Titan - Animated #3

Basic Information

Cover Characters: Bulkhead, Prowl, Bumblebee and Sari

Cover Art, Pencils and Inks: John McCrea

Cover Colours: John Burns

Cover Date: Jan 2009

Price: £2.60

Poster: Black Arachnia

Comic Title: Cross Roads

Comic Script: Robin Etherington

Comic Pencils & Inks: John McCrea

Comic Colours: Jason Cardy

Comic Lettering: Jimmy Betancourt/Comicraft

Comic Plot

On a Friday night in Detroit Starscream and the human villain Crossroads break into the City Transport Control and take over it's systems. Meanwhile, the Autobots are at a basketball game when they receive word of trouble outside that all the electronic systems in the city are going crazy. Crossroads announces over the communications in the city that he will only stop if the Autobots are destroyed. Suddenly a mob appears and chases the Autobots.

A short time later, after evading the mob Sari says that she knows who Crossroads is, and tells them that he was an employee of her father's who broke his "No War Bots" rule and got fired. They determine that in the chaos Crossroads must be going after his old equipment at his old lab, so the team go to Sumdac Tower to confront him.

Crossroads sees the Autobots entering the Tower via the security cameras, and so he sends the Tower's robots to stop them. The Autobots easily handle the robots and reach Crossroads. The police arrive and arrest the criminal, and the Autobots return to the basketball game to see who wins.

Comic Characters

Autobot

Bulkhead - SWAT Van

Prowl - Police Motorcycle

Afterburn - Off Road Car

Decepticon

Starscream - Harrier Jet

Megatron (mentioned, dizzy stars)

Other

Crossroads/Roland Cross (captured by police)

Sari Sumdac

Captain Fanzone

Isaac Sumdac (flashback only)

Comic Notes

• This was the last of the TFA UK comics released. The remaining 3 stories already completed were later released in the Movie comic line (and will be covered in those issues)
• Weirdly, despite Bumblebee appearing on the front cover he doesn't appear in this issue, with Afterburn taking his place.
• The Sumdac systems robot on the first page looks like he was design after the ROTF Motor-maids.
• Starscream gives Crossroads a sliver of Megatron's armour...wouldn't it have made more sense for it to have been an Allspark sliver?
• Why does Detroit have bendy lamp posts???
• Sari had a pixie-cut when she was a little kid
• Why does Crossroads' lab STILL have police tape across it after a few years??
• Bulkhead has a tiny Megatron heads and stars rotating around his head when he gets dizzy...WHY?!?! Wouldn't Laserbeaks or something have been better??
• Prowl mentions "a wise bot"..this is likely meant to be Yoketron
• Detroit's basketball team are called "The Dunkers"

Extra Features

Adverts - Lots of adverts, including one for issue four...which never happened....

Autobots Transform! - Jokes and stuff

Character Puzzles - Black Arachnia themed puzzles

Nano-Bites - TFA Merchandise lowdown

Captain Fanzone's Fan Zone - Leader and Supreme Class check list (including the Ultra Magnus that wasn't released in the UK)

Challenge Ratchet - Puzzles

Competition - Win some non-Transformers things

Professor Sumdac's Design a 'Bot! - A Contest that likely never got finished

Blast from the Past Part Three - The screen shot and word bubble adaptation of the episode finally ends!!!

How to Draw Bulkhead - Shows you how to draw Bulky!

Prime vs Megatron - Optimus and Megatron get their stats etc analysed

Bee Mail - Bumblebee and Prowl read the fan mail