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Written by Max Z. Baum
Illustrated by Brad Joyce and Roberta Edelman

This book was published by Marvel Books with a copyright of 1985. ISBN 0-87135-062-9.

The scans!

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

These scans were made by Derik Smith, except for the back cover which I did myself. I've included the inside-cover space scene only at the start of the book, but in the real world it appears at the end too.

Summary:

This starts by retelling the G1 "origin story" about how warring factions from Cybertron had a battle in space, crashed on Earth, and then woke up millions of years later where the Autobots become friends with the Witwickys.

The action for this story starts with Buster reading about a new sports arena being built in town, which he goes to see with Jazz. It turns out this arena--and dozens of other buildings around the world--were built by the Constructicons using a shell company called Global Building Corporation. Megatron plans to sink all these buildings underground simultaneously, then hold hostage all the people trapped inside them in order to force an "unconditional surrender of the world".

Although Buster and Jazz didn't identify the Constructicons, Jazz was still suspicious of how fancy the equipment was, so he convinces the Autobots to attack Decepticon HQ (forgoing any investigation of the arena). When they arrive, Megatron invites them in as fellow refugees, explaining that the Decepticons are simply trying to earn an honest living by operating a construction business.

Prowl sees through the ruse, leading into the Really Big Fight At The End, in which many characters use the signature abilities from their character bios. After Devastator is taken down, Megatron for some reason decides to release the hostages. And then Prime for some reason decides to just leave instead of finishing the battle that they had almost won. The end!

General observations:

A great deal of the text in Battle For Earth is lifted directly from character bios, mottos, and tech specs. The mottos in particular make for some very awkward dialog, in which for example a character is just kind of standing around and then declares to everyone around them "Cries and screams are music to my ears," or whatever. The book also lifts Scrapper's line "Constructicons, transform, phase two!" from their debut cartoon episode, Heavy Metal War.

The book's setting is mostly comic-based, which is usually the case in these early books, especially the ones from Marvel Books. It features Buster instead of Spike, explicitly gives the last name "Witwicky", features the Decepticons' fortress tower, refers to the Autobots' ship as the Ark, and even explains that the space mission was for the purpose of clearing asteroids. (In the G1 cartoon, the Autobots left to look for new energy sources and only incidentally ended up clearing a path through asteroids.)

There are several instances of the book giving specific numerical values for things that don't really matter. For example, it's established early on that there are exactly 98 GBC sites, and later in the book when it specifically names three of them it then says "and in ninety-five other buildings..." It also lets us know that Buster leaves Jazz in a parking garage and then walks three blocks to the construction site. When the Autobots leave the Ark, we're told that "thirty-five robots transformed into vehicles of every kind."

The narrative has a few major anticlimaxes... [1] Buster goes to the arena site where the Constructicons are revealed (to us), and then... he leaves without noticing anything! He tells Jazz about it, but the Autobots don't even go back there to investigate, opting to attack Con HQ directly. [2] When Megatron's forces begin losing the battle, he teleports(!) away to remotely free all his prisoners without being forced to do so. [3] Once Prime hears that the prisoners have in fact been released... he orders the Autobots to leave. They don't capture the Decepticons, wreck the fortress, or anything. "Optimus Prime did not need Megatron's surrender. The hostages were free--and that was good enough for him."

Specific story notes:

• During the origin story, Prime chooses to crash the Ark (with his troops' consent) to save them from being "taken prisoner". In the comic, Prime justifies the crash by saying "the Ark and its secrets must never fall into enemy hands".
• When describing the Transformers' reassembly by the Ark, it names Thundercracker and Skywarp but weirdly omits Starscream.
• The Witwicky's (fictional) town is explicitly named as Beacon, Oregon.
• The Autobot "meeting" on p26-27 seems to consist of them waving their guns around in the air, disregarding all sorts of weapon safety procedures.
• After Megatron claims to just be an honest businessrobot, the books says: "Optimus Prime was not satisfied by that answer. He knew that no Decepticon was interested in earning an honest living." It's true that Megatron was in fact scheming here, but laying Prime's prejudice bare like that is a little surprising!
  [This is especially funny to me because back in the alt.toys.transformers days there was a group of fans arguing that the Decepticons are heroes, actually, because they do what needs to be done for their friends and don't let others hold them back. In this view, the Autobots are haters/fascists who won't leave the Decepticons to live their lives in peace. On a.t.t. we would argue that if the Decepticons would just gather resources PEACEFULLY instead of stealing and conquering, everything would be fine, and the Con-Fans would say: the Autobots would just attack them anyway. And... here they seem to be right, at least about that tiny piece.]
• Megatron blasts a hole in his own HQ's floor to dump the Autobots out, much like he does to Gears and Spider-Man in issue 3 of the G1 comic.
• Devastator is unerringly referred to as "the Devastator". Sometimes but not always "the" even gets capitalized in the middle of a sentence.
• The Really Big Fight At The End is going very badly for the Autobots until the Dinobots show up. Actually... mainly just Swoop who single-handedly kills four of the combined Constructicons.





• The Dinobots are stated to be "completely dedicated to the Autobot cause," a description VASTLY at odds with their portrayal in the comics and in the cartoon. This really stands out in comparison to how closely the rest of the book's text mimics contemperaneous sources.
• The names of various parts of Megatron's plan are given inconsistently. He initially refers to "Destructicon day" as when he'll press the "Destructor Button" to bury the buildings, with those building sites all shown on his "Destructor Board". When he eventually presses the button, the narration refers to it as the "Destructicon Button". Finally, at the end of the book it's twice called the "Devastator Button" (once with Button capitalized, and once not).

Art/production notes:

• The first numbered page in this book (and the other Marvel hardcover book, The Autobots' Secret Weapon), is "7". The only way for this to make sense is if the two-page spread is pages 2-3, meaning page 1 is permanently glued to the hard cover.
• The inside covers have a trippy two-page spread space scene. It reminds me a little of Jack Kirby art. The Ark corridor in which the Autobots are reassembled is also Kirbyesque.
• Speaking of that reassembly scene: the work is depicted being done by the repair drone from Prime's combat deck, just as in the Marvel comic.







• An even closer reference/steal from comics art is the p12-13 splash of the Witwicky's home. It's redrawn from a panel in issue 2, complete with the VW beetle on the hydraulic lift. (In the comic, that was Bumblebee, disabled after the attack at the drive-in theater.)
• Roadbuster is mentioned by name and uses the weapon described by his tech spec bio, but does not appear in any art.
• In contrast to the above... Shockwave is seen on the cover, but is neither mentioned nor shown inside.
• Bonecrusher doesn't appear in any of the Constructicon group shots, only as part of Devastator. He is mentioned in the text, however.
• The Autobot force that leaves the Ark is stated to have 35 robots, possibly 36 including Prime. It's difficult to say where this number came from. The 1985 toy catalog shows 43 Autobots. If we take out the Dinobots who show up late, that's 38. So 2-3 are unaccounted for. Your guess is as good as mine!
• Brad Joyce drew several other Transformers titles for Marvel Books including coloring books and sticker adventures. This book's cover is signed "BRADKIRK '85". Kirk seems to be Joyce's middle name.
• Roberta Edelman is credited in The Autobots' Secret Weapon as well, so I suspect she was the colorist for both books even though her existing comics credits seem to be for inking. The books share a very similar coloring style featuring limited color palettes and lots of primaries on large flat areas. Although a bit simplistic, the style is also kind of striking.