Issue 8, 29 December 1984.
Written by: Jim Salicrup.
Art by: Frank Springer (pencils), Akin & Garvey (inks).
Colours by: Nel Yomtov.
Letters by: John Workman.
Cover art: Springer, Akin & Garvey.
Reprinted from US issue 4.
Plot: The Autobots send a probe looking for five Autobots called the Dinobots, and a Decepticon called Shockwave, last reported seen in Antarctica 4000000 years ago. Their next trick is to use the Tubes of Transference to take power from some of their members and strengthen others. Pretty soon, the Decepticons attack, and there's a big fight, because, well, that's what happens in Transformers. Meanwhile, the probe comes across Shockwave, and some ambulance personnel come across Ratchet (and use him as, well, an ambulance). Towards the end of the fight, the Decepticons collapse in pain, as Sparkplug actually corrupted his fuel design for them (sneaky bugger, ain't he?) However, no sooner does Optimus start a speech about this than Shockwave turns up and deactivates all the Autobots on the scene.
Wicked dialogue: 'Beep! Beep!' Actually, this just makes me laugh that this little probe thingy was given a proper Transformer speech bubble for its sound effects...
Naff dialogue: The narration gives bold print and everything, suggesting the 'Tubes of Transference' are actually something amazing and sacred and revered, rather than some tubes that robots stand in to move energy around.
Megatron: 'As much as I would enjoy ripping you limb from limb, I'm giving you a chance to surrender, Optimus!' Why?
Mirage: 'Then chew on this! Tell me how my armour-piercing liquid fuel darts taste!' Does it help Mirage to explain to Ravage everything about his gun? Does it help Ravage? Does it help us?
Technobabble: Huffer refers to a Transformer as a 'cybertronic life-form'. Cybernetic, maybe? (I guess he could mean 'from Cybertron', but we later find out that that's 'Cybertronian'.)
Come to that, 'total command of the electromagnetic spectrum allowed Shockwave to coldly examine with super-powerful X-rays the planet's life-forms!'
Awkward Self-Introductions: Actually, miraculously, Shockwave lets the caption box introduce him instead.
However, even though we've met Mirage before, he gets an honourable mention for this little number after he's tricked Laserbeak: 'You guessed it, Laserbeak! Mirage isn't always where he seems to be! That's why I'm called Mirage.'
First appearances: Grimlock, Swoop, Snarl, Slag and Sludge - the Dinobots.
Miserable glitches: Do reptiles really turn into skeletons when you blast them with an X-ray, no matter how powerful?
Huffer implies that he and Optimus are watching the Ark's map from shortly after it landed. If that was around four million years ago, weren't the continents different back then?
When Bumblebee is standing in the Tubes of Transference (tm), he is coloured red and blue-or-black.
OK, so we do refer to Mirage's ideas again, but really - he seems to decide he shouldn't defect to the Decepticons because the Decepticons are the enemy. Duh, there's no point changing sides otherwise!
Why is it Megatron can't fire past his troops, but Prowl can?
Optimus Prime makes a grab for Starscream and gets ahold of his leg, wrapping one hand right aroudn it. Apart from the fact this makes him look kinda like King Kong, the size is way off. Prime's bigger than Starscream, sure, but not that much bigger.
As the medical people are getting into Ratchet, he cries out, 'What?' And one of the medicals says, 'Did you hear that squeak?' Either that's one crukking loud squeak, or Ratchet's voice hasn't broken yet...
When we look at the back of the Autobots when we return to the fight, Sunstreaker is blue and white.
Oh, and he's there at all. When the Autobots first use the Tubes of Transference (tm), it says only five Autobots get juiced up: Bluestreak, Optimus Prime, Huffer, Ironhide and Mirage. If everyone else is either absent, drained or disabled, where did Sunny come from?
So Shockwave was hanging out in Antarctica all this time? Then I guess that wasn't him standing in plain sight in Decepticon HQ in issue 5?
Fact-file: Ravage.
Back-up strip: Machine Man - The Man Who Could Walk Through Walls.
Notes: I'm using the US version of this strip, so generously provided by Liam.
Still haven't convinced people that Transformers takes place in the Marvel Universe? The time-stands-still Anatarctic region we see here is the Savage Land, a favourite locale of Marvel tales. The X-Men tend to come here to hang out between marketing ploy-- sorry, I mean 'major events'.
This issue was reprinted in Transformers - Beginnings from Titan in 2003. It was also reprinted in the Australian special in 1985 (at least parts of it were, see the entry for issue 1 for details) and Transformers - The Complete Works Part 2 from Marvel themselves in 1987. The strange part is what happened to the end of those two books. At the end, rather than the cliffhanger as Shockwave takes everybody out, there's a new ending edited in where Optimus Prime gives a little speech about being good and saving the day and all that other sort of stuff. Best guess is that was to give the books a 'happy ending' - or at least a 'proper' ending, as there was no 'Australian special #2', nor The Complete Works Part 3 (it wasn't that complete, then, was it?). The material does look like it's from the same creative team as the rest of the issue, though. There's been no official answer on this, but we've got a guess. These first eight issues contain the story material from the first four US issues. Those four comics were just intended to be a miniseries at first, but the comic took off and they published another 76 issues. Perhaps the 'happy' ending was in fact the original ending, changed before publication to get readers to pick up the unforeseen next issue?
Comments: Ha! I like Sparkplug's sneaky li'l trick here. It felt a bit clunky and strange the first time I read it, but on re-reading, his flashbacks to the Korean War, and his sabotage of his then-enemy, really do set things up well.
Not a bad fight scene this issue, with one small band of Autobots up against whatever the Decepticons had to offer.
It was also good to see the start of what looked like a pat li'l ending (Optimus starts giving a speech and everything) turned right on its head when Shockwave turned up and took everybody out.