Battle For Cybertron

Story by Scott Siegel
Art by Earl Norem

This book was published by Marvel Books with a copyright of 1984.

• Full book on one HTML page. 21 images totalling ~1.4 megs, plus the book's text.
• Individual scans in the book's directory for those with slower connections or computers. Images FC and BC are the front and back covers. Remember that to read the story, you'll need to load the HTML file eventually, although you can do so with image-loading turned off.
• Hear the audio! This file came from a collection assembled by Andy Turnbull.

Notes on this book:

The characters are in their well-known Dery models, with small deviations. (For their robot modes, at least. Vehicle modes seem based on the toys, except for Bumblebee, who looks more like a real VW Beetle.) Megatron wears his black helmet. Rumble is nearly as tall as the other Decepticons. Mirage's head is weird. Some coloring problems on Sideswipe, Ratchet, and Wheeljack. Bluestreak is colored like the "blue" version of the toy which was pictured on his box and in the catalogs, rather than with his cartoon colors. Prime has wheels in the backs of his legs, and his truck mode is weird. One of the deactivated robots in the ship looks vaguely like Skyfire, but it's probably just a coincidence. The Autobot ship does not match the cartoon or comic designs.

My copy was apparently onced owned by "Drew".

Jazz appears to have no feet on the "Drew" page because the art is clipped from a later painting where he's standing in fog or mist.

Tetrajets -- the pyramid-shaped Cybertronian aircraft -- are depicted.

The book uses the story detail of Cybertron having been shaken loose from its orbit. The G1 comics stated this directly, but it was never brought up in the cartoon. One could theorize that it happened, which is why it never seems to be daytime there, but it's just speculation. So, it's interesting to see it mentioned here.

Optimus is the largest of all Autobots. A lot of early meterial makes this claim, I guess, but it can often be interpreted as referring only to those TFs on Earth. That's not the case here as the statement is made while they are still on Cybertron. So, in the Big Looker-verse, there must not be any gestalts, city-formers, etc..

The Decepticons chased the Autobots across A MILLION MILES OF SPACE before boarding. In the real world, the minimum distance between Earth and the asteroid belt is more than a hundred times that far. So, I'd guess the chase began after the Autobots had finished clearing a gap in the belt. Probably a lot after, unless the battle raged across the next ~130 million miles after the 1 million of chase.

Interestingly, though, although the book says Cybertron was in danger of being "smashed to pieces" it never actually mentions an asteroid belt, or even explains why Prime thinks going into space can save the planet. They just do it.

The Decepticons "beam" their landing party onto the Autobot ship.

Dinosaurs were around when the ship crashed, even though the book uses the four million years figure. Maybe the ship landed in the Savage Land in this continuity? ^_^

"The Ark" is the ship's computer in this book. It has human-like thoughts and at least simulates emotions.

The Cybertronians apparently didn't transform at all until being rebuilt on Earth.

Sparkplug's son is named Spike, but looks like Buster. (This is the case for the other book painted by Norem found on this site, "The Great Car Rally".) Also, when he's first introduced, a blank area appears in the book. It's at the end of the line, at least, but it's far too long to be justified by a word wrap. There's also a leading comma. So, it appears that the name and a trailing comma were omitted. Was the name changed or uncertain up to the last minute, leading to this oddity?

When the 'cons fly out of the ship, there are five skyraiders. The three foreground jets are pretty clearly SS, TC, and SW. The other two are more generic. Later, on one of the battle pages, over a dozen skyraiders are seen simultaneously (some in the midst of being killed).

Spike and Sparkplug live in a city called Kimball.

The Deceps attack a nuclear power plant. Writers for the cartoon series were expressly forbidden by the series bible from mentioning nuclear anything.

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