The One Where They Go to Earth

« The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye #43 »
Red Alert took one look at these guys and ran like hell.
"The One Where They Go to Earth"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	July 29, 2015
Cover date	July 2015
Written by	James Roberts
Pencils by	Alex Milne
Inks by	Alex Milne and Brian Shearer
Colors by	Joana Lafuente
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era (2015)

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

Synopsis

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

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

Ted, Sheldon, and Jerry, it turns out, have locked themselves out of their apartment, and as Bluestreak works on opening their door for them, Skids confides to Rung that he did not even know what room Swerve lived in on board the ship; he had only found him by remembering which hab-suite Swerve's old roommate Red Alert had lived in. Swerve had, he reveals, actually been locked in his room for months, his body slowly degrading, interacting with others only through avatars, and nobody ever came to visit him. Hoping for a clue, Tailgate jumps to the newest issue of More than Meets the Eye, where the recap page narrated by Swerve explains what happened: exposure to the energies of Brainstorm's time-machine briefcase have created a time-loop in Swerve's holomatter systems, giving him the notionally impossible ability to project something as complex as the planet, which has been shaped into a world of fiction-made-real due to the metafictional awareness Swerve has been increasingly suffering from since he was hit with Brainstorm's meta-bomb. Realizing that the comic is a case of Swerve's subconscious trying to reach out to them, Rung looks for more such subtle clues... and finds one staring him right in the face, as Ted, Sheldon, and Jerry's apartment turns out to have the same number as Swerve's hab-suite. Rung speaks Swerve's name aloud, and the three men all turn around, then suddenly blur together, condensing into Swerve's familiar—if very surprised-looking—avatar.

Rodimus's team is in a nearby bar, talking about Earth and humans; Megatron is struggling to get to grips with the human condition, never having used an avatar before, and is struck by the fragility of the body when he cuts his hand on a broken glass after Nautica tries to tickle him. Rodimus gets an update from Cyclonus's team, but it's not good news: Swerve is unable to tell them where his real body is injured, so that the life-saving surgery can be performed. Rung theorizes that the three avatars were a program glitch that split the different facets of his personality into separate individuals while Tailgate realizes that Swerve is suppressing his pain because he's found his "happy place" and doesn't want to leave. Swerve glumly explains that he has been thinking a lot about sitcoms lately, and how the "sitcom" of his life has changed since the beginning of "season 2", with him no longer playing the role of a "main character", causing him to retreat into isolation. Cyclonus saves the day by revealing that the entire crew of the Lost Light is actually helping to search "Swearth" for him—that while Swerve may not feel like a "main character", he is important to everyone. Elated with this news, Swerve finds that his shoulder is suddenly beginning to bleed in the shape of an Autobot symbol, denoting the location of his real-life wound.

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

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

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

—Tailgate and Cyclonus grapple with resources to understand the continuity of More than Meets the Eye

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

—Rodimus sends a text, but Tailgate critiques his form

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

—Rodimus and Megatron

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

—The Swearth theme song

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

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

—Rodimus and Bluestreak

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

—Cyclonus and Swerve

Notes

Continuity notes

• Rung is using the holomatter avatar design from the cover of issue #13, rather than the less-glamorous version from inside the issue itself. The earlier design appears in the "title sequence". On the other hand, Ultra Magnus uses the avatar based on Verity Carlo's Infiltration-era design he used in issue #13 and issue #31, instead of the Last Stand of the Wreckers Verity design used on the issue #13 cover. Swerve's avatar is now wearing a white shirt instead of a red one, but that's for plot purposes so the bloodstain can show up properly on it.
• And speaking of Rung, poor ol' fella... even the title sequence spells his name "Rong"! This particular misspelling is a callback to issue #22 and Rung's old I.D. card, where we first learned his full name...which is spelled wrong.
• Tailgate's avatar is a bigger baby than last time (bordering on toddler), reflecting that he's aged up a few years.
• Rodimus and Bluestreak discuss that the former sounds different "in human mode", indicating that Transformers will alter their voices to fit their avatars. This hadn't been stated either way before, raising questions; for example, if IDW Bumblebee sounded like Lindsey Lohan or if Dan Gilvezan's voice came out of her holo-mouth.
• First Aid is departing to go and be in the "Combiner Wars" crossover over in The Transformers and Windblade, which took place a couple of months before this issue was published. Though not mentioned in dialogue, we also see the sick Mirage go with him, and Groove is sitting on the shuttle too; the other Protectobots-to-be are off-panel.
• Tailgate references the departures of Fortress Maximus and Red Alert (both in issue #21), Drift (issue #16), Ratchet (issue #41), and even Bob, who left in the big reshuffle after "Dark Cybertron".
• Swerve opening Brainstorm's briefcase never happened on panel, but in issue #21's prose story "The Sound of Breaking Glass", Brainstorm did express concern (towards Swerve himself, of all people) that someone had opened the case after it had been blasted off his wrist the previous issue (the spring-loaded clasps had previously been removed by Getaway to create makeshift tools for escaping the cell they had been trapped in). Swerve had previously vowed to see what was inside the case in issue #16.
• Ted, Sheldon, and Jerry (see "Pop-culture references", below) each reflect a facet of Swerve's personality: Ted the priest is an embodiment of his intermittently-mentioned religiosity (most prominently featured in issue #31), Sheldon the dermatologist refers to his function as a metallurgist, the equivalent of "skin" for a Transformer (Tailgate knew the job by the title "skin specialist" all the way back in issue #2), and Jerry the stand-up comedian is his joking slacker side. Jerry really lays into Ted and Sheldon, accusing the former's faith of not being strong enough and the latter of not doing anything important with his skills, encapsulating Swerve's self-worth issues.

Foreshadowing galore.

• Swerve activated Brainstorm's meta-bomb back in issue #15.
• Nightbeat mentions having been to Earth's orbit, back in Escalation. However, see "Errors", below.
• Swerve has been used for the "Previously" recaps since issue #29. We now learn these pages are not just a joke but that Swerve has actually been delivering these in the world of the comic, a side effect of the meta-bomb. This would also explain the two pages of recap last issue: not just reminding us about them, but subtly telling us Swerve is getting worse. As an aside, these recap pages have usually been left out of the trade paperback collections, but the second story in volume 8 (which is issue #40) keeps its recap page, so that people who are only reading the trades still get the joke.
• Tailgate realizes that Swerve has used "Rungian Re-Experience Therapy" (aka "finding your happy place"), first mentioned in a discussion between the pair in issue #12.
• First Aid learned about Agent 113 and his method of delivering messages in "Bullets".
• Okay, step back a second. ALL THE WAY BACK in frigging "Chaos", the first time Roberts wrote Swerve in a comic scene (he'd written him earlier in the prose-only "Bullets"), Swerve's left shoulder had a piece of metal riveted over it. Nothing was made of it at the time, but later references were made to him having an "old injury" in issue #21 and issue #29—the issues, you'll note, in which we now know he opened Brainstorm's briefcase, and in which the "Swerve recap page" first appeared, respectively. We now know that metal patch was his own quick-and-dirty fix job for this wound. In addition to that, back in issue #13, Swerve mentioned (in response to Ultra Magnus asking where his badge was) that his insignia "got damaged". And on top of all that, we were made aware that Swerve had encountered the D.J.D. in issue #4 when Pipes mentioned it to Ratchet offhandedly. Phew. Pheeeeeeeeeeeew.
• What's more, in issue #4, Pipes claimed that Swerve hadn't been able to speak for a whole six months following his encounter with the D.J.D. (a fact which Swerve had described to Pipes as "the worst thing that had ever happened to him"), yet in issue #30 of the 2009-2011 ongoing, Swerve was pretty chatty with everyone, despite still sporting a patched-up shoulder. No wonder he contracted a rust infection if he didn't have his wound properly treated for that long!
• As a side note, Swerve's design throughout More than Meets the Eye has precluded him from having a symbol on his shoulder, since his shoulders are wheels. Milne makes sure to draw his old body with a distinct design of its own in the picture we see of it this issue, which tips First Aid off to the exact nature of his injury; when Guido Guidi drew a much younger Swerve in flashback in issue #13, it appears that the script for that issue specifically asked for the scene to be laid out so Swerve's shoulders would be subtly obscured when seen from the front, so the symbol's presence (and hence, present-day absence) wouldn't be obvious at the time. However, it further appears Guido was not fully aware of the exact significance of Swerve's shoulders, since he drew him in the same design as his present-day self (a view from the back even shows wheels on his shoulders!), rather than a design that would allow for an Autobot badge to be present on the left shoulder like the one Milne drew for this issue (or, for that matter, the design we saw back in issues #28 and #30 of the old ongoing, the one that depicted Swerve with the patched-up shoulder as mentioned above).
• When she first arrives on Swearth, Nautica waves directly at the reader; this is because she's a terrible actor as established in the previous two issues and doesn't know that TV actors aren't supposed to look at the camera.

Pop-culture references

(cracks knuckles)

• The title of this issue uses the same naming scheme as the TV show Friends, where nearly every episode was "The One..." in which something happened. The apartment Cyclonus's team use as a home base is also the main Friends set, recreated with some stunning accuracy by Milne. While the street name and number ("495 Grove Street") is taken from the show, the apartment number is not.
• Swerve's apartment number and room number on the ship, 43, is the same as the number of this issue.
• The apartment used by Cyclonus's team is numbered 42, necessary for it to be opposite Swerve's apartment. It's also the number used for The Answer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• One of the neighbors' outrageous activities sees settling an argument with a game of paintball, a reference to Community, in which huge paintball games that got out of control were a running gag. Jerry wears a shirt emblazoned with the logo of the college from the series, Greendale.
• When last we saw it, Skids's avatar resembled the Eleventh incarnation of the Doctor from Doctor Who. In this issue, it's based on the Ninth.
• The font used on the "title sequence" is based on that used from the opening sequence of Cheers, while the "theme song" transmission is based on the Cheers theme tune. Cheers was about a bar, so it's especially fitting.
• While listing off his knowledge of Earth, Bluestreak mentions the movie Inception, the internet meme Double Rainbow, beliebers, and mansplaining.
• Confused over the expression "Humanity 101" (the number being used in the manner of a university course, meaning "introductory") in reference to the "bluffer's guide" that Rewind puts together for them, Rung believes it refers to "Room 101" from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, while Cyclonus thinks it's about the British TV series Room 101, which took its name from the novel. Bluestreak insists it comes from 101 Dalmatians (which he calls "101 Damnations", perhaps getting it confused with the album by Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine); Tailgate isn't quite sure what a dog is.
• Each of Swerve's three personalities is a reference to a famous sitcom character in name and occupation, though not physical appearance. Ted the priest is Father Ted Crilly from Father Ted; Sheldon the scientist (a bit of a push, but the comic lampshades it, as Sheldon corrects Bluestreak's claim that he is a scientist with a "Kind of.") is Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory; and Jerry the stand-up comedian is Jerry Seinfeld from Seinfeld.
• The clients that Sheldon and Ted refer to while arguing with Jerry are also references to sitcom characters; Sheldon mentions a "Mrs. Simpson", alluding to The Simpsons while Ted brings up "The Bluths", the family from Arrested Development.
• Rodimus's avatar is ungodly 1980s, a kind of mash-up of John Bender from The Breakfast Club (played by Judd Nelson, who voiced Rodimus in The Transformers: The Movie) and Marty McFly from the Back to the Future series (specifically, Marty's orange-red down vest).
• Rather than the Benedict Cumberbatch you may have expected, Nightbeat's avatar is based on Idris Elba's eponymous detective in Luther.
• The bar Rodimus's team visits is named "The Jumping Shark", after the phenomenon of jumping the shark, the point at which a piece of entertainment begins a decline in quality, appropriately derived from TV show Happy Days. Perhaps something of a meta-commentary joke on the outlandish nature of this issue?
• The table (well, two tables pushed together) that Ultra Magnus, Chromedome, and Rewind's avatars are shown standing around when Cyclonus tells Swerve that everyone is looking for him is the table used by the study group from Community. Magnus and Rewind are pretty deliberate choices for this scene, being a straight-laced rule-follower like Annie Edison, and a media-buff film-maker like Abed Nadir, respectively.

Other real-life references

• On page 2, the mugs hanging on the shelves are decorated with a caricature of colorist Josh Perez!
• Just above the mugs are boxes of "Jii Puffs" and "Andy-Os", references to Transformers podcasters Jii Dee and Andy Millman of the Moonbase 2 Podcast.

Errors

Fixing one error, adding a new one. Net result: Breakeven.

• First Aid claims he's going to "Earth and back"; he's actually going to Cybertron. This is corrected for the trade paperback.
• In the very same panel, the trade adds an error, as Tailgate's "photos" inexplicably becomes "photots".
• In panel 5 on page 8, the caption box reads: "The Earth is a made of holomatter too?!" This is also corrected for the TPB.
• Nightbeat says that he's only been to Earth's orbit, but he actually spent some time on the planet's surface in Devastation.
• Ambulon's photograph in First Aid's "leaving present" shows him with blue eyes, not their proper yellow.

Crew Manifest

• First Aid, Groove, Hot Spot, Blades, Streetwise, and Mirage leave the Lost Light to go star in a crossover.
• According to First Aid in Lost Light #11, there were 214 crew members on board when he left.

Other trivia

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

Soundtrack

• "I Love Pop Music" by Ben Lee^[1]
• Cheers theme tune^[2]
• "There Will Always Be" by Adem Ilhan^[3]

Foreign Localization

Swedish:

• Title: "Den där de besöker Jorden" ("The One Where They Visit Earth")
  • The lyrics for the "theme song" remain in English, since Cheers, like most live-action media, was not dubbed on its Swedish broadcast.
  • The mention of mansplaining was replaced by "killgissa", meaning to wildly guess while sounding like you know what you're talking about.
  • The Swedish hardcovers integrated Swerve's fourth-wall breaking in two ways, first by having him sign the audience off in Krig och hågkomst and Du sköna nya värld, as well as introductions in Du sköna nya värld and Några av mina bästa vänner är Autoboter. This is noted here due to these segments' relevance to the story.

Covers (4)

• Regular cover: Cyclonus and his avatar, by Alex Milne and Josh Perez
• Subscription cover: Multiple Swerves act out another homage to Justice League #1 (last seen in issue #1), by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham. Charting the homage's history, the cover is signed "Roche after Milne after Roche after Maguire".
• Retailer incentive cover: One of a series of "Pan Cybertronian Spaceways" travel posters by James Biggie that make up the Retailer Incentive covers on IDW's July Transformers titles; this one promotes the Unicron's head, which orbited Cybertron after The Transformers: The Movie.
• Convention cover: Optimus Prime versus Megatron, by Casey Coller and John-Paul Bove, available exclusively at Texas Comicon.

• 

  You weren't expecting this, were you?

• 

  Guess what? Now you get to hunt down countless Swerve toys on eBay and Amazon to recreate this scene! Yay!

• 

  Now, if you look overhead, folks... * gets booed*

• 

  "Digital!" "Paper!"

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• More than Meets the Eye #44
• The Transformers #43
• Windblade #4
• Combiner Hunters #1
• IDW's Transformers comics app for iOS
• Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #721 (back cover)

Reprints

• The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye Volume 8 (October 21, 2015) ISBN 1631404520 / ISBN 978-1631404528
  • Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #39–44.
  • Bonus material includes covers of each issue.
  • Trade paperback format.

• The Transformers: The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 9 (June 19, 2019) ISBN 1684054842 / ISBN 978-1684054848
  • Collects The Transformers (2012) issues #39–41, #42 & #43, Windblade (2015) issues #1–3 & #4–5, and More than Meets the Eye issues #41–44.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 66: Speak, Memory (December 25, 2019)
  • Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #43–49.
  • Bonus material includes a one-page article about the Scavengers, a cover gallery and a forward by Simon Furman.
  • Hardcover format.

• Transformers: Några av mina bästa vänner är Autoboter (November, 2025)
  • Collects More than Meets the Eye issues #39 & #41-46, Drift: Empire of Stone issues #1-4 and the Revolution one-shot.
  • Swedish reprint. Hardcover format

• 

  More Than Meets the Eye Volume 8 – cover art by Alex Milne and Josh Perez

• 

  The IDW Collection Phase Two: Volume 9 – cover art by Marcelo Matere

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 66: Speak, Memory – cover art by Dan Khanna (Getaway) and Hayato Sakamoto (retro)

• 

  Några av mina bästa vänner är Autoboter – cover art by Alex Milne and Josh Perez

References

External links

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