Deadly Paradise

Are they watching a cockfight?
Deadly Paradise
Publisher	St. Michael/Purnell Books
First published	1986
Written by	Gerry Bailey
Art by	Angus McKie
ISBN	ISBN 0-361-07285-6
Page count	29pp

When Sideswipe is falsely convicted of destroying the Nova Suspension Bridge, Prowl takes a team of Autobots to Carob Island in search of the truth.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Sideswipe (1) Optimus Prime (4) Prowl (5) Bumblebee (6) Hound (7) Windcharger (8) Brawn (9) Ratchet (10)	Ravage (12) Megatron (13) Rumble (14) Starscream (15) Skywarp (16)	Crabtree (2) Other Councilors (3) Cee (11)

Notes

• The book's cover and title page have no title other than the standard Transformers logo. The title "Deadly Paradise" is printed on the top of most of the story pages.
  • Which can make this book tricky to track down online, since some retailers have the title as "Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye". However, since no other known Transformers books have had the same publisher, writer, or artist, any listing that includes this information should allow for a positive I.D.
• Although dated 1986, the book only uses characters from the 1984 lineup.
• The character art in this book is toy-accurate to the point of absurdity, including such elements as Bumblebee's head being painted onto a block.
• The Autobots sure are in the public eye in this micro-continuity. Pretty much the whole crowd recognizes and names Sideswipe as the Autobot who destroys the bridge.
• Optimus can't spare Jazz because he's Prime's second-in-command. It therefore falls to Prowl to lead this special operation to the Pacific. Interesting.
• One of the most violent deaths in Transformers history occurs in this book when Windcharger crushes Starscream. Jeez, that guy just can't catch a break.
• The Sideswipe situation apparently gets Optimus so pissed off, it makes smoke come out of his smokestacks. He might even be so mad he can't see straight, as the addition of white pupils to his yellow optics makes him appear cross-eyed on page 8.
• Transformers becoming pigs probably just seemed like a silly idea at the time this was written.
• If Megatron's operation had been allowed to continue any longer, it would have produced an evil clone of Optimus Prime! Can you imagine if that had actually happened?
• The Sideswipe clone is never caught or destroyed. He could still be out there somewhere, looking for new bridges to collapse...
  • And if any other Transformers story had continuity with this book, that would mean something.

Errors

• The first page mentions that the council will almost surely find Sideswipe guilty, implying he's literally before them standing trial, so his presence behind Crabtree in the illustration makes sense, if not the fact that he seems to be aiming his gun and missile launcher (his box art pose). Yet when Optimus Prime gets word of their decision at Autobot HQ, he has someone go find Sideswipe...who is sitting around the base, seemingly not having just come back from a trial. So the "Sideswipe" that Councilor Crabtree was pointing at was just a simulation, explaining why no one present ever addressed Sideswipe directly. There was no screen to project images onto, so either it's one of the biggest art goofs ever, or someone whipped up a life-size model! Pretty ironic, considering an even more accurate mock-up of Sideswipe committed the crime. A really confusing start to the story.
• Despite Madame Cee's obsession with robot pigs, all of the robots active in her workshop are vaguely humanoid, lacking animal attributes. It's never stated that her creations have emulated transformation powers, so we can't just assume they have barnyard alt-modes.
• Although Prowl calls Rumble, "the weakest of all Decepticons", not smallest, his jab, "Megatron's mouse," is clearly a crack about Rumble's size. While Rumble is one of the smallest year-one 'Cons in most continuities, the Decepticon group portrait on the inside cover depicts him as being the second tallest after Megatron! Even allowing that Rumble and Megatron are both standing on steps or a platform, Rumble's at least as tall as the Seekers, so the short-joke doesn't make much sense here.
• On the facing page, the Autobots are all in pretty accurate toy-scale. The only problem is Sideswipe's neck is...either missing, or so wide that it connects to the full edge of the windshield on his back. It honestly looks like his head's just floating above his shoulders, like Skeletor or Lodestar.

Real-world references

There's a lot of Greek mythology at play here:

• Madame Cee is clearly based on the sorceress Circe, "Cee" being a phonetic spelling of the first letter of her name. Circe lived on the Mediterranean island of Aeaea where she mesmerized sailors, led them to her mansion, then enticed them with food which turned them into the animal most closely matching their nature, usually pigs. After she worked her magic on some Ithicans, their shrewd captain and king Odysseus was able to see through her enchantment and threatened her with his sword until she changed them back with her magic wand. While Cee apparently uses scientific means to rebuild robots into pig-bots, she does have a mesmerizing effect on robots that only the logical Prowl can break free of.
  • Thankfully, the parallels to the Odyssey end there, leaving Prowl in no danger of conceiving a son with Madame Cee who would someday kill him.
• Carob Island's Megamaze is similar to the Labyrinth on the island of Crete, though the year-one Decepticons don't have anything resembling a Minotaur, or even a bull. Also, since the Minotaur's slayer Theseus navigated the Labyrinth with a magic ball of string, the Autobots escaping the Megamaze by backtracking a trail of oil drops has a bit more in common with how Hansel and Gretel found their way out of the woods, blurring the reference from Greek to German on the last page.

External links

• Deadly Paradise scans online