Broken Glass!

	; When you gotta go, you gotta go!
	"Broken Glass!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	May 1987
Cover date	September 1987
Writer	Bob Budiansky
Penciler	Frank Springer
Inker	Ian Akin & Brian Garvey
Colorist	Nelson Yomtov
Letterer	Pat Brosseau
Editor	Don Daley
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

While the Autobots seek to prove their peaceful intentions to the Nebulans, Zarak summons the Decepticons.

Synopsis

The presence of giant f*cking robots threatens the 10,000-year peace of the planet Nebulos, as the citizens gather in protest demonstrations. Galen, a member of the ruling "Council of Peers" on Nebulos, looks for a solution to the escalating tensions; he tries to break up a fight among the protesters, only to get slugged for his troubles. Lord Zarak, a rival member of the council, seeks to use the situation to further his own political position; he's paid for quite a few of the protestors. Debate in the council is somewhat mollified when Gort appears and explains that his injuries were an accident.

While Galen consults with the disconnected head of Fortress Maximus about recent events, an unconvinced Zarak and his staff pay a visit to the other Autobots, who are setting up an encampment. Though an ostensibly peaceful gesture, their true purpose is to obtain the frequencies required to communicate with Cybertron. Using a facility owned by Grax, Zarak calls for help in ridding Nebulos of the Autobots.

On Cybertron, Scorponok's band has invaded the deserted Autobot base, where they receive Zarak's message. Scorponok orders his troops to prepare for interplanetary transport and world conquest.

The Decepticons arrive and, over Zarak's protests, lay siege to the capital city of Koraja in hopes of getting the citizens of Nebulos to surrender the five captive Autobots to them. The Nebulans fight back from within the city's fortified walls, but Duros and Galen can see that they can't hold out forever against the Decepticons. They need the power of the Autobots. Galen can't simply restore Fortress Maximus and his group, however; it would violate the terms of the peace agreement between them. Fortress Maximus tells him that there is a way for the Nebulans to control the Autobots themselves.

Soon, a group of Nebulan volunteers begin the process of binary bonding with the Autobots who had sacrificed their heads earlier. Despite Llyra's pleas, Galen is the fifth volunteer, stating that he must lead his people by example. The five Nebulans are bio-engineered to actually become the heads of the captive Autobots, creating the first Headmasters. While the Nebulans control the Autobots' bodies, the original Autobots maintain contact with the Nebulans they now carry, and the result is a group of highly effective warriors, which quickly dispatch the attacking Decepticons. Scorponok orders a retreat to allow time to study this new development.

The Autobots march through their damaged city, and the citizens gape in awe and fear at them, till they disconnect their heads and return to Nebulan form, whereupon they are greeted as heroes. But Llyra cannot find joy; her betrothed Galen has become a machine of war, a man she can no longer recognize.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Nebulans
Brainstorm (9) Highbrow (10) Hardhead (11) Chromedome (12) Fortress Maximus (13) Kup (16) Pointblank (17) Blurr (18) Hot Rod (19)	Triggerhappy (20) Misfire (21) Slugslinger (22) Apeface (23) Scorponok (24) Mindwipe (25) Snapdragon (26) Cyclonus/Krunix (27) Blot (28) Flywheels (29) Battletrap (30) Sixshot (31) Skullcruncher (32)	Spasma (1) Galen (2) Duros (3) Zarak (4) Llyra (5) Krunk (6) Grax (7) Vorath (8) Marita (14) Gort (15) Arcana (33) Stylor (34)

Quotes

Galen: "I'm the same man I always was. You must believe that."
Llyra: "I believe what I see--a man hiding behind a suit of armor."

—Apparently Galen is not more than meets the eye to Llyra

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

Marvel UK: Fixing an error, opening another can of worms.

Even as the narration describes the Nebulans transforming to "look like the heads of" their new Autobot partners, Fortress Maximus's new head (i.e., Galen transformed) is actually the animation model for Cerebros' head. Fortress Maximus randomly changes to his own head design as the Autobots engage the Decepticons... then suddenly changes back to Cerebros' head as the Headmasters prepare to transform back to humanoid form at the battle's end. The Cerebros head would show up a couple more times in future issues.
On page 8, in the third panel Kup is colored like Highbrow.
On page 10, a giant sized version of Cyclonus's future Targetmaster partner Nightstick is referred to as Cyclonus, even though he looks nothing like him. In an attempt to fix this error when the story was published in the UK comic, the character's name was changed to a completely made up "Krunix".
On the same page, Mindwipe is drawn as a Nebulan Headmaster partner.
When the Decepticons prepare to attack the city, a miscolored Misfire identifies himself as Mindwipe, while Slugslinger is drawn as a giant Caliburst, and Cyclonus is once again drawn as an oversized Nightstick. The Marvel UK reprint of this story leaves the first two errors untouched, while the giant Nightstick's line "Save some for Cyclonus!" was changed to "Save some for me!".
In the followup panel, the beast-mode Decepticons have transformed.... and jet-mode Misfire (presumably intended to be Mindwipe) is just sitting there on the ground with them.
The pre-attack introdump panel implies that only seven Decepticons have arrived to attack the city, but a variety of other Decepticons and generics show up in subsequent pages. In particular:
- Page 14: the attacking Decepticon force suddenly includes Fasttrack, jet-mode Apeface, and two vehicles that look rather suspiciously like Fortress Maximus's drone-bots Gasket and Grommet.
- Page 18: Triggerhappy has also joined the attack force.
- Pages 18 to 20 feature multiple generics to pad out the Decepticon ranks.
On the surgery table, Stylor is drawn as a mini-Chromedome.
The Autobot Headmasters' relative proportions are all out of whack when the Nebulans connect to them for the first time. Fortress Maximus is the same size as the other four, when he should be a couple of heads taller. Hardhead is the smallest, while Brainstorm is swollen up like a weightlifter.
As the Decepticons retreat, Skullcruncher is colored white and blue, and has a bizarrely misshapen helmet. Next to him, Snapdragon seems totally fine, after being crashed and very on fire just a couple of panels earlier.

Continuity errors

While not a direct error as such, the Nebulans' decision to binary-bond with the Autobots rather than fully restoring them seems very much based on the letter, rather than the spirit, of the conditions under which the Autobots remained.
It seems pretty incredible that Koraja's defenses, which are basically some cannons mounted on a stone wall, could hold off the Decepticons long enough for the Nebulans to perform five radical surgical procedures. The narration states that the surgeries take "hours". Getting past the walls of Koraja looks like it would take seconds.
Several Decepticons who show up in this issue are never seen again, including Flywheels and Sixshot.

Continuity notes

Although it is explained that the Nebulans turn into heads that only resemble the original heads of the Headmaster Autobots, and that the original heads maintain radio contact with their Nebulan partners, the original miniseries never mentions what becomes of the original heads. However, "The Final Conflict" in the 1987 UK annual showed that Fortress Maximus, at least, stored his original head in a chest compartment. Simon Furman explores what became of the original heads much later in IDW's Regeneration One.
In the time it takes Stylor to undergo the Headmaster process and fight in the battle, he misses multiple Nebulon parties.

Real-life references

TBD

UK printing

Issue #134

Additional Transformers story: "Headhunt"
Other strips: Robo-Capers

Issue #135

Additional Transformers story: "Grudge Match!"
Other strips: Robo-Capers

Issue #136

Additional Transformers story: "Grudge Match!"
Other strips: Robo-Capers

Issue #137

Additional Transformers story: "Ladies' Night"
Other strips: Robo-Capers

Changes in the IDW Classic Transformers reprint

missed it by that much

Page 3 - Last panel, the white highlights on Llyra and Galan's faces are gone, resulting in flesh-colored teeth.
Page 4 - Last panel, Duros's helmet is changed from pink to its proper dark blue.
Page 8 - Third panel, upon noting Kup was miscolored, they recolored him ... in his dark teal cartoon colors.
Page 12 - Middle panel, originally Misfire was colored as Mindwipe and also identified himself as Mindwipe, so this dialog was changed and his colors altered to Misfire's cartoon colors.
Page 14 - First panel, Skullcruncher's lower jaw is now green.
Page 19 - First panel, Scorponok's face is corrected to yellow.
Page 21 - Panels 2 and 3, Scorponok's face is corrected to yellow.
Page 23 - Fourth panel, "Marita" is changed to "Marika"????

Covers (5)

Headmasters #2 cover: Scorponok, with Zarak captive, fires on the Nebulans, by Frank Springer, Ian Akin, and Brian Garvey.
UK issue #134 cover: Cyclonus and Scourge, by Lee Sullivan.
UK issue #135 cover: Divebomb vs Swoop, by Jeff Anderson.
UK issue #136 cover: Grimlock about to crush Divebomb, by Robin Smith.
UK issue #137 cover: Susan Hoffman discovers Ultra Magnus, by Lee Sullivan.