The Air Strike Patrol are a group of minor antagonists in Generation One of the Transformers franchise. They were among the first wave of Micromasters released in late 1988/early 1989.
History[]
The Air Strike Patrol first appeared in the Marvel UK story "Aspects of Evil", in an alternate 1991 where they were serving Megatron during a Decepticon Civil War. They pursued Megatron's rival Scorponok to a human settlement and came close to destroying them. However, Scorponok had deliberately placed humans in danger so Autobots Hot Rod, Landfill and Quickmix would investigate. He then surrendered to the trio, meaning they were obliged to fight the Air Strike Patrol to protect him and lure them away from the humans.
Their origin was given in the later story "A Small World", where they were among the first Decepticon Micromasters created by Thunderwing after he had captured and reverse-engineered the Autobot Battle Patrol. They were activated to confront a group of Autobot Micromasters who had infiltrated the base to rescue their comrades but tricked when Roadhandler pretended a bomb he had dropped was still active, allowing the Autobots to overpower them.
They made their first Marvel US appearance in Issue #55, where they were summoned to Earth by Scorponok to offset the good publicity done by a group of Autobot Micromasters newly arrived on Earth, who were working with humans in New York. Storm Cloud challenged Roadhandler to a wrestling match, with the rest of the Air Strike Patrol attempting to kidnap a pair of humans he had befriended so he would be forced to throw the match. They were stopped by the other Autobots and Roadhandler won the match.
In the following arc, the Air Strike Patrol were revealed to be working for Megatron, who had been building a power base on Cybertron and was planning to regain command of Earth's Decepticons. They attacked the MacDill Air Force Base, apparently hoping to steal an experimental plane. However, this was a ruse: Their attack first lured the Autobots there to stop them and then lured Scorponok and Decepticon reinforcements there to back them up. Having set the two sides against each other, the Air Strike Patrol withdrew from the battle.
Following Megatron's defeat, Whisper began working as an assassin. The Autobot Rescue Patrol cornered him but the rest of the Air Strike Patrol came to his aid. Optimus Prime recalled his troops to prevent damage to the nearby wildlife. The patrol last appeared in US Issue #68, where they attacked an oil refinery only to all be destroyed by human mutant Hector Dialonzo.
