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Credits unknown!

This book was published by Marvel Books with a copyright of 1984. ISBN 0-87135-012-2.

The scans!

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

These scans were made by me, Steve-o.

Summary:

After a single page explaining merely that the Transformers come from space, the story opens in a strange manner: Sparkplug and Buster are hiding behind rocks, watching the Autobots as they stand around. They are grabbed by Decepticons, and then the Autobots take notice and demand the humans be released. A battle ensues, the Decepticons run low on fuel and retreat, and the Witwickys repair the damaged Autobots.

Prime sends out scouts to find the Decepticons again, and it's discovered that they are attacking Hoover Dam. Another battle ensues, and the Autobots drive the Decepticons off.

General observations:

This is the only 1984 coloring book without any credits given. The other three that year (and most from later years) were all written by Dwight J Zimmerman, so if I had to put money on it I would say he probably did this one as well.

This is ALSO the only coloring book from all of G1 in which the cover lacks a full illustration with at least a little bit of scenery. Further, this cover is actually art taken from the interior of Bumblebee to the Rescue!. Sideswipe is a badly-drawn copy of his model sheet, as seen in the Transformers Universe comics, and Bumblebee is toy-based and missing his left arm. (BB's left arm is actually missing all through the interior of that other book as well!)

Artwork is a hodgepodge in this book. The usual characters whose models were developed early are MOSTLY in those models, although there are plenty of cases where the details and proportions are off. The rest of the art is mostly based on toys or box art as usual, but some robots aren't recognizable as any particular character.

Given that some pages were clearly drawn with a lot of care and close adherence to the models, while others were not, I wonder if more than one artist worked on it. Even the line weights and amount of detail within characters seems to fluctuate from page to page. This might also be related to the lack of credits in the front.

Lastly, it's not really clear what the "deadly fuel shortage" is... The Decepticons do mention that they're low on fuel, which is why they abandon the first battle. They then attack the dam, so I guess they might be trying to get powered-up there, making the Cons' fuel shortage deadly for the people at the dam? But they don't even seem to be trying to harness energy... they're just blowing the dam up... Oh well.

Specific story notes:

• The Witwickys seemingly haven't yet met and befriended the Autobots at the start of this story, although they talk as if they do know about the Transformers' war already.
• Speaking of which, the last name Witwicky is actually given in this book, and the son is Buster in both name and appearance.
• Wheeljack and Bluestreak (or maybe Prowl) are shown to be heavily damaged, with the former even having a hole blown through his hood, but Sparkplug fixes them both up good as new in what seems to be just a few minutes.



• Hound looks down on Hoover Dam and "spots" the Decepticons. What an eagle-eye he has! I barely noticed they were there.
• In the Really Big Fight At The End, the Autobots win for no particular reason. Maybe it's because Sunstreaker/Sideswipe/Spin-Out was repaired? Usually there's at least one takedown depicted, like capturing a specific bad guy or making somebody crash. This time it's just... "They're driving off the Decepticons!"
• Megatron appears on only two pages, and is named only once. There is an additional reference to the "commander" who then gets a line of dialogue on the next page, but the only Decepticons drawn those pages are seeker jets. There's no sign at all of Megatron being present for the second big fight, at the dam.

Art/production notes:

• The Witwickys are grabbed by a claw hand at the start of the story. None of the year-one Decepticons have claws as either toy or character model. The claw's shape is, oddly, a pretty good match for Combat Deck's, but the rest of the robot there is not identifiable.
• When Bluestreak (or maybe Prowl) is damaged, the artist has cleverly used some of his transformation joints to make him look disheveled.
• The first battle includes a very detailed picture of Cliffjumper which even includes the structures inside his feet. This was probably based on his box art, although there's a bit of extra detail with the tops of those cylinders that makes me wonder if the artist was using an in-hand toy.







• In one of Megatron's two appearances, he has his gun barrel facing forward at his hip like the toy, even though he's otherwise on-model.
• The pair of Decepticon jets on page 15 are wonderfully expressive!





• In the Autobot convoy headed to the dam, Optimus Prime appears twice. It doesn't seem to be a "moments in time" thing because there are different guys behind him in the two positions.
• During the dam battle, the names Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and Spin-Out are all used to refer to the car with the souped-up external engine in the back. This relates to changes made late in the brand's development! Not only were the names/molds for the two characters swapped at the last minute, but Sunstreaker was intially named "Spin-Out" or "Spinout". In this book, it seems some effort was made to adjust for the change but it wasn't done thoroughly.
• On the final page, as the Decepticons flee, there's a lot of interesting stuff: a toy-accurate Ironhide or Ratchet (who had otherwise not appeared at all), a Prowl with a HUGE hood/chest, Laserbeak/Buzzsaw looking as big as a seeker jet, Ravage flying through the air in jaguar mode, and a flying rectangle with rocket exhaust.
• The flying rectangle seems like it must be either Soundwave or one of the cassettes. Rumble/Frenzy was shown at the battle, so it could be him, but it's odd that he would need to transform to fly away if Ravage is fine as a jaguar. Soundwave only appeared once previously, near the beginning of the book. The circles may remind you of Blaster's speakers, but Soundwave doesn't have any.
• Most drawings of Prime are a bit off, and remind me of how he looks in issue 1 of the US comic. He has a very flat, "sharper" look than usual. His grill also seems to have an upward-pointing chevron shape to it instead of being horizontal--perhaps due to misreading the reference material.
• In fact, one particular close-up of Prime seems to be a redraw of a comic panel! To be fair, pretty much that exact Prime closeup appears multiple times through the comic's initial four-issue miniseries. I've chosen a single example below.