Search for Treasure Under the Sea

An image of the book's cover. Optimus Prime is swimming underwater. An open treasure chest lies on the ground and a shark is swirling around him.

Story by Dwight Jon Zimmerman
Art by Carlos Garzon and Joe Giello

This book was published by Marvel Books with a copyright of 1984. ISBN 0-87135-009-2.

The scans!

View this book as... a single web page, a CBR archive, or a PDF.

These images came to me from TF Raw, but the person who scanned them has been lost to the sands of time.

Artwork notes:

Prime, Megatron, the Seekers, Ravage, and Laserbeak appear in their familiar cartoon models (more or less). All the other character designs (including Soundwave himself and Rumble) are based on their box art and/or the actual toys, which implies that the artwork was done before those designs were ready.

Story notes:

The names "Buster" and "Spike" both appear in reference to Sparkplug's son. Hound uses his holographic projection ability in this book. In the earlier "Decepticon Patrol", hologram-projecting was Mirage's forte. Their tech specs indicate that Mirage has the ability to create illusionary disguises for himself, while Hound projects holographic maps. Neither of them is said to have abilities like the cartoon version of Hound, or the ability to turn invisible as cartoon Mirage does. This book was possibly written after "Decepticon Patrol", at a time that it had been decided Hound would have versitile holographic abilities in the cartoon. Also, Ravage and Laserbeak are able to speak like ordinary Transformers. Lastly, as in "Decepticon Patrol", also by Zimmerman, the idea of using a factory to build a Transformer army is central to the plot of this book.

Summary:

This book starts out with brief profiles for its main characters. Then, in the story section, we learn that Megatron plans to salvage gold from a sunken ship. He will use this gold to buy factories he can use to build an army of Decepticons. The Autobots try to reach the treasure first. A fight ensues, and the Autobots win when Rumble accidentally swallows up his teammates with an earthquake. (Again.)

A toy-based drawing of Bumblebee next to some hedges and a domestic-looking window. Megatron is visible inside.
Bumblebee peers into the Decepticons' living room.

The good bits:

The book explains that Megatron is "twice as mean when disguised as a gun."

What are the Decepticons using for a base? Somebody's house? Just look at this picture... they have nice windows and shrubbery.

Wheeljack builds a ship, and it's a perfectly normal Earth cargo vessel. It's not even giant-sized for Transformers to use.

"Grrr! I'm leaping right through them!" growls Ravage. "How can this be?"



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