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Story by Pat Brigandi
Art by Steve Ditko and Brad Joyce

This book was published by Marvel Books with a copyright of 1986. ISBN 0-87135-102-1.

View the scans as... a single web page, a CBZ archive, or a PDF.

Most of these images came to me from TF Raw, but the person who scanned them has been lost to the sands of time. I rescanned the covers myself.

Summary

While the Autobots play around on a day off, the Decepticons spy on them. Eventually, Bombshell lands a cerebro shell on Springer and later activates it, causing increasingly erratic and dangerous behaviors. When the Autobots realize it must be a Decepticon plot, they attack the Decepticon camp and free some human captives that have been forced into manual labor. The battle is won when Wreck-Gar sets fire to the Decepticons' fuel storage area, forcing the Cons to flee into the forest. That night, the Autobots sneak into the new Decepticon encampment, capture Bombshell, and force him to remove the shell from Springer. Bombshell then escapes, but everyone is OK.

Artwork notes

The art is credited to "Steve Ditko and Brad Joyce", both of whom are listed on other books as well: Ditko alone for The Autobot Smasher!, Ditko with John Tartaglione on Bumblebee to the Rescue!, and Joyce alone for Forest Rescue Mission and Battle at Oil Valley.

Like most 1986 media, the character designs are pretty standardized. The "wild west" days of 1984 products where half the art had to be done before the cartoon model sheets were available are long gone.

• The design of the "Decepticon camp" seems to have been inspired by the fortress tower they occupied early in the original comic, from roughly issues 3-15 (US numbering).
• In the only example I see of off-model art: Galvatron's head matches his toy rather than its standard comic and cartoon design. Some other early/ancillary artwork of him is also like this. In the cover illustration, he's also colored like his toy instead of his mostly-purple cartoon model sheet or his typical light-blue-and-purple comic colors. (To make the head comparison I've cropped down images from TF Wiki and Seibertron.com.)

Story notes

Regarding 1986 stories: Although '86 art is usually pretty standardized, the setting is often ambiguous, taking place in a strange continuity based on the 84-85 seasons of the cartoon and the 86 toy bios, where Galvatron and Ultra Magnus were framed as "city commanders". They seem to have been written either without full knowledge of the story in Transformers: The Movie or with a deliberate attempt to avoid spoiling it. These stories sometimes feel like they take place "in the middle" of TF:TM after Optimus and Megatron have died but before Hot Rod is upgraded to Rodimus Prime, leaving Magnus in charge of the Autobots. Also, sometimes Bumblebee is around (instead of stationed on a moon base) and Starscream isn't dead yet. If you insist on shoehorning these stories into TF:TM, then they take place after the battle of Autobot City and the creation of Galvatron and co., but before Galvatron interrupts Starscream's coronation ceremony. Despite the large number of cartoon-centric conceits in these books, it's probably better to think of them as taking place in a universe where the events of TF:TM do not occur at all, and these characters reached their current status (existence, leadership role, etc.) through unknown other events.

• In terms of setting, this book is even more confusing than most 1986 books:
  • Jazz, Sunstreaker, and Ratchet are all alive and present on Earth. And... Wreck-Gar is there with them too???
  • Among the Decepticons we see Scourge and Cyclonus, but Bombshell plays a central role in the story. (In TF:TM, Bombshell was one of the dead Decepticons who were used as spare parts to build Galvatron's new forces.)
• While malfunctioning and trying to explain what's going on, Springer apparently emits static inbetween words as if he were a radio. Although it makese sense that Transformer speech would be emitted by a speaker of some sort instead of air forced over vocal cords, they are rarely depicted producing "electronic" sounds like static, pops, or screeches/beeps. (Bumblebee's movie-verse and TFPrime/Aligned incarnations are prominant but still rare exceptions to this.)
• The Decepticons were ASLEEP when the Autobots went in to capture Bombshell. "Recharging" cycles and the like have made appearances in many TF stories, but mostly after G1, and they are almost never referred to explicitly as sleep.
• The Autobots THREATEN TO KILL THEIR PRISONER (Bombshell) if he doesn't cooperate with their demands:
  I guess technically the Autobots probably aren't Geneva Convention signees but... Yikes.

The good bits

• "The Earth looks like a very peaceful place to live--from outer space!"
• "Springer begins shooting up Autobot City. 'This is definitely not like Springer,' shouts Ultra Magnus." (Observant!)
• The drawing of Wreck-Gar walking through the inferno he's created out of the Cons' fuel cache is funny on many levels. The page after is also pretty good! Love the framing and negative space.
• "'We've got you now!' they say as Wreck-Gar traps Bombshell in--what else?--a giant super-strong trash bag!" (Get it? Because Wreck-Gar is from a trash planet. Totally makes sense. Not sure why the bag is transparent though.)