Robot War
Robot War was an irregular series of text features published in the early years the Marvel UK comic which recapped events for the benefit of new readers. The features are of subsequent interest as one of the few definitive statements from Marvel as to the chronological placement of several of the earliest UK originated stories.
The features appeared as follows:
Each follows the same chronology but differs slightly in the level of detail given.
They are not known to have been widely reprinted and consequently they have sometimes been overlooked in attempts to work out the chronological order of events.
Synopsis
[edit]The Transformers were natives of the planet Cybertron, where Megatron led the evil Decepticons as they waged war on the peace loving Autobots. The Transformers The Autobots were facing total defeat when Optimus Prime emerged as leader and moulded them into an effective force. And There Shall Come...a Leader! The war raged, unleashing forces that knocked Cybertron out of its orbit. After a thousand years it was drifting towards an asteroid belt that would destroy it, so the Autobots launched a huge spaceship called the Ark that blasted a path through it. They succeeded but were weakened and the Decepticons attacked. Seeing they could not win, Optimus Prime sent the ship hurtling towards a nearby planet where it crashed into a volcano and was buried. The Transformers It was observed from the Decepticon spaceship by Shockwave who followed it down but radiation belts affected his guidance systems and he landed half a world away in the Savage Land. The Ark's last functioning systems recognised the threat and used its final power to recreate five Autobots who could transform into likenesses of what it perceived to be the dominant lifeforms of the planet - dinosaurs. The Dinobots were dispatched to the Savage Land. The Last Stand There they fought Shockwave in a battle which ended in the Decepticon buried under tons of rock and the Dinobots in a tar pit. Repeat Performance!
Four million years later and the planet became known as Earth, with the volcano now named Mount St. Hilary in Oregon, USA. In 1984 an eruption stirred the Ark's circuits and it revived & reconstructed the fallen Autobots and Decepticons to transform into likeness of what it now perceived to be Earth's dominant lifeform - machinery. The conflict between the two factions continued as they sought fuel. The Transformers The Autobots met Buster Witwicky and his father Sparkplug, a motor mechanic who agreed to devise a conversion formula to allow the Autobots to enable them to use Earth fuel. However the Decepticons discovered the plan and captured Sparkplug, with the Autobots too fuel-depleted to follow them. Power Play!
Both sides were then distracted by a battle in England, Man of Iron and a Decepticon attempt to harness energy from a dam. Decepticon Dam-Busters! The Autobots rescued Sparkplug with the aid of the costumed super-hero Spider-Man. Prisoner of War! The Autobots and Decepticons then faced simultaneous crises in their own ranks, The Enemy Within! leading to the Decepticons launching a strike on the Ark which failed due to low fuel and the intervention of the Autobot computer Aunty. Raiders of the Last Ark When Sparkplug returned to the Ark the Autobots were horrified to learn he had given the Decepticons the fuel formula and an argument ensued. Sparkplug suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital by Ratchet. Megatron once more attacked the Ark and the Autobots pooled their dwindling fuel to allow five warriors to make a final stand. They were defeated by the Decepticons; who however immediately collapsed because Sparkplug had made their fuel corrosive. The Autobots' celebrations were short-lived when Shockwave - accidentally revived by an Autobot probe - suddenly arrived and blasted them all unconscious. The Last Stand
Shockwave declared Megatron's leadership faulty and usurped command of the Autobots. He had most of the Autobots hung up i the Ark but separated Optimus Prime's head from his body and sought to tap the Creation Matrix force that could give life to new Transformers. Shockwave was unaware that Ratchet was still at large. The New Order To frustrate Shockwave' plans, Prime transferred the bulk of the Matrix to Buster Witwicky. Megatron tried to retake the Decepticon leadership but had not fully recovered from previous injuries and was defeated easily. Shockwave captured an oil rig The Worse of Two Evils! and aerospace plant both belonging to G.B. Blackrock and sought to use the former as a power source and the latter as a new base. Meanwhile Ratchet sought to save his comrades, making a deal with Megatron whereby he would defeat Shockwave and in return Megatron would hand over the Ark. Warrior School! Ratchet located and revived the Dinobots then confronted Megatron who admitted he never intended to honour his side of the bargain. Megatron was defeated and disappeared into a deep snowdrift. Repeat Performance! Ratchet and the Dinobots returned to the Ark where they were confronted by Guardian, an Autobot battle droid reprogrammed by the Decepticons. Decepticon Dam-Busters! In the resulting battle Swoop seemingly sacrificed his life when he carried a self-destructing Guardian out of the Ark. The remaining Dinobots chose to leave the Ark alone. Ratchet revived the other Autobots. The Wrath of Guardian! The Wrath of Grimlock!
The Autobots then faced the threat of Circuit Breaker. Josie Beller was an employee of Blackrock's who had been seriously injured when Shockwave captured the oil rig, The Worse of Two Evils! but she developed a cybernetic exo-skeleton and set out on mission of vengeance to destroy all robots. She would have destroyed Jazz and Wheeljack but for the intervention of Blackrock who made a deal with the Autobots to provide fuel in exchange for protection from the Decepticons. DIS-Integrated Circuits! Meanwhile Shockwave used the last remains of the Creation Matrix within Optimus Prime to create six new Decepticons - the Constructicons. They aided Soundwave in sending a message to Cybertron. The Next Best Thing to Being There! However Shockwave discovered that Prime had no more Matrix energy and could not give life to the next creation, Jetfire. He traced the Matrix to Buster Witwicky and dispatched the mindless Jetfire to capture him; however Buster used the Matrix's power to seize control of the jet and use him to serve the Autobots. Brainstorm! They recaptured Optimus Prime's head and reunited it with his body. Prime fought Shockwave, who was lost in a deep swamp. Prime Time!
With both Megatron and Shockwave missing, Soundwave took command of the Decepticons. He attempted to use a captured Bumblebee to lure Prime to his doom, but the plan failed. Crisis of Command! Swoop was found to be alive but under the control of the human scientist Professor Morris. He was soon freed but it was discovered that four million years in a tar pit had damaged the Dinobots' circuits, reducing their minds to savagery. The Icarus Theory The Autobots set out to capture the Dinobots, with the mission complicated by Decepticon manipulation, and although they succeeded casualties were high. Dinobot Hunt!
Optimus Prime reactivated five Autobots whose brain waves had been stored in the Ark - Grapple, Hoist, Skids, Smokescreen and Tracks, whilst both Shockwave Rock and Roll-Out! and Megatron returned to action. Megatron reached a coal mine when his fuel finally gave up and he froze in place. The human government agency Triple I was seeking to calm public fears about the warring robots and so invented a cover story based on the comic character Robot-Master. The character's creator Donny Finkleberg was hired to impersonate his creation and claim on television that he was the head of a terrorist organisation controlling the Transformers. However during a broadcast at the coal-mine where the immobile Megatron served as a prop, Finkleberg was caught in a clash between the Autobots and Decepticons. Megatron was freed and he captured Finkleberg, reasoning he could maintain the Robot-Master pretence to portray the Autobots as villains. I, Robot-Master! Soundwave kept Megatron's return secret from Shockwave, who meanwhile discovered the Autobots' specific concern for Buster Witwicky. Robot Buster! He dispatched Soundwave and the Constructicons to capture Buster. However when Soundwave scanned the unconscious Buster's mind he discovered that inside it were images of a new breed of Transformers. He aborted the mission and both sides returned to their bases. Devastation Derby!
Notes
[edit]- The events of most stories are listed to some degree or other but there is no specific mention of the events of "Christmas Breaker!" from issue #41, "Shooting Star!" from issues #51 and #52 or "Plight of the Bumblebee!" from issues #57 and #58.
- Completely ignored are most of the stories from the first Transformers annual: "Hunted!", "Missing in Action" and "Plague of the Insecticons!". Where they fit into the chronology, if at all, remains a source of uncertainty.
- Grapple, Hoist, Skids, Smokescreen and Tracks are specifically described as having been reactivated, implying that they didn't have original counterparts still on Cybertron.
See also
[edit]In later years the job of recapping events was transferred to the annuals, which added a series of framing narratives for the following stories: