IDW - Transformers Holiday Special

"Choose Me"

Written by: Mairghread Scott

Art by: Corin Howell

Colours by: Thomas Deer

"Silent Light"

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Kotteri

Colours by: Joanna LaFuente

"The Thirteenth Day of Christmas"

Written by: John Barber

Art by: Josh Burcham

Edited by: John Barber and Carlos Guzman

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Choose Me

On Cybertron, the Cybertronians and returning colonists are getting along great, but Starscream starts to get jealous, as he is still alone, except for the ghost of Bumblebee. However Bumblebee suggests that if he was kinder then others would like him.

Starscream takes this idea the wrong way, and decides to declare a new holiday for Cybertronians called "Chosen One Day" in which everyone has to give him a present to show they care about him. He has Rattrap deliver the message-video to Circuit and Longtooth to communicate to everyone, but they make a mistake, and cut off part of the message, and implies that "Chosen One Day" is where you give presents to ANYONE you want to show you care.

Soon, all of Cybertron and the colony worlds are taking part in the new holiday, except for Starscream who was given NOTHING. Starscream gets angry and plans his revenge when suddenly Wheeljack and several others arrive and surprises him with a party to say thanks for the great new holiday, and they gift him their friendship, until the morning anyway.

This pleases Starscream, and he decides to not kill anyone...at least not yet.

Characters

Autobot

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet

Chromia - Speedbike

Wheeljack - Race Car

Ironhide - Van

Blurr - Race Car

Slug - Triceratops

Bumblebee (Ghost)

Decepticon

Waspinator - Wasp

Tall Tankor - Cargo Plane/Oil Tanker

Fat Tankor - Tank

Sparkstalker - Insect Monster

Onslaught - Anti-Aircraft Truck

Brawl - Tank

Vortex - Helicopter

Blast Off - Space Shuttle

United Cybertron

Starscream - Fighter Jet

Rattrap - Mole-Rat

Circuit

Longtooth

Vehicon

The Badgeless

Colonists

Lightbright

Moonracer - Sports Car

Knock Out - Sports Car

"Aligned" Breakdown - Armoured Truck

Vanquish - Part of Jet

Fireshot - Part of Jet

Airazor - Falcon

Cheetor - Cheetah

Dinobot - Raptor

Elita One - Car

Strika - Battle Tank

Obsidian - Helicopter

Carcer Crew

Other Colonists

Silent Light

Rodimus returns to the Lost Light after a three-day trip for a "Meteorfest" to find Megatron and Ultra Magnus setting up some strange devices around the ship, whilst complaining about how Brainstorm is busy messing with his conceptual devices (which has incidentally turned the devices in the ship into things resembling traditional Christmas decorations from Earth.

Magnus and Megatron tell Rodimus that the entire ship needs to be put to sleep so they can travel through some hostile space without being attacked, which is the reason for the signal dampeners/decorations.

At Swerve's bar Swerve, Nautica and Whirl are drunk, and ignoring the lock-in for the trip through hostile space. Suddenly they hear a knock on the door, panicking them that Magnus has come for them, however Whirl instead just finds some crates at the door, with a newborn Cybertronian protoform inside. The trio decide to send the Protoform to Luna-1 for it to be looked after properly through the Subspace Hatch, but they find it locked up in Magnus' office.

Before long, Magnus appears without his armour and asks why the trio aren't in their protective pods, they panic and Nautica hides the Protoform inside the Magnus armour, which suddenly activates and tries to hug Magnus, who is soon knocked out by Nautica with her spanner. They lose track of the Protoform and start to panic again, whilst also dragging Magnus to safety.

The Protoform, still inside the armour finds his way to Megatron, and proceeds to try and hug him, causing Megatron to freak out over his sudden touchy-feeliness, until he's saved by Nautica and the others claiming that he's just drunk.

Nautica and Swerve get into their protective pods, and Whirl says he'll take care of the Protoform, he plans to send it out the air-lock, so that the crew will be saved (since if it's detected by the Maulers the entire ship will be put in danger and there's no extra pods for it to go into) However when he sees that the baby has taken on features similar to his, he feels a strong connection, and lets it sleep in the pod with him.

Later, Whirl wakes up in the Medibay where Velocity reveals that the Protoform was in fact just the combined form of a swarm of Scraplets, who took the young Cybertronian form to trick the Lost Lighters into thinking it wasn't a threat before killing them all. Whirl reveals that he deprived energy to his own spark so that only the baby would be detected, keeping everyone safe.

If he was out for any longer then he would have died. Learning how he risked everything for a swarm of sentient pathogens, as it tricked him, he says that he's proud of his little friends...

Characters

Autobot

Rodimus - Car

Megatron - Tank

Ultra Magnus/Minimus Ambus - Vehicle Transport/Minesweeper

Whirl - Osprey Helicopter

Nautica - Submarine

Swerve - Van

Velocity - Race Car

Brainstorm - Jet (Mentioned)

Rewind - Data Slug (Mentioned)

Other

Protoform/Scraplets

Cerebros (Mentioned)

Primus (Mentioned)

Maulers (Mentioned)

Galactic Council (Mentioned)

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas

On the Twelfth day of Christmas, Director Anna Log is sleeping in her house with her pet Turbofoxes nearby when suddenly Megatron blasts his way into her house, in a Santa-suit, and kills her and her pets.

The next day, December 38th, Thundercracker, a great detective and his assistant Buster receive word of the death of the Director and goes to investigate. Once there, they find some video footage of the murderer, and identify it as Santa Claus.

Thundercracker heads to the North Pole, passing some surfing penguins and Polar Bears drinking Coca-Cola and locates Santa's base of operations, but Buster's nose starts glowing red, which can mean only one thing...danger!

Suddenly Santa's mechanical reindeer fly up to attack the brave detective, but he easily defeats them, making his way to Santa's base, and engages the jolly, muscular human in a fist-fight. Suddenly Thundercracker learns that Megatron framed Santa, and all because Santa left him a lump of coal for being a naughty boy. Thundercracker punches Megatron and knocks him out, saving Christmas. Afterwards, Santa and Thundercracker fly off, using Megatron in tank-mode as a sleigh, led by the reindeer and Buster, and become the best of friends! The End.

Thundercracker finishes telling Faireborn and Jones his idea for a children's story book, but Faireborn is completely annoyed by all his mistakes and just how bad the plot was. Jones leaves with Buster, in her reindeer antlers, and leaves the other two to argue about it's worth.

Characters

Cybertronian

Thundercracker - Fighter Jet

Autobot

Beat Cop Arcee - Sports Car (Fictional Only)

Decepticon

Megatron - Tank (Fictional Only) Defeated by Thundercracker

Cameraman Laserbeak - Cassette (Fictional Only)

Human

Marissa Faireborn

Ayana Jones

Director Anna Log (Fictional Only) Killed by Megatron

Fictional Cop (Fictional Only)

Other

Buster

Reindeer Robots (Fictional Only)

Two Pet Turbofoxes (Fictional Only) Killed by Megatron

Notes

• The front cover shows that Ravage has gotten Megatron a new fusion cannon...could this be a glimpse into his future?
• The art style and theme for "Choose Me" is based on Doctor Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
• One of the colonists coming through the Space Bridge is based on the My Little Pony brand, I'd assume that she (he?) comes from Eukaris.
• Bumblebee's ghost is redesigned here to be more cartoony, with him also having Energon Cubes chained to himself, like Jacob Marley from "A Christmas Carol"
• "Choose Me" seems to be set before "Redemption", but after the conclusion of the "Windblade" series as Slug is still welcome in the city, and Elita One and the others are around.
• The Combaticons gift Onslaught with a new grenade...wonder if that will come up again with their plans to make Starscream pay for covering up Swindle's death?
• Despite the other representatives being shown at the party, neither Carcerian representative is at Starscream's party.
• A lot of the contrived Christmas imagery in "Silent Light" are based on mostly British Christmas traditions, like crackers, paper crowns etc.
• Rodimus has been to a "Meteorfest" a reference to his introduction to the IDW continuity on a flaming meteor during his Spotlight issue.
• The events of this issue takes place after the events of MTMTE 48, released the same day, based on how Magnus has moved the Subspace Hatch to his officer from the Medi-bay. This somewhat spoils a few character's survival from the upcoming part 2 for that storyline, which has been noted to include deaths.
• The Scraplets are capable of controlling the Magnus Armour...this is not explained...
• So the plot in this issue is that the crew all have to get to their "B.E.D.S" and sleep so they don't get noticed by someone on Christmas Eve...
• "The Thirteenth Day of Christmas" is Thundercracker's attempt at writing a children's Christmas story book....as this is the case it is a mis-match of many themes and mistakes.
• Strangely, this story is the only one of the three stories included here that is undeniably set at Christmas.
• I would say that Thundercracker added his understanding of Buster's language in for the story, but Transformers #48 actually DOES show that he understands the sweet doggy!
• Arcee wearing a police uniform really reminds me of the Transformers in human clothes from the Transformers Legends tie-in comics.
• Buster's glowing nose is a reference to Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. She is also shown wearing reindeer horns when the story shifts to reality....N'AWWWWW!!!!
• Megatron being evil and using his fusion cannon in this story implies that he's a Decepticon in this "continuity"
• In case you missed it, Megatron is used as Santa's sleigh in the final panel of the "story book"