GUNDAM: THE ORIGIN - THE FINAL ROUND

And so it begins again. In 2014, I reviewed the first four volumes of Vertical, Inc.'s GUNDAM: THE ORIGIN manga. Last year I covered the next three volumes. Now, with Vertical having completed publication of the full series this past December, I'll move along with volumes 8 through 12.

The manga was originally serialized in Japan for over a decade beginning in 2001, and was written and illustrated by the original GUNDAM TV series' character designer, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. Vertical began their translation in 2013 and I've picked up each volume dutifully as they've come out, one per quarter over the past three years.

The first four volumes comprised one "act", following the Earth Federation battle cruiser White Base as it journeyed from deep space to Federation headquarters in South America. The second act was a three-volume excursion into the past, filling in origins and backstories for key characters and scenarios in the storyline. Now we reach the third and final segment of the saga, which will follow White Base and her crew across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, and ultimately back into space for the war's final conflicts.

If you need a refresher on what's gone before, please feel free to check out my reviews of the first seven volumes. Then be back here on Friday for the beginning of the remainder of GUNDAM: THE ORIGIN.

Available now at Amazon (and highly recommended!):
Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5 | Volume 6
Volume 7 | Volume 8 | Volume 9 | Volume 10 | Volume 11 | Volume 12

TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE #11 AND BEYOND

Though the Dreamwave TRANSFORMERS ongoing series ended in 2004 with issue 10 when the publisher went bankrupt, issues 11 through 14 were all solicited and a number of penciled and inked pages from #11 have made the rounds online. These issues are covered here for the sake of completion. All solicits courtesy of the Transformers Wiki, though they can be found elsewhere online as well.

Plots: James McDonough & Adam Patyk
Artwork (unpublished pages): Don Figueroa & Elaine To

Issue 11 house ad

Issue 11 Solicit: Because YOU demanded it: The return of the Dinobots! The hot-tempered cavalier Hot Rod finds himself in over his head when a mysterious group of Transformers-like warriors interferes with a standard transfer mission. What are these mysterious agents truly after, and what hope do Hot Rod and his team have of stopping them? Featuring the return of the fan-favorite Dinobots, the first-ever comic book debut of some of Generation One's most desirable characters, and much, much more!

Issue 12 Solicit: This is it: the return of the most popular Transformer of all time! Yes, the indomitable Optimus Prime is finally back, ready to chew Energon and kick bumper-and he's all outta Energon! But the question is: where is he? Find out in this thrill-packed anniversary issue, as the greatest Autobots leader ever faces off against the ravenous Sharkticons and their cruel masters, the Quintessons! Don't miss this special birthday issue, a perfect jumping-on point featuring Optimus Prime himself ushering in an all-new era of Transformers greatness. The countdown to 2005 begins now!"

Issue 13 Solicit: 2005 is here - and the battle for the universe begins! Created by the sinister Unicron, the lone Cyclonus has been dispatched to search the galaxy for the missing Alpha herald, Scourge. But when his mission leads him to a top-secret storage facility on Earth, will Cyclonus find the end of his quest or the business end of several high-caliber EDC-issued blasters? This initial arc - "Detection" kicks off the biggest, baddest Generation One storyline ever! Get in on the ground floor for a front-row seat to the beginning - of the apocalypse!"

Issue 14 Solicit: "The Enemy Within": The humans fight back as the “Contact” arc continues! Recovering from Cyclonus’ violent assault on their facilities, the EDC tries to equalize the odds by activating its top secret defense plan—Project Centurion! Suspecting something sinister, Marissa begins to explore the real motives behind the EDC’s newest operation. Fearing the worst, the recently revived Autobot leader Optimus Prime rallies his troops on both Earth and Cybertron for the dark future looming on the horizon.

FANTASTIC FOUR #238

"THE LADY IS FOR BURNING!"
Words and Pictures: John Byrne | Lettering: Jim Novak | Coloring: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Frankie Raye reveals to Johnny that she has a golden costume which vanishes when she's wearing clothes and reappears when she isn't. She explains her past to Johnny, which causes her to suddenly “flame on” and unlocks repressed memories of her childhood, when she was accidentally endowed with fire-powers by her stepfather. Johnny begins to teach Frankie control over her abilities, then takes her to the Baxter Building, where Reed runs some tests on her.

Meanwhile, in Benson, Arizona, a doctor named Jake and his wife, Penny, peform an autopsy on a man who was frightened to death. Penny persuades Jake that they must contact the Fantastic Four for help.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: A footnote on the first page reminds us that the FF were recently prisoners of Doctor Doom.

The majority of this story is a recap of Frankie’s life. In a nutshell: she originally had no memory of her life before she was fourteen years old. But when her memories are unlocked she recalls her stepfather, Thomas Raye, a repairman who became distraught when the Fantastic Four first appeared, and took Frankie to his hidden lab with the intention of building a new Human Torch.

FANTASTIC FOUR #237

"THE EYES HAVE IT!"
Words and Pictures: John Byrne | Lettering: Jim Novak | Coloring: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The FF return home from Doctor Doom’s castle and the Human Torch departs to check in with his girlfriend, Frankie Raye. Meanwhile, Reed places Doom into stasis and heads out for an afternoon with his family while the Thing and Alicia remain at the Baxter Building, where the Thing engages in a workout.

On a horse ride in Central Park, Reed, Sue, and their son Franklin run across a group of hobos, accompanied by a nine foot-tall alien woman, knocking over a jewelry store. The alien uses vertigo-based powers to allow the group to escape. Reed and Sue track them to a pawn shop, where they capture one hobo before the others escape again. The prisoner explains that the alien appeared in their camp days earlier and the hobos’ leader, Archie, determined she was looking for silver. Archie took advantage of her quest to begin a crime spree.

Reed and Sue pick up their universal translator at the Baxter Building, then locate the hobos and the alien again. Reed determines that the alien is intoxicated and confused thanks to the excess oxygen in our atmosphere, and went looking for silver when she really needed indium. When Sue uses a force field to thin the air for her, Reed is able to calm her down.

Later, Reed and Sue bring the alien back to her crashed spaceship where her crew welcomes her return. Reed provides the aliens with indium to power their ship and they depart Earth.

HOW TO DO A TRANSFORMERS COMIC RIGHT

So we're done with Dreamwave's TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE comics. I still maintain that James McDonough and Adam Patyk have come the closest to a perfect translation of the Transformers to the printed media, but they still had some misses in the process. To varying extents, Sunbow Animation, Marvel Comics, and IDW Comics have pulled it off as well, but the perfect TRANSFORMERS series would be a mix of elements from all these various continuities.

Several years ago, around the time IDW's comics started to lose me, I wrote the below, detailing just what I think the ideal TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE comic book franchise would be. I had no blog back then, of course; this was something for my own entertainment, to get it out of my head.

But now, since I just wrapped up my reviews of the closest-to-ideal G1 comic book continuity I've seen, I figure I'll present the following, with minor edits since I first wrote it in 2011, for your pleasure:

TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE #10

"THE ROUTE OF ALL EVIL"
Written By: James McDonough & Adam Patyk | Pencils: Don Figueroa
Inks: Elaine To | Colors: Espen Grundetjern & Rob Ruffalo | Letters: Ben Lee

The Plot: Starscream conducts war games, pitting his Combaticons against the captive Sky Lynx, but their exercise is interrupted by the arrival of Predaking. Meanwhile, Megatron arrives at Decepticon headquarters beneath the sea, where Soundwave, Rumble, and Frenzy pledge their fealty to him.

In Washington D.C., Marissa Faireborn reports to her commanding officer, who reprimands her over losing her team and cooperating with the Autobots. The General orders Marissa to reactivate "Project: Centurion" against her wishes. In Alaska, Ratchet, Jazz, and the other Earthbound Autobots reunite with Prowl and his group, who have arrived on Earth and begun construction of Autobot City.

The Combaticons merge into Bruticus but even combined, their might is no match for Predaking. Starscream retreats to Decepticon headquarters, where Megatron reveals himself and reassumes the mantle of leadership from his traitorous lieutenant.

On Cybertron, Blitzwing's corpse is discovered by an unknown Transformer, while at Autobase, Ultra Magnus hands out assignments to the Autobots who had remained with him on their homeworld. The Quintessons observe this meeting and prepare to send their female Transformers out on a mission.

FANTASTIC FOUR #236

"TERROR IN A TINY TOWN" | "IF THIS BE DOOMSDAY!"
Words & Pictures: John Byrne | Letters: Jim Novak | Colors: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Reed, Sue, and Franklin Richards, Johnny Storm, and Ben and Alicia Grimm go about their daily lives in the town of Liddleville, where Reed is a university professor and Ben owns a tavern. But Ben, Sue, and Johnny are plagued by similar nightmares in which the group is bombarded by cosmic rays aboard a rocket ship and endowed with superhuman abilities.

Eventually, Reed realizes the dreams are true and that he and his friends are the Fantastic Four. He convinces the others of the truth and they confront Ben’s “father-in-law”, Phillip Masters, a.k.a. their old enemy the Puppet Master. He admits that this was all his idea as a way to give his daughter, Alicia, a happy life. But, unable to carry out the plan alone, he enlisted the aid of Doctor Doom.

Doom gloats over the FF, revealing that they actually reside in unpowered miniature clone bodies in a scale model of a town, and that he occasionally visited them as well in the guise of Victor Vaughn, Reed’s boss at the college. Doom departs, leaving the FF to live forever as prisoners of Liddleville, but Reed concocts a plan to return them to normal. He empowers their cloned bodies, which allows them to exit Liddleville and rig up a trap. Sue lures Doom back to the model town, where his attacks serve as a catalyst to restore the Fantastic Four, Alicia, and Franklin to normal.

Doom is rendered apparently comatose, and Puppet Master is nowhere to be found. The FF depart, taking Doom with them, unaware he has transferred back into the robot body of Victor Vaughn in Liddleville. But before he can return to normal, Puppet Master smashes his “transferral ring” and sics a townful of reprogrammed robot citizens on him.

FANTASTIC FOUR #235

"FOUR AGAINST EGO!"
Words and Pictures: John Byrne | Letters: Jean Simek | Colors: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The Thing walks through Ego, carrying a large mechanical device, and recalls how he wound in this situation: the Fantastic Four encountered Ego in space and he pulled their ship into his atmosphere for a crash landing on his surface. The FF found a rocket booster attached to Ego and made their way to it, disconnecting one power pack from the device. They then ventured inside Ego in search of his brain, with plans to stun him using the pack.

But the conditions within Ego proved too great for the FF and one by one they were forced to return to the surface, leaving only the Thing to finish their quest. Finally he finds Ego’s brain and throws the power pack at it. This enrages Ego and he powers up his rockets to increase speed toward Earth. But with one rocket disabled, Ego instead passes too close to the sun and disintegrates. The Thing drifts out into space but his teammates, back aboard their ship, find him and pull him to safety.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: The Thing recalls the destruction of Manhattan last issue. Curiously, the FF no longer seem fazed by this development, even though they were outside Skip Williams’ sphere of influence when he undid the damage at the conclusion of last issue.

THE UNBOXING - JANUARY 2015

And so it begins... anew.

I had thought I might have more coming this month based on pre-orders, but it looks like some stuff was delayed, so we wind up with one single volume to begin 2016: The UNCANNY X-MEN EPIC COLLECTION: THE GIFT, featuring a chunk of issues from Chris Claremont and John Romita, Jr. Though for me, the main draw here is Dave Cockrum's NIGHTCRAWLER mini-series, which I don't believe has ever been collected anywhere until now. I'm not sure if it's any good, but I'm always happy for a "new to me" Cockrum Nightcrawler story.

Plus, in a much-appreciated touch, this book lines up perfectly with 2013's X-MEN: GHOSTS collection, which began with UNCANNY X-MEN 199 (THE GIFT ends with UNCANNY #198). And of course GHOSTS butts right up against MUTANT MASSACRE, so anybody looking to read UNCANNY X-MEN issues 189 - 214 -- plus associated annuals, mini-series, and the like -- all in one fell swoop can do so with these three books. Good work, Marvel!

Shameless plug, since this is a shorter Unboxing than usual: Remember, for all your X-Men collected edition needs, check out my listing of what's been collected so far and what's still needed to fill all the blanks between UNCANNY #94 through 350 (and beyond) on the X-Men Collections page. And also keep in mind that I'm currently reviewing all my X-Men hardcovers at a rate of one per month or so, and those can be found partway down the Collected Editions page. Both pages are, of course, always accessible from the top of the "Table of Contents" at right.

TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE #9

"LOST AND FOUND"
Writers: James McDonough & Adam Patyk | Pencils: Don Figueroa
Inks: Elaine To | Colors: Espen Grundetjern | Letters: Ben Lee

The Plot: On Cybertron, Shockwave and his men spot a Decepticon jet clone wandering around near their base. Shockwave dispatches Astrotrain and Blitzwing to dispose of it, but the duo is attacked by the Predacons. Meanwhile, inside the base, Megatron corners Shockwave.

Elsewhere, Hot Rod and Kup conduct combat exercises in a holographic recreation of the Earth, while Springer and Arcee observe as the original Ark crewmembers depart Cybertron in a shuttlecraft. But the Autobots' movements are observed from planet Quintessa by the Quintessons.

On Earth, Jazz, Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, and Bumper are reunited with Wheeljack, Warpath, and Windcharger at EDC headquarters. Ratchet arrives aboard the Orion and the Autobots depart. Meanwhile, Bumblebee and Spike drive around Cincinatti and stop a carjacking.

Back on Cybertron, Megatron cripples Shockwave then introduces him to the Predacons and reveals that he has won the loyalty of Shockwave's troops. Megatron then announces his plan to invade the Earth.

FANTASTIC FOUR #234

"THE MAN WITH THE POWER!"
Story and Art: John Byrne | Lettering: Joe Rosen | Colors: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: A man named “Skip” Collins, an army veteran with the unconscious ability to manipulate reality, goes about his daily business, changing the world around him even as he is unaware of the alterations. Skip’s boss sends him to New York City on business, and once there, Skip heads for the Baxter Building to look up the Fantastic Four. He spots Reed and Sue Richards leaving the building on a date and follows them.

Soon, Skip’s desire to see the FF in action causes his power to create a massive earthquake which levels Manhattan and reverberates across the globe. The Fantastic Four conduct damage control, and Reed eventually determines the source of the quakes is a gravity wave from deep space. The FF board their rocket ship and take off to investigate.

Skip watches from ruined Manhattan as the FF depart, and wishes that things hadn't turned out this way. His power returns things to normal and then leaves him forever. Meanwhile, the FF find the source of the gravity waves: Ego, the Living Planet.

FANTASTIC FOUR #233

"MISSION FOR A DEAD MAN!"
Story & Art: John Byrne | Lettering: Jim Novak | Coloring: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: George David Munson, an inmate on death row, is executed. His final wish is for the prison’s priest to deliver a letter to the Human Torch. Two weeks later, Father Vito arrives at the Baxter Building and gives the note to Johnny Storm. It turns out Munson went to high school with Johnny and, while he is guilty of many crimes, he says he was not guilty of the murder for which he was sentenced. He asks Johnny to posthumously clear his name of that crime for the sake of his mother.

Johnny sets out on a quest to exonerate Munson, and the trail of clues leads him to Maggia don Hammerhead. The Torch tries to get the truth from Hammerhead, but Munson’s name means nothing to him. Ultimately, Hammerhead escapes and Johnny is no closer to an answer -- until a police detective informs him that several of the Kingpin’s files were recently turned over to the authorities. With those files, Johnny is able to get Munson’s murder conviction overturned.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Johnny attended Glennville High School, and he notes that he became the Human Torch during his junior year there.

X-MEN: FALL OF THE MUTANTS

Hardcover, 2011. Collects 1988's X-FACTOR #18 - 26, UNCANNY X-MEN #220 - 227, NEW MUTANTS #55 - 61, INCREDIBLE HULK #336, 337 & 340, POWER PACK #35, DAREDEVIL #252, CAPTAIN AMERICA #339, and FANTASTIC FOUR #312.

"Fall of the Mutants" was less a "crossover" and more an "event featuring disparate storylines sharing a similar theme/banner title" -- meaning that the three core X-series, UNCANNY X-MEN, NEW MUTANTS, and X-FACTOR, did not interact at all during the events of "Fall", instead each participating in the event in their own way.

As a result, this hardcover has an unusual layout by X-event standards -- it's presented in three sections, each devoted to one series and each beginning with its own recap page to get readers up to speed on prior goings-on in those series. We kick off with the X-FACTOR segment, easily the biggest chunk of material in the book, filling 393 out of 824 pages. Following from the recap, we get X-FACTOR issues 18 - 20, HULK 336 - 337, X-FACTOR 21 - 25, POWER PACK 35, DAREDEVIL 252, CAPTAIN AMERICA 339, X-FACTOR 26, and finally FANTASTIC FOUR 312.

All of this covers the lead-up to Apocalypse's assault on Manhattan and Angel's transformation into the Horseman of Death, as well as the reactions from characters like the Power Pack kids, Daredevil, and Captain America. Unlike "Mutant Massacre", where I felt some of the crossover material was inappropriate or weakened the main story, here it mostly all fits with the possible exception of CAP, which rides the story's coattails with a tangentially related installment shoehored into the action.

TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE #8

"EXTERMINATION"
Writers: James "Brad Mick" McDonough & Adam Patyk | Pencils: Don Figueroa
Inks: Elaine To | Colors: Espen Grundetjern | Letters: Ben Lee

The Plot: Jazz and Marissa battle the Insecticon clones while Sideswipe and Sunstreaker descend beneath the movie theater and find glowing green larvae. Elsewhere, Insecticon Bombshell works on his captive, Bumper, while speaking to Shockwave over a video monitor. When Bombshell detects Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, he awakens Kickback and Shrapnel to join him in dealing with them. As soon as the trio departs, Bumper breaks free to escape. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, Bumblebee pays a visit to Spike Witwicky and announces that he's quitting the Autobots.

Back in California, the Insecticons capture Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Meanwhile, Jazz and Marissa find sanctuary and compare notes on the Insecticons. They then head under the city and find the larvae, which Jazz torches with his flamethrower. The Insecticons leave their lair to investigate while Bumper frees Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, then goes off on his own. The remaining Autobots and Marissa unite to battle the Insecticons, and Kickback and Shrapnel are defeated.

Bombshell plays his trump card by summoning the mind-controlled town populace to attack. Unwilling to retaliate against these innocent humans, the Autobots prepare for their demise. But Bumper, having procured one of Bombshell's cerebro-shells, uses it to fry the Insecticon's brain and free the citizens from his control, saving the day.

FANTASTIC FOUR #232

"BACK TO THE BASICS!"
Words & Pictures: John Byrne | Inks: Bjorn Heyn*
Letters: Jim Novak | Colors: Glynis Wein
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The evil alchemist, Diablo, sends four elementals to take out the Fantastic Four separately. The Invisible Girl (Sue Richards), the Thing (Ben Grimm), and the Human Torch (Johnny Storm) are defeated, but Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic, escapes his assailant and rescues the Torch, who flies off in pursuit of the fire elemental which had attacked Reed. Reed is then plagued by the air elemental which had gone at the Torch, but he makes it to Sue and Ben and together the trio defeats the air, earth, and water elementals. Above Manhattan, Johnny takes out the fire elemental as well.

Reed realizes the elementals were Diablo’s work and enlists Doctor Strange, master of the mystic arts, to help track the villain down. The FF arrest Diablo and depart, leaving Strange to watch their exit.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: At the issue’s start, Sue is at a salon getting a new hairdo. She reveals two new uses for her powers, as well: keeping her uniform invisible under her street clothes and traveling on her invisible force fields, which she compares with Iceman’s ice slides in X-MEN.

FANTASTIC FOUR BY JOHN BYRNE

Some time back, when I wrote about my twelve favorite Marvel runs, I gave honorable mention to a few runs which didn't place. One was John Byrne's FANTASTIC FOUR, about which I said: "It's one of those runs ... which I feel should be here, but it just didn't connect with me like these others. But maybe someday, when I re-read it."

Well, "someday" has arrived. A few years back, Marvel collected Byrne's run in two Omnibus volumes. I initially passed on these for exactly the reason listed above -- the run had not connected with me the first time I read it, years earlier. But at some point, Omnibus volume one dropped to rock bottom prices in the aftermarket and I picked up a new copy for something like twenty dollars on eBay. I don't know if Marvel overestimated demand and overprinted or what, but for whatever reason it seemed retailers could barely give the book away. It appears that nowadays, the first volume has risen to a price point more or less in line with what one would expect. At any rate, after getting volume one dirt cheap, I picked up volume two as well, rationalizing that the average price between both was too good a bargain to pass up, even for a run that wasn't necessarily near and dear to my heart.

Then the books sat unread for a few years -- until now. It's apparently become my unexpected goal around here to cover classic comic book runs of the eighties. I did the Micheline/Layton IRON MAN in 2013, 2014 saw me explore Roger Stern's SPIDER-MAN, and 2015 led off with Wolfman & Pérez on TEEN TITANS. Now, as we begin 2016, it's time for Byrne's FANTASTIC FOUR. Will this run impress me a bit more now than it did a decade or more back? Or will I again find it to be good but not great? I have a theory that a lot of fans love these stories simply because they were so much better than what came before. I've seen it said time and again that Byrne's run was the best since Lee & Kirby, which makes me assume the stuff between was just not very good. But, coming into these issues having not read anything that came earlier (not even Lee & Kirby) -- and having had their legend built up for several years before I got to them -- I wonder if I find the material simply "okay" because I have no other FF with which to compare it.

Anyway, let's see how this goes. I'm hoping that, having read it once before, I can better temper my expectations and perhaps figure out what all the fuss is about. I definitely recall there was some stuff I liked in these pages; it's just there was also a lot that did nothing for me.

So, you know the drill by now: issues 232 - 296 plus assorted annuals and crossover issues, every Monday and Wednesday from now until we finish!

Available on Amazon.com:
FANTASTIC FOUR BY JOHN BYRNE OMNIBUS Volume 1 | Volume 2

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I'd say it was a pretty good year around here. I started with some DC, covering the full initial Marv Wolfman/George Pérez run on NEW TEEN TITANS, at roughly two issues a post, in a less "in-depth" format than I normally do for my Marvel stuff. But the in-depth style stuck around as well, first with MOON KNIGHT on Fridays in the spring and then with IRON FIST and MARVEL TEAM-UP by Chris Claremont and John Byrne for a good chunk of the middle of the year. After that we looked at "The Evolutionary War" from 1988, and now we've closed out the year the same way it began, with less-structured DC material in the (pleasing) form of POWER GIRL as drawn by Amanda Conner.

Along the way, I filled up my Fridays with some Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale Marvel stuff and GUNDAM: THE ORIGIN early on, followed by the afore-mentioned early MOON KNIGHT by Doug Moench and Bill Sienkiewicz. As last year, there were some odd mini-series from Marvel Unlimited, and then we moved into our summer popcorn season with UDON Studios' STREET FIGHTER, following the tradition begun last year with DANGER GIRL. A year's worth of Fridays were then capped off with another round of TRANSFORMERS comics, this time from the brief Dreamwave GENERATION ONE era.

On top of all that, I kept up my regularly scheduled "Unboxings" one Sunday a month, and I decided to review one X-MEN collected edition per month as well, which will continue through 2016 and perhaps even a bit into 2017.

TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE #7

"INFESTATION"
Writers: James "Brad Mick" McDonough & Adam Patyk | Pencils: Don Figueroa
Inks: Elaine To | Colors: Espen Grundetjern & Jong-Im Lee | Letters: Ben Lee

The Plot: In a deserted small-town movie theater, two soldiers are accosted by... something. At Area 51, audio of their experience is played for Jazz, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker by Marissa Faireborn of the Earth Defense Command. Marissa reunites the Autobots with Warpath and Bumper, and asks them to help her investigate. Jazz agrees, but orders Warpath to remain behind and keep an eye on Wheeljack and Windcharger, who are still undergoing repairs by the EDC. Meanwhile, Starscream returns to Decepticon headquarters beneath the sea to find Soundwave, Rumble and Frenzy behaving suspiciously.

After a briefing, the joint Autobot/EDC force heads for the California border town of San Desto, which is supposed to have 9,000 citizens but appears deserted. The group splits up to investigate and chaos breaks out when Bumper vanishes inside the theater. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker head inside to find him while outside, Jazz, Marissa, and the EDC troops are surrounded by dozens of Insecticons.