Is there only the one page spread about the missing bots?

 

Yeah. It cuts in at the end of the scene in the Communications tower with Blaster/Perceptor vs Soundwave's cassettes. Perceptor asks where the Aerialbots are and Blaster responds "Sorry Buddy..." and that leads into the splash page where he says they have their own problems to deal with.

Then you turn the page and it's right back to Megatron leading the attack as Devastator enters the fray.

Sorry for the delay on the reply. I didn't have my copy in front of me when you quoted me and then I just plain forgot to go into the other room and get it off the bookshelf until just now.

 

Np friend!

It’d Be cool if they worked in the deleted storyboards into the comic like magnus and team taking down devastator with their rockets! That way we would’ve seen sideswipe, tracks and red alert!

Also Mirage’s death could’ve been worked in somewhere during the battle.

I love that storyboard linked above cuz it also includes some more action sequences with hot rod n kup taking down thundercracker and the insecticons. That would explain why they were so damaged by the time they’re arguing in Astrotrain

Still leaves Bluestreak, sunstreaker, hound, smokescreen, trailbreaker, hoist, grapple, inferno, and skids to the imagination  

I will just assume they were somewhere either defending Autobot city or the Ark, survived and made their way to the Headmasters cartoon?

 

I always headcanoned Warpath as being with the Superion, Defensor and Omega Supreme at the Ark, possibly even the commanding veteran officer in Primes absence.

 

Nothing new there. Everyone forgets about Skids.  

 

In regards to fiction, I would love if they could rerelease the 1986 movie with new scenes (plus the storyboards that were not animated) that could show what happened at the Ark during the 1986 movie and other locations so we could have closure on what happened to many transformers that were never heard from again. In it hopefully, Skyfire could be in it, along with Stunticons, Combaticons, Aerialbots, Protectobots, could also include Runaround and Runamok as well as maybe even Punch/Counterpunch, in 2021 to celebrate 35 since the original movie in 1986.

 

I believe there was (from the tv show)
Ironhide, ratchet, brawn, gears, jazz, cliffjumper, sunstreaker, hound, huffer, prowl, blustreak, optimus prime, bumblebee, windcharger, wheeljack, inferno, dinibots, preceptor, grapple, and smokescreen.
BONUS:inferno,tracks, red alert, mirage, and trailbreaker

 

This may be slightly narrowminded (lol), but in my headcanon any TF we didn’t see die in the movie is still alive to me. Bluestreak, Mirage, Sunstreaker, Hound, Sideswipe, etc. all live. I’ll even concede the deaths of the deleted scene characters.

 

Understandable given that there are a number of cool Autobots who are unaccounted for in S3 (deaths not shown in the movie or in storyboards). But do you have any elaborate headcanon to explain why the likes of SunStreeker were not seen in S3?

 

Uhh something something Optimus is dead and they don’t have as much respect for Rodimus so they stay on the sidelines? For Mirage in particular I think once Rodimus declared the “end” of the war, he returned to cybertron to live in peace. Just couldn’t be pulled away to war again considering the poor state of the Decepticons in season 3.

 

Personally, I considered all the unseen Autobots dead, but if I could have only one survivor it would be Hound, but he would be redeployed to work in a National Park or something like that because he was suffering from something like post-traumatic stress.

But if some or all of those Autobots did survive, I do think they might not respect Rodimus much as a leader and maybe they could do a role like Devcon did in the Gambler episode.

Would be nice if Grapple and Hoist re-built Iacon.

 

Agreed, Hound is one of my absolute favorite carbots. Seems to me he would love just roaming around Earth in peace.

And it’d probably be something about all that shared experience with Optimus making them gunshy to accept Rodimus. Like when your unit commander gets replaced and you don’t have that same camaraderie with the new guy. Except in this case they have the choice to simply stay out of the front lines.

 

I feel as Autobots they would get behind Rodimus no matter what because of the cause, but maybe there would be just too much bickering to stay on Cybertron, so some sort of space mission would be good for all Autobots. Would be nice if some of those Autobots where reunited with Optimus before the end of the series though.

 

If you accept Rebirth as canon, who knows what happened after Cybertron was reborn into the Golden Age.

 

I think a continuation of G1 after the Re-birth would be fun, as I would love to know how Ravage survived to be in Beast Wars (and what happened to the likes of Soundwave). IMO, it would be good if they added scenes to the original movie as a flashback so who you could see who actually survived and who clearly died. I would also love to see that Decepticon exodus from Cybertron (after the Unicron attack) and how they ended up on Char. In that, you could have some of the Autobots who were not seen in S3 maybe patrolling certain parts of the galaxy and sometime after Re-birth being informed that Optimus is alive again.

 

Bluestreak, Hound and Huffer appear briefly at the roadworks with Kup.

Grapple or Inferno could be seen for a split second during the large firefight before Prime transforms and takes down the Decepticons.

Here's my humble recreation of Grapple's appearance...

 

Those deleted scenes would have really added to the Autobot City battle nicely. The choreography and camera angles of the Prime and Megatron fight look a lot better than what we got.

 

I've always wondered why Devastator just sat there and watched all the other decepticons get shot to bits  

And yeah, lots of G1 autobots made blink and you'll miss them appearances. I for one am glad Sideswipe didn't make an appearance. He was my favourite and seeing him die would have broke me as much as Prime dying!

As for the combiners, I remember being very confused when the movie came out, because they were so heavily present in the comics and advertised even before the movie toys! But like people have said, the movie was written and storyboarded before they were even designed.

 

Personally I'm in the camp that, unless the movie showed us they died whether it be the final cut or storyboards(or told us in the case of Huffer), then I'd like to think they survived, and the show/Hasbro simply just, never had them appear again. I mean heck if you want to get technical, The Headmasters was set after the original G1 Cartoon still had Sideswipe show up at one point, working with Ultra Magnus. Then again Prowl also showed up in the same scene, and the brought back Wheeljack in Victory, both of which making the validity of those show's canon questionable at best.

Honestly I'd like to believe Hasbro is leaving it up for fans to decide. In Transformers Devastation, when you approach Teletran Alpha, it forshadows Prime's and Wheeljack's deaths while saying Bumblebee will go on to do great things. It was more ambiguous for Grimlock due to him being built on Earth, but then they sorta did the same for Sideswipe, and left his future up in the air. "Face it with courage and you will live. Face it with anger and fate will not be so kind." That wording seems really weird if were supposed to die at some point

 

I get what a lot of people are saying here...but like others have said the truth of why bots or cons are or aren’t in the movie is because the ones who don’t appear where added after production for the movie started, simple as that, otherwise they would have been included.

As far as idw’s take...it makes absolutely no sense for menasor and Bruticus to attack the ark...and makes no sense for Autobot combiners and omega supreme to be there either...it’s idw and they just did that as a fan service.

Why doesn’t it make sense? Because Megatron attacked the shuttle and Autobot city, because Prime made it clear that they didn’t have enough resources to attack the deceptions on cybertron...eliminate this run to autobot city and keep the Autobots from gaining the necessary resources to attack and final victory is his...hence why he said star scream was a idiot for thinking the autobot moonbase was a threat, even though Prime just said it wasn’t. So why would any Autobots be at the ark, answer is they wouldn’t and even worse, why wouldn’t Megatron keep the ultra powerful menasor and bruticus with him for his assault on autobot city...there is nothing of value for Megatron at the ark so he wouldn’t send them to the ark...again it was a stupid fan service by idw...poor idea