Shattered Expectations (SG)

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Look, it's the army of redeco!
"Shattered Expectations"
Publisher	Fun Publications
First published	April 1, 2008
Writers	Trent Troop & Greg Sepelak
Art	Greg Sepelak
Colors	Trent Troop
Letters	Trent Troop
Editor	Pete Sinclair
Managing editor	Your mother
Continuity	Shattered Expectations

Gotcha!

Synopsis

Goldbug, Jazz, and Grimlock bicker while walking around in a dark room. The super-intelligent Grimlock tells Goldbug to hold his tongue, while Jazz manages to find a light switch. The room is illuminated to show several organic shells floating in tubes, technology which Goldbug intends to use to crush the Decepticon insurgency. However, the three are suddenly confronted by Starscream and Razorclaw, who command them to step down. Grimlock rushes forth, knocking down Starscream and grabbing hold of Razorclaw, grumbling all the way about being used as an attack dog. Starscream gives the Autobots one last chance to surrender. Grimlock scoffs, but Razorclaw uses a controller to open up the ceiling, as the Mayhem Suppression Squad descend to attack!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Happy April Fool!

Transformers references

• This entire comic was a tribute to Derek Yaniger's artwork in the Marvel Generation 2 comics, including wiring visible in between the armor of the Transformers and leaking fluids.
  • When Grimlock puts his foot on Starscream in Page 2, the image and poses of both characters is almost identical to poses of Jhiaxus and Megatron respectively from the cover of the Generation 2 issue #7.
  • Similarly, the following panel of Grimlock glaring at Starscream is a homage to the scene in issue #8 where Megatron glares at Optimus, right down to Grimlock's 'drool'.
  • Colonel Deathsaurus's pose is identical to Bludgeon jumping from the Warworld in #4 of the Generation 2 comic.
  • Bug Bite's pose is lifted from Sideswipe's first appearance in Generation 2 #1.
  • Dirge's shell pose is also a lift from issue 4, this time from Octopunch; his robot pose comes from Ramjet in issue #6.
• Grimlock threatening Goldbug with the removal of his voice box is likely a reference to Movieverse Bumblebee.
• The four Pretender shells on the first page are the shells of the Classic Pretenders, while the other two shells on the second page are the unreleased Double Pretenders. Given that the "Shattered" equivalents of the four Classic Pretender characters are all present (Goldbug, Grimlock, Jazz, and Starscream), and they've just discovered four Pretender shells that look like those from the main universe, it seems likely that if this story had continued, they each would have taken and used their shells.
• Goldbug looks forward to the Decepticon uprising being "FINISHED... OVER!," a reversal of the standard Furmanism.
• Starscream and Razorclaw (presumably with the rest of the Decepticons) work for the Quintesson Federation; presumably they are more heroic and less greedy than their regular counterparts.
• The Mayhem Suppression Squad are the mirror universe version of the Mayhem Attack Squad, a group of Decepticons first introduced in the Marvel UK The Transformers comics, who would later be ported over to the American comics. Of their members:
  • Colonel Deathsaurus uses his Victory counterpart's BotCon 2005 body with the colors of Victory Star Saber, his evil counterpart's nemesis.
  • Bug Bite is based on his GoBots counterpart's BotCon 2007 body, but with red deco instead of purple, along with a mustache and monocle.
  • Thundercracker uses the Classics Seeker body with the colors of his Generation 1 counterpart's Action Master toy.
  • Dirge's inner body uses his Generation 1 counterpart's BotCon 2007 body (a redeco of Classics Ramjet) in the colors of Beast Wars II Thrust. His Pretender shell uses the body of BotCon 2005 Dirge in the colors of fellow 2005 exclusive Chromia.
  • Laserbeak uses the body of Energon Divebomb in the colors of Armada Laserbeak.
  • Astrotrain is a repurposing of the club-exclusive Cybertron Astrotrain. Stonecruncher is a repurposing of Astro-Hook, while Tailwind is a repurposing of Astro-Line. Starcatcher and Astro Sinker would later be repurposed in the main Shattered Glass universe as Fasttrack and Submarauder.
  • Presumably, the Seacons are meant to be based on their Generation 1 counterpart's Timelines toys, but they aren't quite right.

Real-world references

• Jazz's speech patterns are based on Mr. T.
• The Quintesson Federation is likely named for the United Federation of Planets from Star Trek.

Trivia

• When it was released online, this comic was supposed to be a three-page preview to Shattered Glass. It was actually an April Fools joke. A really good one. Ironically, the story and characters (Mr. T Jazz, criminal genius Grimlock, etc.) were all extremely popular, and influenced the actual "Shattered Glass" comic and universe.
• The comic was reprinted in its entirety as part of the Diamond release of "Shattered Glass".

External links

• Shattered Expectations Page 1
• Shattered Expectations Page 2
• Shattered Expectations Page 3