Special thanks to Hasbro's Aaron Archer, Michael Kelly, Amie Lozanski, Val Roca, Ed Lane, Michael Provost, Erin Hillman, Jos Huxley, Samantha Lomow, and Michael Verrechia for their invaluable assistance.
This issue has variants:
Hot Rod lands on a planet shortly after he was damaged by Megatron (issue #14), and is found by alien castaways. The castaways attempt to use him and the embedded matrix to start their ship, but it fails and he escapes them. He then encounters Wheelie, and together they plan an escape off the planet using the matrix's unique energies to power up the same ship Hot Rod escaped from, and is successful, but places Hot Rod into a comatose (deactivated) state until they reach their destination.