Dreamwave Armada issue 1

	; Perspective, or scale issues? You decide!
Publisher	Dreamwave
First published	July 10, 2002
Script	Chris Sarracini
Pencils	James Raiz
Inks	Rob Armstrong, Erik Sander
Colors	Alan Wang, Gary Yeung, Ramil Sunga
Lettering	Dreamer Design
Continuity	Dreamwave Armada continuity

The Decepticons begin their conquest of Cybertron by rounding up Mini-Cons.

Synopsis

A million years ago, Hot Shot is found speeding through Cyber City on Cybertron with urgent news for Optimus Prime. He shows the Autobot leader a video disc of a Mini-Con distress call from Leader-1, leader of Village D10 in the Mini-Con Sector. He speaks of an evil race of Transformers, the Decepticons led by Megatron, that has been attacking Mini-Con villages and taking them captive. He requests the aid of the "guardians of Cyber City", just as a massive hand reaches down to grab the Mini-Con and ending the video. Optimus decides this is quite the problem.

In the Mini-Con Sector, Village C52 is preparing their defense against the Decepticons: an energon dome to envelop the village and keep the villains out. Sparkplug is sent to watch out for any Decepticons by Rollbar, and Incinerator reports to Rollbar of their progress. While working on the defense, Longarm relates to Jolt a story told to him by a friend from Village B13, who escaped from the Decepticons. The friend informed Longarm that the Decepticons were experimenting on the Mini-Cons, retooling them and rewiring them so that they could extract their power and use it for themselves. Just as Longarm and Jolt are finished, Sparkplug crashes into the village and warns of the Decepticons before passing out. The Mini-Cons manage to activate the energon dome, but they do not anticipate Cyclonus emerging from the ground. The Decepticon destroys the energon dome and takes Mini-Cons prisoner. He is soon joined by Demolishor, who leaves Sparkplug lying in wreckage. The two Decepticons contact Megatron to tell him they're finished, and Megatron responds that it is time to declare war...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Mini-Cons
Hot Shot (1) Smokescreen (2) Scavenger (3) Optimus Prime (8)	Megatron (20) Cyclonus (21) Demolishor (22)	Leader-1 (4) Payload (5) Sky Blast (6) Astroscope (7) Swindle (9) Rollbar (10) Sparkplug (11) Crumplezone (12) Jolt (13) Longarm (14) Incinerator (15) Blackout (16) Downshift (17) Dirt Boss (18) Mirage (19)

Notes

Transformers references

Bots somewhat resembling Generation 1 Hound, Jazz, Wheeljack, and Cliffjumper appear as extras in Cyber City.

Real-world references

In Prime's first appearance, there's a screen behind him with tiny, but legible, text. The text reads "All your base are belong to us" over and over, and "if you can read this you are obsessed". It makes a fair point.

Errors

The signs outside Cyber City refer to it as... Cybercity.

Other trivia

With 135,930 copies ordered, this issue ranked #1 in Diamond Comic Distributors' sales charts for July 2002, beating Generation 1 #4 to the top spot.^[1]
In a weird and slightly-confusing sequence of panels, Rollbar watches some kind of Cybertronian butterfly fly away. The scene is probably meant as symbolic foreshadowing for the Mini-Cons that are about to be regarded as "bugs" by the much larger Decepticons soon thereafter.