The Last Stand

<table class="infobox" style="width: 20em;">

<tr style="background-color:#e7d492;text-align:center;font-size:12px;"> <td colspan="2" style="font-size: 14px; background-color:#e7d492; color:black;font-weight:bold;" align="center"> <table width="100%" style="background-color:transparent">

<tr style="font-size:14px;"> <td class="tti_buttonlink">« </td><td align="center">The Transformers (US) #4 </td><td align="right" class="tti_buttonlink">» </td></tr> <tr class="tt1_secondarynav"> <td class="tti_buttonlink">« </td><td align="center">The Transformers (UK) #7–8 </td><td align="right" class="tti_buttonlink">» </td></tr></table> </td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" style="font-size: 12px; background-color:#ffffff;" align="center"> <img alt="" src="/w2/images2/thumb/2/29/MarvelUS-04.jpg/230px-MarvelUS-04.jpg" width="230" height="346" border="0" /><br />Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No! It's... oh. It actually is a plane. </td></tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" style="font-size: 14px; background-color:#e7d492; color:black;font-weight:bold;" align="center"> "The Last Stand" </td></tr> <tr> <td>Publisher </td><td> Marvel Comics </td></tr> <tr> <td>Date published </td><td> December 4, 1984 </td></tr> <tr> <td>Cover date </td><td> March 1985 </td></tr>

<tr> <td>Writer </td><td> Jim Salicrup </td></tr>

<tr> <td>Pencils </td><td> Frank Springer </td></tr>

<tr> <td>Inks </td><td> Ian Akin, Brian Garvey </td></tr>

<tr> <td>Colors </td><td> Nelson Yomtov </td></tr>

<tr> <td>Letters </td><td> John Workman </td></tr>

<tr> <td>Editor </td><td> Bob Budiansky </td></tr>

<tr> <td>Continuity </td><td> Marvel Comics continuity </td></tr>

</table> The Autobots make a desperate gamble to defeat the Decepticons.

Synopsis

Some of the Autobots accuse Sparkplug of betraying them by giving the Decepticons the fuel conversion they needed. Panicked, Sparkplug and his son attempt to escape, but when Jazz blocks their path with a wall of flame, Sparkplug suffers a heart attack. He is rushed to the hospital by Ratchet.

Huffer tells Optimus about a discovery he made in the Ark's memory banks: Just after the ship crashed, its barely functional computers detected the Decepticon Shockwave arriving on Earth in pursuit. With the last of its power, the Ark modified five Autobot warriors to combat him, thus creating the Dinobots. They traveled in a shuttle to the Savage Land to confront Shockwave, at which point contact was lost. Huffer has Ratchet dispatch a probe to search for the lost Dinobots.

At the hospital, Sparkplug undergoes emergency treatment and dreams of his Army service in Korea, where he was forced to repair North Korean vehicles. He further recalls sabotaging those vehicles...

With no new fuel sources forthcoming, the remaining Autobots are forced to make a desperate gamble to fight the Decepticons one last time. All the Autobots sacrifice their remaining fuel resources to Optimus Prime, Huffer, Ironhide, Bluestreak and Mirage. These five prepare to fight the Decepticons within the volcano that the Ark has crashed into, as the Decepticons arrive to destroy the Autobots once and for all.

In the Savage Land, Huffer's probe has found something and starts to dig it out—until a giant purple hand crushes it...

Although the Decepticons begin to win the battle by virtue of their greater numbers, at the moment of apparent victory, the Decepticons all fall, writhing in internal agony. As he reveals to Buster at the hospital, Sparkplug had corrupted the fuel he provided to the Decepticons, and they are now poisoned. Optimus Prime proclaims the debt that they, and the entire world, owe to Sparkplug Witwicky.

But suddenly, a gigantic blast from above knocks out all the Autobot troops... and Shockwave stands supreme!

"NOT the end..."

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

<table border="5" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" align="center" style="border:#800000"> <tr> <th style="background:#FFEEEE"> Autobots</th><th style="background:#EEEEFE"> Decepticons</th><th style="background:antiquewhite"> Humans </th></tr> <tr> <td style="background:#FFEEEE" valign="top">

• Optimus Prime (1)
• Brawn (2)
• Sunstreaker (3)
• Mirage (6)
• Jazz (7)
• Huffer (8)
• Windcharger (9)
• Ratchet (10)
• Gears (11)
• Ironhide (12)
• Bluestreak (13)
• Sideswipe (14)
• Snarl (30)
• Grimlock (31)
• Swoop (32)
• Sludge (33)
• Slag (34)
• Bumblebee (35)

</td><td style="background:#EEEEFE" valign="top">

• Megatron (18)
• Decepticon medic(19)
• Reflector (20–22)
• Spyglass (20)
• Spectro (21)
• Viewfinder (22)

• Frenzy (23)
• Rumble (24)
• Skywarp (25)
• Soundwave (26)
• Starscream (27)
• Ravage (28)
• Shockwave (29)
• Buzzsaw (36)
• Laserbeak (37)
• Thundercracker (38)

</td><td style="background:antiquewhite" valign="top">

• Buster Witwicky (4)
• Sparkplug Witwicky (5)
• "O" (15)
• Mister "O" (16)
• Jesse (17)

</td></tr></table>

Errors

• The final battle mentions only Prime, Huffer, Ironhide, Bluestreak and Mirage were kept operational for the battle with the Decepticons, but throughout the battle, Sunstreaker is present alongside those four, and is seen standing by Prime after the Decepticons' defeat. He's so good he doesn't even need fuel to fight, it seems.
• Mirage's arm is bitten off by Ravage, but it is reattached later.
• Many coloring errors throughout the issue. In particular, several Autobots are colored as Gears.

Items of note

• Cameos: Ted Koppel (voice only), the Rolands, ballet girls, Trailbreaker, Wheeljack, Sparkplug's Army buddy, North Koreans, hospital crew, United States Military.
• Advertised as part 4 in a 4-issue limited series, but the ending and letter column both make clear that issue #5 of what was now an ongoing was forthcoming.
• According to a text box in the letter column, Transformers #5 was originally going to be drawn by the team of "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Giarrano" class="extiw" title="wikipedia:Vincent_Giarrano">Vince Giarrano</a>, penciling superstar-in-the-making" and "Brad Joyce, inker extraordinare". This did not come to pass, and while Joyce did eventually ink issue #10, Giarrano would never work on the series.
• Jetfire's original character model (based on the Macross Valkyrie) appears in the first panel of the second page, but he is miscolored and partially obscured by Huffer's arm.
• An alternate ending was scripted and drawn for a UK reprint of issue #4 in Transformers: The Complete Works, Volume 2; in this version, Shockwave never strikes, and the series ends with Optimus Prime declaring the Decepticons defeated once and for all. Some have theorised that this ending was created by the US comics in case the series failed to progress past issue #4. However, the art on these panels, particularly a closeup of Optimus Prime's face, in the very final panel, is markedly different to Springer's so it seems much more likely that this version was simply drawn for the UK printing by one of their own artists.
• A second alternate ending was published in the Federal Comics Super Special edition. It expands the second panel of the penultimate page (or, the second panel from the link within the previous note) into a final splash page, eliminating the other panels entirely. Additionally, any page that mentioned the Shockwave subplot was dropped.

Covers

<table class="gallery" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td><div class="gallerybox" style="width: 155px;"> <div class="thumb" style="padding: 13px 0; width: 150px;"><div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 120px;"><img alt="" src="/w2/images2/thumb/2/29/MarvelUS-04.jpg/80px-MarvelUS-04.jpg" width="80" height="120" border="0" /></div></div> <div class="gallerytext"> US issue #4 - Rare Brown Megatron appears!

</div> </div></td> <td><div class="gallerybox" style="width: 155px;"> <div class="thumb" style="padding: 13px 0; width: 150px;"><div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 120px;"><img alt="" src="/w2/images2/thumb/7/7b/MarvelUK-7.jpg/89px-MarvelUK-7.jpg" width="89" height="120" border="0" /></div></div> <div class="gallerytext"> UK issue #7 - Megatron isn't even allowed on the UK cover

</div> </div></td> <td><div class="gallerybox" style="width: 155px;"> <div class="thumb" style="padding: 13px 0; width: 150px;"><div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 120px;"><img alt="" src="/w2/images2/thumb/7/74/MarvelUK-8.jpg/89px-MarvelUK-8.jpg" width="89" height="120" border="0" /></div></div> <div class="gallerytext"> UK issue #8 - Megatron took first in the Prime Press contest

</div> </div></td> </tr> </table>

• US issue #4 cover: the final battle, by Mark Texeira.
• UK issue #7 cover: reuse of art from US cover.
• UK issue #8 cover: Megatron holds the defeated Optimus Prime overhead, by Barry Kitson.

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• None yet identified

External links

• "Is it true there was an alternate version of #4?" at Tfarchive.com