The Living Nightlights!

« The Transformers (UK) #271 »
"The Living Nightlights!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	19th May 1990
Cover date	26th May 1990
Writer	Simon Furman
Pencils	John Marshall
Inks	Stephen Baskerville
Letters	Helen Stone
Cover	Staz
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity/Earthforce

Introducing the Sleepfast—the first light that needs no physical switch.

Synopsis

These stories do not fit into the normal Marvel continuity. See Earthforce for details.

A television advertisement introduces the Sleepfast, a humanoid light that one can switch on and off by thought alone. Just the thing for turning the lights out from bed!

Wheeljack and Snarl break into the Sleepfast warehouse. Snarl is worried both that they are committing a crime but also finds the Sleepfasts scary. However, Wheeljack believes that the lights are dangerous as he has examined one and discovered that it uses Cybertronian technology. Even worse, the Sleepfasts are alive, and can put the user under subliminal control. The Autobots must find the mastermind behind the scheme and stop him soon. Elsewhere, an unseen figure switches off a monitor and comments that Wheeljack is right and must be eliminated.

In the warehouse, Wheeljack and Snarl are suddenly taken by surprise as hordes of Sleepfasts come to life and attack them. There are far too many to overcome, and they are subdued. Then the mastermind reveals himself—it is Mindwipe! The Decepticons have thrown him out just because he tried to enthrall Scorponok, but he now plans to use a human army to rule the planet. He raises his gun, but Wheeljack and Snarl immediately think "Light on!" and activate the Sleepfasts. Wheeljack explains that the massive light overloads Mindwipe's neural circuity and "scared the Living Nightlights out of him!", a pun that Snarl hates, so he turns off the lights.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Wheeljack (1) Snarl (2)	Mindwipe (3)

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

• Snarl's shoulder wings disappear in some panels.

Continuity errors

• TBD

Continuity notes

• This is the only story in the Earthforce period to make reference to Scorponok and give any indication as to the existence of a third force of Decepticons.
• In the US story "Eye of the Storm", Mindwipe would leave Scorponok's Decepticons, but under very different circumstances from those mentioned here. It all joins the melting pot of theories on where Earthforce fits into continuity.

Real-life references

• The story is named after the James Bond movie The Living Daylights.

Other trivia

• TBD

Back-up material

• Additional Transformers story: "Power Struggle"
• Other strips: G.I. Joe the Action Force - "The Tenth Letter" and Combat Colin
• AtoZ: Skydive and Sky Lynx

Cover

• Issue #271 cover: Wheeljack nods off as the Sleepfasts get up to mischief, by Staz.

• 
  Issue #271

Reprints

• Transformers: Earthforce cover: Grimlock thumps a table — crop of the cover to UK issue #263, by Stephen Baskerville.
• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 20: End of the Road: Bludgeon (art reused from Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye profiles) above an interior scene of Grimlock punching through Fangry (from US issue #80), by Andrew Wildman.

• 
  Transformers: Earthforce
  (Titan Books, 2005)
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 20: End of the Road
  (Hachette Partworks, 2018)