Altered Image!

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Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the nuttiest of them all?
"Altered Image!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	October 1988
Cover date	1989
Plot	Simon Furman
Script	Ian Rimmer
Art	Lee Sullivan
Colour	Steve White
Letters	Tom Frame
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

Megatron and Galvatron finally come face to face.

Synopsis

So many filthy captions... so little time!

Galvatron stands in the ruins of a town, musing to himself that he has done all this only to draw out Megatron. He hears his name shouted and turns to see that Megatron has indeed tracked him down, after being primed as a weapon by Shockwave. Galvatron tries to convince Megatron to join forces with him by telling him the story of how in the year 2006, he was left abandoned in space and transformed by Unicron from Megatron to Galvatron, and then how he was "forced" to travel back in time to 1986. Megatron refuses to believe that the being in front of him could be his future self and violently attacks him, much to Galvatron's annoyance. Galvatron muses that he could easily destroy Megatron if he fought back with all of his power, but doing so might wipe himself out of existence. He manages to keep Megatron at bay by dropping a building on him, and then mentions that he has worse things to look forward to, like Starscream throwing his damaged body into space.

Intrigued, Megatron asks what Galvatron did to Starscream. Galvatron asks Megatron what he would have done, and Megatron bursts out laughing. Deciding that maybe they do have things in common, Megatron muses that perhaps they should join forces. Galvatron agrees.

Dun-dun-duuuunnnnnnnnnn!

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Decepticons	Others
Galvatron (1) Straxus-Megatron (2)	Unicron (3)

Notes

• Shockwave conceived the idea of using Megatron as a weapon in "Enemy Action!" and recovered Megatron's body in "Salvage!". He sent Megatron out to track down Galvatron at the end of "Dry Run!".
• The reference to Starscream is, of course, a reference to the events of The Transformers: The Movie, after the Battle of Autobot City, which is part of the future-past in one of the UK comic's timelines (albeit one that took place in 2006, rather than 2005).
• Lee Sullivan had been doing covers for the UK comic for a while, but this was his first piece of strip work. His portrayal of Galvatron was based on the actor Jack Nicholson, though the crazy teeth aren't as prominent as they will be in later stories.

Courtesy of my...

• Perhaps predictably, both Megatron's fusion cannon and Galvatron's particle cannon get called out.
• Galvatron refers to his alternate mode as a space cannon.

Cover

• Transformers Annual 1989 cover: Scorponok, by Lee Sullivan.

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  Transformers Annual 1989

Reprints

• Transformers: Time Wars TPB: Optimus Prime and Galvatron fight, by Geoff Senior and Oliver Harud.
• Best of UK: Time Wars #1 cover A: Megatron and Galvatron fight, by Dan Khanna and Liam Shalloo.
• Best of UK: Time Wars #1 cover RI: reuse of a panel from this story.
• Best of UK: Time Wars TPB cover: reuse of issue #1 cover A.

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  Time Wars TPB
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  Best of UK: Time Wars #1 cover A
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  Best of UK: Time Wars #1 cover RI
• 
  Best of UK: Time Wars TPB

• The Transformers: Best of UK Omnibus: crop of Best of UK: Time Wars issue #4 cover A.
• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 14: Space Pirates: Hot Rod and a scene of the Blaster and Wheeljack strung up.
• The Transformers Classics UK Volume 6 cover: General Ghyrik, a Quintesson Judge, Metroplex, Galvatron, Optimus Prime, Arcee, Carnivac and Snarler. Art and colors by Andrew Wildman.

• 
  Best of UK Omnibus
• 
  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 14; cover art by Don Figueroa, Dougie Braithwaite and Dave Harwood
• 
  Classics UK Volume 6 TPB