Hoist the Flag

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Pretty snazzy, to say the least!
"Hoist the Flag"
Publisher	Fun Publications
First published	June 19, 2014 (BotCon 2014) December 24, 2014 (retail)
Story by	Marty Isenberg
Writer	Jesse Wittenrich
Art by	Hayato Sakamoto
Colors	Josh Burcham
Letters	Jesse Wittenrich
Creative Director	Lanny Lathem
Managing editor	Pete Sinclair
Editor in chief
Continuity	Wings Universe
Price	$4.95

Journeying across space and time to carry out the greatest heist in history, Cannonball and the Star Seekers clash with the Cybertronian Knights in the far future of Cybertron.

Synopsis

Somewhere in the depths of outer space, the Tidal Wave, dread pirate ship of the Star Seekers, materializes out of transwarp, off-course and with its warp engines in ruins as a result of overload. An impatient Captain Cannonball demands to know when and where they have emerged in space and time, but his navigator assures him that they have arrived "quite close" to the co-ordinates the captain provided. While Olin Zarak and Brimstone talk between themselves about Cannonball's mysterious, unrevealed plan, the captain himself heads below decks to consult with ship's weaponsmaster Ferak, pausing briefly along the way to keep the savage Hunter from eating organic crewmember Squirm. Ferak is busy trying to repair his Targetmaster partner Tornado's weapon mode, but Cannonball pulls the distracted inventor away from his task with a request for a weapon that will facilitate the next step in his scheme: the theft of a space bridge.

A short time later, the Tidal Wave arrives in the sky over the Galadria Space Bridge Outpost in the Delta Prysmos Sector. The ship drops Ferak's Intramoment Instabilizer into the throng of Autobot troops gathering below, creating a brief, localized time-scrambling effect that incapacitates all opposition to the Star Seekers. The crew touches down and storms the outpost control room, only to find that all within have already been taken out by an unexpected third party: the female Decepticon Flamewar. After a grandiose introductory speech, Cannonball is a little disappointed to find that Flamewar has never heard of him or his crew, but nevertheless, decides to hire her on for the heist he is planning. Flamewar initially scoffs, but a handful of a cash up-front quickly changes her tune.

Meanwhile, on Cyberion, fourth moon of Cybertron, Autobot Knight Flare-Up is showing off her homemade explosives to fellow Knight Apelinq when they are summoned back to base by a communication from their commander Ginrai regarding sudden radio silence from Galadria. Although the Knights' founder and spiritual leader Alpha Trizer advocates calmness, the hot-blooded Ginrai angrily insists that they take action, particularly since the last message to come through from Galadria before communications ceased was a scrambled missive from the Autobot bounty hunter Devcon, who had tracked Flamewar there. Trizer insists that they wait for further contact from Devcon, doubtful that Cybertron is being threatened after being at peace for so long.

The Star Seekers use Galadria's space bridge to transport themselves inside the key component of Cannonball's plan: the disembodied head of Unicron, still floating in Cybertron's orbit! Cannonball intends to use Unicron to drain the energon out of the planet below, having come to the future to do because Cybertron is at peace in this era, and will have high levels of energy. The rest of the crew are suitably impressed; less so Devcon, who has heard the plan by disguising himself as one of the pirates to sneak through the space bridge with the rest of the crew. He attempts to send a warning to Ginrai, but is caught in the act by Hunter, only for the monstrous pirate to become distracted by... something... and wander off. Zarak and Scorponok are more than happy to take up the torture of Devcon, but before they can start, the rest of the Knights appear through the space bridge, arriving in response to Devcon's message. Brimstone assumes his spacecraft form, which Scorponok wields as a handgun to fire on the Autobots, but Ginrai blocks the blast with his shield; as Flareup and Apelinq ready themselves, Flamewar springs into action, blowing Apelinq's hoverboard/cannon to bits, but leaving Flare-Up free to take down Scorponok with her Delfurite bombs. Devcon tackles Flamewar, intent on claiming the bounty on her head, while Alpha Trizer finally loses his cool and transforms to beast mode to deal with the Dread Pirate Crewmen piling on top of him. Cannonball engages Trizer to buy Ferak time to activate Unicron's energy-draining systems, but the ancient knight easily overpowers the pirate captain and offers him a crushing revelation: his plan has been doomed to failure from the beginning, because the Cybertron he is attempting to drain energon from is techno-organic, and no longer runs on energon. Aghast at the very concept, Cannonball realizes that the Star Seekers have come much further into the future than he intended, while Trizer just grins at the pirate's frustration, and Ginrai grouses about being left out of the loop. As the Star Seekers are being led away, however, nobody notices Ferak slip a small trinket from around his neck into Flamewar's hand...

Elsewhere within Unicron's head, Hunter hears a voice calling to him, luring him through a transwarp portal that whisks him away across space and time to a cave, where he finds the Matrix of Conquest. At the voice's urging, Hunter seizes the Matrix and is transformed into Shokaract, filled with power and knowledge of the destiny that awaits him at the Omega Point...

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in characters' minds.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Found one, inside the Sulfurizer."
"Ah, perfect! Never cared for that design. I lost twelve fingers trying to build it."

—Tornado updates Ferak on his search for a microsponder coil

"What are you doing, Squirm?"
"There's no atmosphere. He's suffocating."
"Well when you're done with your suffocating, come and join us."

—Cannonball needs to be brought up to speed on organic vulnerabilities by Zarak

"Should I do an evil laugh now? Seems like after a monologue like that I should do an evil laugh."

—Cannonball on the finer points of villainy

"Devcon and Flamewar would make a cute couple: feed them each enough credits and they'll do anything you want."

—Flareup, matchmaker

"Why did you come along if you knew you didn't have to do anything?"
"Are you kidding me? I couldn't miss that look on his face."

—Devcon and Alpha Trizer

Notes

• Characters mentioned but not seen include: His Highness Rajalpearl, the Oracle, and Lord Gyconi.
• Characters mentioned in Flareup's profile include: the Target Masters, Primal Prime, Ginrai, and Alpha Trizer.
  • Flareup trained under the Target Masters (a mysterious group named after the Targetmasters) at the academy in New Polyhex (replacing the original introduced in the Marvel The Transformers comics. She mastered the Darkmount Stratagem, named after the Decepticon fortress, also from the Marvel comics.
• Characters mentioned in Apelinq's profile include: Vector Sigma, Primus, and the Hunter.
  • Apelinq has enigmatic visions of his 3H Productions Wreckers self fighting against Shokaract, and visions where he sees the Oracle ("a long walkway...a ring of light...looks as if it was liquid metal vibrating from the center outward") and hears the voice of a younger version of himself.
• Characters mentioned in Alpha Trizer's profile include: Optimus Primal, the Maximal Council, the Oracle, Blackarachnia, Silverbolt, Rattrap, Botanica, Nightscream, and Alpha Trion.

Continuity notes

• This story takes place in the Wings Universe, Fun Publications' version of the Generation 1 cartoon continuity, which now adds a version of the Beast Wars cartoon continuity as well. The Star Seekers apparently intend to only travel forward to the pre-Beast Wars era of peace on Cybertron, but instead wind up overshooting it and arrive instead in the post-Beast Machines time period, after the planet has been rendered technorganic.
• This setting is, of course, in commemoration of BotCon's 20th anniversary, as it was in and around this time period that the BotCon comics The Wreckers and Transformers: Universe took place. Going back even further, the story also loops around to the beginning stages of the original BotCon storyline, Reaching the Omega Point, by concluding with the birth of Shokaract. Just as the Wings Universe is only a near-identical version of the Generation 1 cartoon, however, only a near-identical version of the Omega Point storyline exists in the Wings Universe continuity; while the events of the story probably took place pretty much exactly as we saw them in those original BotCon comics, there are some continuity points that don't quite line up (most notably, the Hunter was a Predacon from a Megatron-ruled Cybertron evading Maximal rebels on a desolate future Earth, rather than a monstrous pirate who was transwarped there), though other bios and blurbs published as part of the convention fiction take pains to reconcile as many points as possible (such as Tap-Out's status). The distinction is further cemented by the Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur Facebook page, which includes some log entries by this story's Apelinq describing the events of the 3H stories as occurring in "another place" and "another time", and happening to "another me".
• The Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur Facebook page—which provided backstory on the Star Seekers and their escapades prior to the publication of the comic—had several additional updates after the issue's release, detailing the Star Seekers' escape from Knights' custody and their next adventure.
• Several events and objects in the comic were set up in the Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur Facebook page-including Ferak's Intramoment Instabilizer, the Hunter trying to eat Squirm due to Tornado placing a scent on him, and the small bullet that Ferak has around his neck-a Lukythian Warp Star. Characters introduced in that Facebook page/were mentioned include Axer, Rockhopper, Eclipse, Chairman, Squirm, and the Naviagator.
• Meanstreak, Volt, and Manta Ray last appeared in "Generation 2: Redux" and "A Flash Forward". Electro last appeared in "A Common Foe" (and has gone back to his original body). Since the original Ironhide died in The Transformers: The Movie, the one here is probably the clone from the "A Flash Forward" storyline, upgraded from his Go-Bot form to his Power Master form. Strafe last appeared in "The Rebirth, Part 3", and Slag last appeared in BotCon 2009's "Wings of Honor".

Transformers references

• The Star Seekers' Tidal Wave is visually based on Armada Tidal Wave, specifically, the Hasbro release of the toy. The story gives no indication that the ship is anything more than just a ship, with nothing to suggest it can transform like its Armada progenitor, though a poster by Sakamoto sold at BotCon 2014 did feature a robot mode Tidal Wave. The Aligned version of the Tidal Wave served as the ship of that universe's version of the Star Seekers, as seen in Exiles.
• Axer appears among the ranks of the Star Seekers, in reference to his Aligned counterpart, who joined the Aligned version of the Star Seekers in the Exiles novel. He's been repurposed from Transformers: Hunt for the Decepticons Axor. Brimstone, a new character created for BotCon, was similarly developed because the Aligned version of the pirates counted a crewman by that name among their number.
• Chairman is depicted as a virtual redeco of the original The Transformers Perceptor toy, his microscope mode repurposed as a chair. Rockhopper is repurposed from Beast Wars Neo Break with some pirate accessories like a hat and an eye-patch. Eclipse is a "virtual redeco" of Beast Wars II Moon.
• The Tidal Wave's anchor is based on Hunt for the Decepticons Axor's axe. It also has a flag with the skull logo from the Cybertron Cannonball toy.
• The Navigator's atlas has the Beast Wars Neo Blentron symbol on its back cover.
• On page two, a little lizard can be seen in panel five, based on the Prime "Arms Micron" toy Zado.
• Tornado juggles the gun modes of Prime Arms Microns Ozu and O.P., albeit ones colored gold.
• Lots of obscure characters dot this issue. Starting with the opening bombing scene:
  • The Rescue Force and Motorvators: In 2011, it was discovered that "Big Rescue Force", the half-formed combiner that could be partially built out of the Rescue Force (the European release of 4/6 of the Japanese Breastforce team), had actually been canonized in a 1993 European sticker album, and he makes his first in-story appearance here. In keeping with that, the same scene canonizes the other half-formed Autobot combiner from 1992: the unnamed, incomplete 'bot that can be formed from the Motorvators (the European release of the Japanese Brainmaster team), who so lacks in combiner kibble that he is here rendered with swords instead of hands.
  • "Bonaparte Tulcas" (see real-world references below).
  • Return of Convoy Sky Garry.
  • Kronoform Autoceptor, in his blue color scheme.
  • OTFCC 2003 Roulette, who is commanding the Airport Base from Zone.
  • Generation 2 Power Masters Ironhide and Meanstreak.
  • Beast Wars McDonald's toddler toy Under-3.
  • Action Master Elite Windmill.
  • And a bunch of molds in the bombing scene lit in green. Staring closely, you can see the Beast Machines Tank Drone, Battle Unicorn, and Spy Streak molds, Predator Skyquake, Robots in Disguise X-Brawn and Prowl, Beast Wars Neo Saberback, and Armada Blurr. These molds were released in the Universe toyline (as Stockade, Magna Stampede, Fireflight, King Atlas, Ratchet, Inferno, Striker, and Swerve, respectively), but given the logistics and the fact that the first three aren't supposed to be here, they're probably just generics.
• In the control room raided by Flamewar:
  • Action Master Skyfall.
  • Tread Bolt, in his Universe body.
  • Strafe, in his Generation 2 Cyberjet body.
  • Kiss Players Autorooper.
  • Six-Changer Quickswitch.
  • Generation 2 Rotor Force member Manta Ray.
• At the Knight's base:
  • Generation 2 Laser Rods Volt and Electro.
  • Barely visible in the back are Return of Convoy Sixliner and Operation Combination Sixtrain.
  • Dinobot Slag.
• And finally, on the third to last page:
  • Rook, from BotCon Europe 2002.
  • Beast Machines Battle Unicorn.
• In the fantasy scene of Unicron sucking Energon from Cybertron, barely visible:
  • Fortress Maximus, Omega Supreme, and Superion.
  • Victory Galaxy Shuttle and Landcross.
  • Zone Dai Atlas.
• Offering a hint of how far into the future the Star Seekers have jumped, a Maximal symbol is just about visible on a building on Galadria.
• Flamewar is paid in energon chips, Cyber Keys (from Cybertron), and the Decepticon variant of Energon stars (from Energon).
• Outpost Galadria incorporates a space bridge structure based on Decepticon Headquarters, as well as the Gasoline Base, fire station, and airport base Micromaster Stations. The remaining station, the construction station, is on Cyberion, along with the Rocket Base.
• Cyberion/Moon Base Four was originally mentioned in BotCon 2005 Ironhide's tech specs.
• Alpha Trizer homages the unreleased Snarl redeco 3H Productions mocked up as a potential Alpha Trion toy; his name references the Autobot Master Warrior Toraizer. Add in the revelation at the story's climax that he's actually a future version of Cheetor, and it's three big cats rolled into one! Note that when his calm veneer falls away, his speech patterns are strongly evocative of Cheetor's old youthful self; his cry of "Ah, galloping gyroscopes!" evokes Cheetor's old catchphrase, "Jumpin' gyros!"
• On the walls of the Knight's base, a mural depicts three faces: Rodimus Prime, Arcee (in her Transmetal 2 spider body from BotCon 2001), and Springer.
• Blackarachnia and Snarl appears in Primal Prime's portrait in their Universe bodies.
• The Knight's base is based on Zone Dai Atlas' base mode. Also visible is a building based on Zone Roadfire's base mode.
• The power packs the Star Seekers use to reactivate Unicron's head resemble small AllSparks, from the live-action movies.
• Cannonball uses "astroquads", presumably from the same measurement system as astroliters, mentioned in The Transformers episode "The Ultimate Doom, Part 3".
• Devcon uses the nickname "Fire Guts" for Ginrai, referring to his special attack in the Masterforce cartoon, and the name of the color scheme his toy uses, as sold by e-HOBBY.
• Alpha Trizer instructs the Knights to "find your still points", as he would have been repeatedly instructed to do over the course of Beast Machines.
• Apelinq manifests two claw-weapons using his Transfer Interlink; their design is based on the energon weapons of the Energon toyline, specifically the boom-arm piece from Strongarm and the claw from the Duststorm/Wideload mold.
• The four blades Cannonball holds are the colors of the R.A.s needed to form the Rainbow Shield, from the "Arms Micron" releases of the Japanese Prime toyline.
• At the story's end, Apelinq notes that it is Earth year 2984, a solid millennium since the Autobots and Decepticons awoke on Earth. He also offers up a few alternative dating schemes, using the six-digit system that was employed on his War Journals waaay back in the day (those were dated to stellar cycle 316, this story takes place in cycle 473), referencing the new calendar Monacus adopted after the deposition of Lord Gyconi (in the The Transformers cartoon episode "The Gambler"), and the calendar of the planet Skuxxos (homeworld of the Skuxxoid from the third season of The Transformers, named in The AllSpark Almanac II).
• Hunter is upgraded into his Shokaract body at the end of the story. The cave and his Matrix of Conquest are drawn the same as they were depicted in "Terminus", and Shokaract talks in the Comicraft font, with a little teal pentagon on the left side of his speech bubble like in the Marvel Generation 2 comics.

Real-life references

• The Delta Prysmos Sector refers to the planet Prysmos from Hasbro's Visionaries franchise, with Apelinq even referring to it as a "tempest of solar radiation", a key plot point in the Visionaries mythos. In a further reference, the Autobots' outpost, Galadria, is named after the lone female member of the heroic Spectral Knights from the series.
• Among the Autobots on Galadria is a 'bot based on Bonaparte Tulcas, the third "Deluxe Vehicle" from the Dorvack toyline who, unlike Whirl and Roadbuster, didn't make the jump to the Transformers line.
  • A year later, the Facebook edition of Ask Vector Prime would give him the rather fitting name Headcannon.
• Three of the Star Seeker's exploits-the Gradion Intergalactic Refinery Robbery, the theft of the Orutorian Reserves, and the Liagon Black Well Plunder-have their names taken from Takara toyline and anime Dennō Bōkenki Webdiver.

Errors

• When Alpha Trizer takes Ginrai's burning hand in his, Ginrai's index finger is colored purple as if it were one of Trizer's.
• Flare-Up's name is spelled with a hyphen in this story but with no hyphen on the packaging of the accompanying toy and the tie-in Tornado Facebook page. It is unknown which spelling, if either, is meant to be the "correct" spelling.
• Unicron was shown to be orbiting Cybertron after his destruction at the end of The Transformers: The Movie. However, in the season 3 episode, "Ghost in the Machine", a large explosion sent Unicron's head flying off into space, and when it was last seen in "Call of the Primitives", it was floating in deep space, not orbiting anything.

Other trivia

• This is labelled Timelines #10, but BotCon 2013's issue was labelled #8. The numbering gap was explained when, three months later, issue #9 was released digitally.
• The Diamond Edition includes profiles for Alpha Trizer, Apelinq, and Flare-Up.

Covers

• BotCon Edition: Photography of the Apelinq, Alpha Trizer, Flareup, Hunter, and Flamewar toys in a space battle, composited by Lanny Lathem
• Diamond Edition: The cast in homage to the poster for The Transformers: The Movie, by Marcelo Matere and Thomas Deer