The Big Shutdown!

Simon Furman introduces half of the characters he'll ever use.

Synopsis
Having recent joined the Ark's crew on Earth, the Autobot detective named Nightbeat received a chance to test his mettle when a mysterious Autobot corpse is found on a deserted California beach. Taking his partner Siren to the scene of the crime, the Autobots find a mysterious figure has beaten them to the investigation. Siren's noisy...existence alerts the figure to their presence, and he hightails it out of there with two vehicles. Nightbeat sends Siren to retrieve the snooper, while he does some snooping of his own.

As Nightbeat continues his investigating at the corpse, Siren corners the two vehicles in an alleyway, only to learn they are Autobot Transformers named Hosehead and Horsepower. The corpse was actually a friend of theirs named Playback, but before more explanations can be exchanged, Horsepower is blasted through the chest by a cyclone cannon, signature weapon of Thunderwing, heir apparent to the Decepticon throne!

While Siren is running in fear of the Decepticon Pretender, and Nightbeat is interpreting his clues back at the beach, together they piece together what has happened. Hosehead, Playback and Horsepower were Decepticon prisoners on Cybertron, deliberately set loose on Earth. As part of his testing to achieve higher rank in the Decepticon hierarchy, Thunderwing had been tasked with hunting them down as prey.

After leading Thunderwing back to the beach and Nightbeat, the three Autobots confronted the considerably more powerful Decepticon. Thinking quickly, Nightbeat detached his Nebulan counterpart Muzzle and temporarily reanimated the dead, headless body of Playback. Momentarily caught off guard by the shambling corpse, Thunderwing was unprepared when Muzzle suddenly disconnected and lept clear, radioing his larger body to blast the corpse's power supply, triggering a massive explosive and inferno inches away from Thunderwing. Although the Decepticon's shell protecting him from direct harm, it also superheated from the blast, cooking the more vulnerable robot inside. Thunderwing was forced to dive into deeper waters in a desperate attempt to cool himself down.

Credits
Script: Simon Furman Art: Lee Sullivan Letters: Helen Stone, part 1, Stuart Bartlett, part 2 Apologies: Raymond Chandler
 * Originally published: 12th August - 19th August, 1989

Featured characters
(''Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Items of note

 * Nightbeat indicates he and Siren only joined the Ark's crew two days ago.
 * When or how Hosehead and Nightbeat got binary-bonded to Lug and Muzzle on independent occasions is unknown.
 * Muzzle's trick with Playback indicates that, while a Headmaster robot might die if their head is destroyed, a binary-bonded Nebulan partner might be able to survive by simply attaching to a new body.