All Hail Megatron issue 1

	; Gentlemen! Start your personal canons!
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	July 10, 2008
Cover date	July 2008
Written by	Shane McCarthy
Art by	Guido Guidi
Colors by	Josh Burcham
Letters by	Neil Uyetake & Chris Mowry
Edits by	Denton J. Tipton
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	All Hail Megatron

On your knees, human scum, and bow before the great and glorious Megatron!

Synopsis

A brief flashback shows the war on Cybertron, its evacuation, and a battle on Earth. One year later...

In New York City, a green construction vehicle nearly runs over some humans in Times Square. One of the men beats on his door, yelling that Long Haul is going to kill someone. He doesn't know how right he is. Much to the man's amazement, Long Haul transforms and joins the other Constructicons who have arrived. The crowd marvels at the giant robots, some thinking they are movie props. Scrapper makes a brief speech that they have come in peace, to Hook's confusion. Of course, this is all a joke and the Constructicons begin blasting into the crowd and street, blasting everything and everyone in sight. Mixmaster takes a moment to marvel at how fragile everything feels. Such a perfectionist...

The Seekers make their grand entrance soon after. Skywarp mocks the humans, telling Starscream that the humans will really be terrified when Megatron arrives. Starscream bristles, taking pot shots into the crowd and claiming how he is the master of terror. Unfortunately for him, Megatron ominously makes his appearance mid-rant. Starscream instantly grovels, saying that their destruction of the city is going well. Megatron is far from impressed, showing them the true meaning of destruction as he takes out a skyscraper with one blast of his fusion cannon. He then tells Starscream to try and keep up with him. Touché.

Fighter pilots are sent to intercept the Decepticons, but they think it's just a joke... until they see the robots in person. Megatron stops an immediate retaliation by Starscream, wanting to let the humans get a few shots in first. Starscream is far from happy. Thanks to Soundwave, the missiles' guidance systems are easily scrambled and miss their targets. The machine guns, surprisingly, have no effect on them. Satisfied with his demonstration of power, Megatron then orders his crew to attack, which they do with gusto. As the human jets are decimated, one of the pilots, a man named DJ, attempts to crash his crippled fighter into Megatron, who just swats him away. Megatron walks through a blazing fire, laughing maniacally.

On Cybertron, the Autobots are in a sorry state. Prowl delivers a message on a device to Jazz, who angrily throws it away. In the next room, a badly-injured Optimus Prime lies on an operating table while Ratchet works in the background...

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Optimus Prime (1) Brainstorm (2) Slingshot (3) Wheeljack (9) Ironhide (10) Jazz (11) Bumblebee (12) Ratchet (13) Hound (29) Prowl (30) Mirage (32) Trailbreaker (33) Tracks (34) Cliffjumper (35) Sunstreaker (36) Sideswipe (37)	Megatron (4) Soundwave (5) Headstrong (6) Starscream (7) Astrotrain (8) Long Haul (14) Hook (15) Mixmaster (16) Scavenger (17) Bonecrusher (18) Scrapper (19) Thundercracker (20) Skywarp (21) Shrapnel (25) Bombshell (26) Laserbeak (28) Blitzwing (29)	Andy Reid (22) DJ (23) Meg (picture, 24) Anders (27)

Quotes

Scrapper: "Human creatures of Earth, we come in peace. We come to you to preach the message of unity, co-operation, and goodwill. Between our races... ours is a message of kindness."
Long Haul looks at Scrapper.
Both: Hahahahaha!

Notes

Continuity notes

Note Thundercracker in the background of pages 8 to 10, looking a bit unhappy about the rampage. Pay attention, there will be a test.
Sideswipe is on speaking terms with Sunstreaker, surprisingly.
First appearances: Tracks, Brainstorm, Slingshot; Shrapnel and Bombshell, for real this time.

Transformers references

F-22s were so 2007.

Lots of characters show up with new bodies!
- Prowl, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker are now in their Universe "Classic Series" toy bodies.
- Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp are now in their Masterpiece toy bodies.
- Shrapnel and Bombshell have modified Generation 1-esque designs, transforming into more bug-like insect modes.
- Cliffjumper's Earth mode is seen, which is essentially the same design as Bumblebee's, but adapted to turn into a sports car.
Megatron, Blitzwing, Jazz, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Wheeljack, Ironhide, and Optimus Prime manage to retain their unique-to-IDW bodies. Astrotrain does too, in his one-panel appearance, but starting next issue Guido Guidi began drawing him using his Classics design.
The cast on both sides is basically the 1985 toy line, aka the Season 2 cast of the Generation 1 cartoon.

Real-world references

The first page's "let's explain Transformers in four vertical panels using simple sentence fragment narration" is an homage to the very similar and famous intro to Grant Morrison's All Star Superman.
The action is set in Manhattan.

Errors

In the flashback panel on page 1, Jazz is missing his car doors on his forearms. It doesn't appear to be battle damage, and he has them later on in the present.
Remember those big public Transformers battles and that giant dinosaur robot stomping around in broad daylight? Well, the people of America don't. The Air Force squadron say they thought the Decepticons were a hoax, though whether they meant the Decepticons in general—whom the Air Force have seen and bombed—or this specific attack is unclear. Neither makes much sense. Next issue reveals that the Transformers were public knowledge, but everyone believes they were tools for a terrorist group, which means the Air Force thinking they were a hoax and the people of NYC not recognizing them with fear makes even less sense.
In real life, there is no such rank as "commander" in the United States Air Force. Shane McCarthy is Australian, and their national air force has a "wing commander" rank, so that might be a real-life explanation for the existence of the rank in this continuity. This is not the first time this has happened.
- The equivalent rank in the U.S. Air Force would be a Lieutenant Colonel.
DJ has a "soul patch" beard, which, in the real world, is not allowed for U.S. military pilots (as it would interfere with the sealing of the pilot's oxygen mask).
It's not as apparent here as in later issues, but Josh Burcham was clearly having some difficulties colouring Black skin correctly.

Other trivia

The violence was toned down since the preview in "Focus on: Decepticons!"; the blood running down the sneaker and cell phone is missing from the bottom-left panel of page 6. This was at the request of Hasbro.^[1]
When July sales data came in, it turned out All Hail Megatron #1, the heavily-promoted new-reader-friendly jump-on point to draw in New Readers... had sold one copy less than Devastation #1 in the North American direct market.^[2]

Covers (5)

Cover A: Megatron with Prime's head on a pike; art and colors by Klaus Scherwinski. This art was also used for the volume 1 trade paperback.
Cover B: Communist propaganda style of Megatron silhouette with the Seekers overhead; art and colors by Trevor Hutchison
Cover Retailer Incentive A: Megatron closeup; art and colors by Klaus Scherwinski
Cover Retailer Incentive B: virgin version of cover A
Retailer Exclusive Cover: Megatron taking a picture with Reflector, art by Casey Coller and Josh Burcham. The cover is an homage to the cover of Batman: The Killing Joke published by DC Comics in 1988.