Title: Ghosts of Cybertron, Part 1
Written by: Erik Burnham
Art by: Dan Schoening
Colours by: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letters by: Tom B. Long
Assistant Editor: Megan Brown
Editors: David Mariotte & Tom Waltz
Plot
War rages on Cybertron, but seeing no way of winning, Optimus Prime leads his Autobots off the world and into space.
Normally, Megatron would have had his Decepticons chase the Autobots immediately to finish them off, but Gozer, the Traveler has arrived and informs the Decepticons that it intends to destroy their world. Megatron approaches to confront the destroyer, and it requests that he choose the form of the destructor, before he can though, Starscream, from behind accidentally has a thought of himself conquering Cybertron, giving Gozer it's new form.
Soon, a giant Starscream, in his emperor garb and wearing a necklace of his enemy's heads appears and attacks the planet, Megatron shoots Starscream for his stupidity and leads the Decepticons in battle against the monster, however they fail, and Gozer destroys the planet and all the Decepticons still on the world...
About a thousand years later, the Autobots are living on their ship, The Ark, when Ectronymous Diamatron detects a Cybertronian signal on a world called Earth, he informs Optimus, who agrees that this is intriguing, but he cannot send a team due to their limited resources and man-power, but does allow "Eck" to investigate it alone.
In Brooklyn, Earth, the Ghostbusters, a team of paranormal investigators and exterminators, look at their vehicle, the Ecto-1, which has been crashed into a large pot-hole in the road whilst on a job. As they leave to deal with the ghost, they don't see a sky-spy scan the Ecto-1 and a replica of it appears from the woods nearby.
At Prospect Park, the large squid-like ghost is lashing out at the Ghostbusters, but they manage to defeat it and trap it within one of their ghost traps and head bac towards the Ecto-1 to see if it can be repaired.
Whilst they are away, a pair of cops try to give the Ecto-1 a ticket for illegally parking on the grass, but it shoots the paper, burning it to ashes, leaving the cops to just leave it be...
Soon, the Ghostbusters return to Ecto-1, but are surprised to see two versions of it, one in the ditch, the other om the grass. Egon scans the area to see if there's something paranormal happening here, but gets some unusual readings.
Behind them, Starscream, now a ghost, appears and tells the Ghostbusters to leave, as he needs to speak with the Autobot, however the Ghostbusters simply shoot him with their proton packs and catch him within a trap.
Egon questions the strange readings, but Winston questions what the "Autobot" the robot ghost was looking for, when the Ecto-1 transforms and reveals itself to be Eck in disguise, shocking the Ghostbusters in the process!
Characters
Autobot
Optimus Prime
Ectronymous Diamatron/Eck - Ecto-1
Bumblebee - Winged Hovercraft
Cliffjumper
Trailbreaker - Hover Van
Jazz - Hover Van
Wheeljack - Hover Van
Prowl
Ratchet
Ironhide
Brawn
Windcharger
Grapple
Jetfire (Imaginary Head on Starscream-Gozer Only)
Decepticon
Megatron Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Starscream - Tetrajet Supposedly Killed by Gozer, Now a Ghost, Caught by Ghostbusters
Shockwave - Ray Gun Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Soundwave - Lamp Post Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Laserbeak - Cassette Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Thundercracker - Tetrajet Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Skywarp - Tetrajet Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Sunstorm - Tetrajet Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Hot Link - Tetrajet Supposedly Killed by Gozer
Reflector
Ghostbuster
Egon Spengler
Winston Zeddemore
Peter Venkman
Ray Stantz
Other Human
Frank, the Cop
Tim, the Cop
Other
Gozer the Gozerian
Zuul
Vinz Clortho
Quintesson Ghost Ghost Captured by Ghostbusters
Primus (Mentioned)
Notes
- This mini-series is to mark the 35th anniversary of both the Transformers and Ghostbusters franchises...it honestly never occurred to me that Ghostbusters was 35 too this year!
- The setting of this series is the Ghostbusters main comic continuity, which has had a slew of other crossovers in recent years, though in this case, the Transformers seem to be from the same universe as them (unless the Ark travelled through a wormhole or something between their leaving the doomed Cybertron and the modern day.
- The Transformers designs and their back-story appear to be based on their Sunbow counterparts, though with some major differences (like Cybertron and the Decepticons being destroyed) but most significantly to me, the Autobots only travel for about a thousand years before approaching Earth, making their leaving Cybertron a LOT later than in the cartoon.
- In keeping with the Cartoon aesthetic, the Cybertronians are shown with their Earth bodies and vehicle parts, despite them having Cybertronian modes (As such, I'll not mention alternate modes in the character list, unless they are known from the cartoon or the comic itself)
- The main Cybertronian character in this series is Ectronymous Diamatron which is the "real name" of the crossover toy "Ectotron" released as part of the crossover's promotions. I will most likely be calling him "Eck" or "Ectotron" in my reviews though, as those are less of a mouthful :D
- Gozer and it's minion's designs resemble the forms seen in the original Ghostbusters movie, but more robotic in nature (including a scaling up to make Gozer the same size as Megatron)
- Eck uses the explicit "By Primus!" here, something that would NEVER have been said in the cartoon
- Eck hypothesises that the signal he located on Earth could be from a lost Cybertronian colony. A concept seen in the past in Cybertron and IDW's first G1 continuity
- The ghost the Ghostbusters fight off first appears to be a Quintesson Prosecutor, given we also see some Quintesson Judge heads on Gozer's temple earlier in the issue, we can probably assume they Quintessa was attacked and destroyed by Gozer too
- Starscream being a ghost has been an ongoing theme since the third season of the original cartoon.
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