohm in Dodecahex, only to find it overrun with Vehicons under Spy Streak's command. A battle ensues. The arrival of the Wreckers' air support (Cyclonus, Skywarp, and Rotorbolt), as well as Arcee and the newly-Transmetalized Fractyl, turns the tide against the Vehicons. Blastcharge gets sliced in half by Fractyl while Tigatron vaporizes Quake. The Wreckers escape on the shuttle, leaving Spy Streak trapped in the rubble as Cyclonus detonates explosives that destroy the entire complex. Megatron observes their escape and advises them to run while they can.

In space, the Wreckers have little time to relax, as a stowaway has showed up and started beating up passengers for no apparent reason. He says his name is Devcon...

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in the past or in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Characters mentioned but not seen include: the Covenant and the Dinobots.

Continuity notes

• "Depature" and the following issue, "Betrayal", will make a number of references to plot points and events from the Sunbow The Transformers cartoon. This is in contrast to the previous Shokaract stories, which nodded more to the Marvel The Transformers comics.
• Doctor Fujiyama the Famous Scientist and the Nightbirds previous appeared in "Enter the Nightbird". Apparently he learned zilch since then.
• In 3H continuity, the Great Upgrade began almost immediately after the Pax Cybertronia is signed.
• Springer refers to Rodimus as "kid", causing him protests he's Rodimus "now", taking up his former name as a Prime. Whoever is running the Autobots (presumably a resurrected Optimus) goes unmentioned.
• The majority of this story takes place during the second season of Beast Machines.
• Amusingly, Optimus Primal realizes that Primal Prime uses his old body, the Primal Prime toy being a redeco of Optimal Optimus, but fails to note the same with Apelinq, who is a redeco of Transmetal Optimus Primal.
• It's only here that we learn people did not die in a big explosion when Shokaract went up in "Departure". Instead, transwarp portals were opened to get everyone to safety between panels! It's not stated who opened them, though. The panel art implies Soundwave is opening at least one.
• Many new characters are protoforms abandoned on Earth after the Beast Wars, explaining what happened to all those pods launched at the start of the Beast Wars cartoon.
• The Oracle's memory wipe of Primal and Nightscream is intended to make sure this issue doesn't conflict with the events of the Beast Machines cartoon. Within the story, however, it is so that Optimus continues on his path of the technorganic reformatting of Cybertron-which the Quintessons believed would let them conquer it, as shown in later issues.
• Blastcharge is a noted to have been a Decepticon who fought back in the Great War.
• Fractyl mentions that he has lost a friend, which is almost certainly in reference to his fellow BotCon Pred Vice Grip, while it was never confirmed, it's likely this plotline was meant to be seen in the "Primeval Dawn" back-up stories.
• Alpha Trion sacrificed himself to reactivate Vector Sigma, as shown in "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 2", and would later appear as a spirit in the Matrix in "The Rebirth".

Transformers references

• The shuttle that the Autobots, minus Daniel and Wheelie, use to escape the horde of Nightbirds is actually the Autobot Sky Garry from Return of Convoy. The transport it drops is a Micro Trailer, though here, there's nothing "micro" about it!
• One of the viewers of the fireworks after the Pax Cybertronia is wearing the "Datsun" body type of Prowl and his moldmates.
• As Arcee looks sullenly at the image of her and Daniel, the weapons seen mounted on the wall nearby are Hot Rod's photon pistols (drawn to toy-accurate specifications), and the laser-sword and shield he used during his duel with the auto-combatant in The Transformers: The Movie.
• For Rodimus, undergoing the Maximal Upgrade means a change from his original cartoon character model, magenta coloration and all, to an accurate rendering of his original Generation 1 toy.
• The Wreckers are a squad of Autobot commandos from the Marvel UK The Transformers comic.

• Ramulus and Primal Prime pinch Action Master Optimus Prime's big entry in Marvel's The Transformers issue "#80". Primal Prime will later borrow an Ultra Magnus pose from The Transformers: The Movie.
• Ramulus is depicted with his colors from an unreleased running change to his toy.
• Quake's drones are all modeled on the original toy of Beast Machines Tankor.
• The Mutants are noted to be failed experiments of Megatron, originally stated in their toy bios. Similarly, the Dinobots (or at least their alt-modes) are creations of the Oracle, as stated in their bios.
• The story takes a stand on fandom's "Was it Bombshell or Skywarp who became Cyclonus?" debate by having Skywarp standing next to him.
• Rotorbolt is a redeco of Beast Machines Obsidian, Devcon is a redeco of Beast Machines Mirage, and Fractyl's upgraded body is a redeco of Beast Wars Transmetal Terrorsaur. All of these, along with the running change colors Ramulus, were planned redecoes by 3H at one time or another. Packrat, meanwhile, is a repurposing of a Wal-Mart exclusive redeco of Beast Wars Transmetal Rattrap.
• The body shown to Alpha Trion at the end has Beast Machines Snarl's head on Beast Wars II Lio Convoy's body, with the (ridiculous) weapon of Beast Wars Prowl floating besides it. That's three different lions at once!

Real-world references

• The Nightbirds are functionally identical to each other, but their accent colors vary between blue, orange, red, and purple, referencing the bandanas of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Errors

• Cybertron's population is seen celebrating the new peace on page 7, but this is several months after the treaty. Is it a really long party?
• When the Oracle is first addressing the crowd, all the text in the speech bubble ("It will soon be...") is repeated in the next bubble.
• The Oracle consistently refers to T-Wrecks as "T-Rex".
• Optimus and Nightscream have their memories wiped, but they'd travelled 100 kilometres in search of the Deployers, who are now with the Wreckers, so shouldn't this lengthy gap and lost equipment leave them with more questions than it prevents?
• Becoming a Transmetal was unprecedented until the Beast Wars and was presented as something that required transwarp explosions or weird science, yet Arcee became one centuries ago!
• After Quake and Blastcharge burst in on Fractyl and Arcee, a speech bubble that should be pointing to Quake (in the background) is instead assigned to one of his drones (in the foreground).

Production notes

• This was Glen Hallit's first piece of writing and in 2014, he would admit he took the reins because it was costing more each time to get Simon Furman to write all the con stories. Daniel's death was written because 3H wanted to make Arcee a more tragic character and, due to her close connection to Danny boy, the Hallits figured this was the best way to do it. "I admit they could have used a better polish to tighten up the stories and perhaps now that I've matured, I would have written things differently."^[1]
• This issue debuted at BotCon 2001. The Wreckers title would be rebranded as part of the Universe storyline in 2004.
• This issue also contained "Primeval Dawn Part 1" as a backup story.
• The inside cover has a row of insignias. The Decepticons are left out but the Blendtron symbol is here, as referencing a then-little seen anime passed on by internet rumours is the sort of thing 90s and early 00s nerds loved.

Covers (2)

• Regular cover: Several of the Wreckers watched by Megatron, in a homage to a Beast Machines promo poster, by Mainframe Entertainment.
• Tigatron exclusive cover: A homage to Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Dan Khanna after Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum.

References

External links

• "Departure" online at Botcon Archives