Detroit



Detroit, Michigan is a city in the United States of America. It is located near Lake Erie.

Transformers Animated
Detroit was once the "Motor City": the automobile manufacturing capital of the world. By the 22nd Century, Detroit had once again become a leading manufacturing hub -- for robots. As for what happened to the city between those two periods, well, who knows?

The city's robotics industry was led by (and may have consisted solely of) the Sumdac Systems corporation. Most of the competition proved less than inspiring. This reliance on a single, monolithic industry is certain to provide economic stability for all time.

The city had a newly unveiled mass transit system, sponsored by Sumdac Systems.

The city then became home to a team of five robotic superheroes, the Autobots. Having crashed aboard their ship some fifty years earlier in Lake Erie, they awoke and appointed themselves guardians and defenders of the city's humanity. When one of their old foes showed up in town, they ended up trashing a fair bit of the city. Not to be deterred, they worked hard to help rebuild it; this involved hitting things with an ax, naturally. The Autobots made their home in an abandoned early 20th Century factory.

Poor Detroit continued to suffer a great deal of robot-inflicted calamities after that. Among their troubles were robots flinging flaming fuel tanks into the air, robots smashing an entire parking lot full of cars , robots getting thrown through the roof of the local sports arena , robots inducing rolling electrical blackouts across the city , robots disguised as rocket-powered cars crashing into things , robots sucking the life force from the city's population , robots sparking a massive automaton rebellion , and robots obliterating construction sites while flat-out trying to kill one another.

If the Decepticon army proper should arrive, then Heaven have mercy on Detroit, because the 'Cons sure as Hell won't. However, the arrival of Blitzwing and Lugnut was not as disastrous as it could have been. After all, they only attacked a construction site.

Notable Locations
Actual Detroit landmarks featured in Transformers Animated include:


 * Grand Circus Park, featuring the statue of Governor Hazen S. Pingree (where Prowl gets birdpooped on)


 * Michigan Central Station (where Isaac Sumdac reveals his new train)


 * Though the details don't match any exact building, the abandoned factory used by the Autobots resembles such early automobile manufacturing plants as the Highland Park Ford Plant (where the assembly line was first implemented) and the abandoned Packard Plant.


 * Interstate 94 -- the main US Interstate highway westbound from Detroit to Chicago. One of its marker signs adorns the interior of the Autobots' headquarters.


 * Lake Erie -- one of the Great Lakes; its northwest shore lies just south of the city.

Fictional Detroit landmarks featured in Transformers Animated include:


 * Burger Bot, home of the Big Bot Burger


 * Sumdac Systems robot manufacturing plant, located in the real-life southern suburb of Monroe.


 * Sumdac Tower, a skyscraper somewhere in the central city.


 * The Dino Drive theme park

Trivia

 * Part of the final battle in the live-action Transformers film, set in the fictional location of Mission City, was filmed in the real-life Detroit: the empty building that Sam runs into with the All Spark is actually Detroit's long-abandoned Michigan Central Station.