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I do not have a rear cover image for this book. If you can help, please reach out to me!

Story by Suzanne Lord
Art by Carlos Garzon

This book was published by Marvel Books with a copyright of 1985. ISBN 0-87135-033-5.

You'll see below that I used Huffer's old toy-packaging artwork in my commentary. As usual when I need such images, I got it from Botch's Transformers Box Art Archive, a perennial Transformers fansite.

The scans!

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

These scans were made by prince among men, Derik Smith.

Summary:

This book starts out with a few pages of character introductions and background, then, begins the actuale story. The Decepticons have created a "molecular transfer device" which allows them to teleport fuel directly from storage tanks and vehicles into their own reserves. Using Roller, the Autobots learn of the plan and go to stop them, resulting in the Really Big Fight At The End.

During that RBFATE, the Autobots run low on fuel (since all the reserves had been molecularly transferred), so Ironhide volunteers to let them siphon his tank. As the fight continues inside the Decepticons' base, Bumblebee slips into the MacGuffin's control room and uses it to teleport all the fuel out of the Decepticons themselves, disabling them and winning the battle for the Autobots.

General observations:

This book takes designs and art from many sources and has art inconsistencies that are pretty unusual for a year-two book. Most US material from 1985 has artwork firmly based on the completed character models used in the cartoon and later comic issues, but here the art team still seems to have had incomplete reference material.

The depiction of Cybertron is quite odd and clearly drawn with no reference at all for what the planet or its inhabitants normally look like. It even shows a flying robot with Optimus Prime's torso and... maybe his legs, but the rest of him is a hodgepodge of parts and isn't even symmetric.

The other interesting feature of this particular book is that several pages have speech balloons! These are never needed to understand the action, and are more like added flavor for the art and narration.

I specifically thought page 13--with Megatron saying "Perfect!" while he and Laserbeak lean over a computer screen--felt like a meme template so here is a cropped copy with the screen erased so you can put anything you want on it. I have a larger, 600x600 version also but the 300x300 one below is probably more practical.

Specific story notes:

• Page 4 says that the Autobots and Decepticons "have always been enemies", which is an interesting statement in terms of origin stories. Perhaps it's similar to the comics where "Decepticons" was an organization or movement that was founded upon the idea of conquest, and the Autobots either pre-existed or immediately formed in response.
• Also during the intro pages, we have Megatron saying, "Decepticons, we should rule the Earth." While there are, indeed, Decepticons there, he isn't looking at them. He appears to be addressing a pair of humans standing in front of a cityscape.
• Prime's three components come up twice in this book, and Roller actually gets used as a spy, as in his description in Prime's bio. Judging from the art of this, Roller's refueling hose doubles as a camera!
• As the Autobots roll out to the Decpeticon headquarters, they apparently need Hound's tracking abilities to find it, even though Roller had just been there a few pages prior.
• Mirage's power is shown as casting illusions rather than turning invisible, as in most of his non-cartoon portrayals including other books on this site.
• After the Autobots' victory, this book does a rare thing and actually says what happens next! The Autobots dismantle the molecular transfer device so it can't be used again. (Good idea!) The Decepticons start to escape and Prime tells his forces to prioritize returning the stolen fuel so humans' cultural and economic operations can resume.

Art/production notes:

• The very first story page (p3) shows a normal-looking Prime flanked by Huffer and Bumblebee, who are both drawn using their unique designs from Decepticon Patrol. The picture doesn't seem to be a direct copy of art from that book, though--I think it was drawn anew based on those designs. (Or, perhaps from model sheets of those unique designs? DP's artists must have developed something for themselves given how consistently those designs were drawn.)
• On one of the introductory pages, Soundwave is shown alongside the Autobots trying to fight off some attacking jets.
• Huffer has a lot of different looks in this book! In the comparison image below you can see:
  1. His p3 apperance using the D.P. design mentioned above.
  2. His p22 appearance, which seems influenced by the toy and/or box art, but with a face that matches his usual character model. I've included an inset of his box art (and flipped it to face the same way).
  3. His p28 appearance, where he's the only character on the page and the text reads "'Who needs a door?' Huffer asks." Obviously some sort of mixup!
  4. His p47 appearance which is based on the standard character model. He also looks "correct" on p24, immediately after the two-page spread with his boxart/toy appearance.



• As the Decepticons flee the first battle on p20, a very weird-looking rectangular robot is included. It has some Soundwave-like features and some Rumble/Frenzy-like features drawn onto it. Eventually I realized it was lifted from a panel in the first issue of the Marvel comic, where it was Soundwave.
• On p32, Hound and Prowl's artwork has been lifted from The Deadly Fuel Shortage. Prowl's pose has been changed slightly, but Hound is right on the money.
• Pages 35 and 36 have had their artwork mistakenly swapped.
• Rumble appears in a toy-based form when activating his earthquake powers, but otherwise uses his cartoon design.
• During the sequence inside the Decepticon stronghold, Bumblebee appears with the cube-head design that seems exclusive to these 1985 coloring books.
• The door to the molecular transfer device's room has a paper sign loosely affixed which reads "TOP SECRET".
• Near the end, when Sideswipe is helping the weakend Ironhide up, it looks like the climactic moment in a romance movie before the heroes have their big kiss.









• As the Autobots prepare to return the stolen fuel to humans, you can see Gears loaded up, and next to him is a larger truck, clearly not a Transformer, which has been clerverly drawn at the edge of the page so you can't tell it's just a generic truck that the Autobots happen to have found and decided to use.
• The Seeker drawing on the last page is almost identical to art from (again) The Deadly Fuel Shortage.