Headmaster Chapter Prologue - Transformers Wiki

Scorponok's insane machinations force the Autobots and the Decepticons to go to the Legends World for new bodies.

Synopsis

In the year 2021, Fortress Maximus's Autobots clash with a returned Scorponok's Decepticons over a giant black hole that the Decepticon seeks to explode, hoping to destroy the Autobots and create plasma energy in one fell swoop. Accusing his nemesis of being mad with revenge, Fortress has his troops recover what explosives they can, only for Scorponok to detonate the rest with no concern for his own soldiers. Fortress sends Wheelie and their human friends to safety as the blast wave hits Autobots and Decepticons alike, shrinking their bodies into super deformed forms! An examination shows that being exposed to the exploding black hole has caused miniature black holes ("blackballs") to appear in their bodies, shrinking their mass and threatening to collapse the Autobots in on themselves if nothing is done.

The cassettes inside of Twincast prove to be unaffected and the Headmasters simply disconnect from their affected transtectors, but the other Autobots are still in danger. Seeing no other option, Fortress has their heads removed and retrofitted into Headmasters as their bodies continue to shrink and eventually pop out of existence. In order to get everyone new bodies, he then suggests they visit the Legends World, recalling the creation of their comrades Roadbuster and Whirl. Having tracked the dimension's spacetime coordinates from the two Wreckers' residual radiation, he sets out to travel there via solitarium straight away—because the battleship Maximus which makes up his body is also shrinking. As they depart, the Autobots wonder if the affected Decepticons have had the same idea, and indeed the Decepticon Headmasters have already reached the Legends World and struck a deal with Tera-Kura Co. scientist Tarantulas to make them new bodies. Furthermore, Tarantulas has his own scheme in mind, intending to use the Decepticons to conquer the world for himself!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• The Blackballs and the super deformed appearances they inflicted upon the characters in this chapter are a reference to PDTF Comic in which the Blackball concept originated as that fiction's primary MacGuffin quarreled over by super-deformed versions of the Autobots and Decepticons.
• Scorponok was last seen when his BlackZarak transtector and Devil Z were destroyed in the Super-God Masterforce finale "A Battle... and Then...". Although his continued existence had already been established in the Zone OVA, this story indicates that he survived with no supernatural assistance from Violengiguar, the Zone main antagonist. Scorponok's obsession with plasma energy was shown in the two-part The Headmasters episode "Cybertron Is in Grave Danger".
• Most of the main cast of The Headmasters anime reappears. Cyclonus is absent, off participating in the online chapters of Unite Warriors. Soundblaster's cassettes can be assumed to be present inside his chest. Curiously, however, Apeface's partner Snapdragon and the Autobot Targetmasters' Decepticon counterparts are not seen. Among the Autobots, Brainstorm stands out with his absence, likely because he got his time in the spotlight already with his first Legends toy.
  • Vol. 45 would later clarify that all six main Targetmasters were indeed present for the events of this story.
• The Super Convoy transtector would come back into play, fittingly, in Ginrai's pack-in story.