State Games
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 The golden age before the golden age. | |||||||||||||
| "State Games" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Marvel Comics | ||||||||||||
| First published | September 1986 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | 1987 | ||||||||||||
| Writer | James Hill | ||||||||||||
| Art | John Stokes[1] | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Sheila Cranna[1] | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Marvel Comics continuity (Marvel UK) | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | Immediately pre-Great War | ||||||||||||
The War begins...
Synopsis
Though a line of Overlords once ruled Cybertron in an Autocracy, their time is now all but at an end; only one of them remains, holding dwindling political influence in Tarn. Tensions rise on Cybertron, the result of new Transformer life is created unabated, putting increased pressure on the planet's resources. In order to combat this, the Overlord creates the Games. These are an inter-city competition put into practice to facilitate goodwill between the various city-states such as Iacon, Tarn and Vos. Unfortunately they have the opposite effect and rivalries between the city-states boil over into outright enmities.
Megatron, a citizen of Tarn, is a successful but particularly vicious athlete. Optimus Prime is very much his equal, and the two share a somewhat acrimonious sporting rivalry. During a match between Megatron and Sunstreaker held in Tarn, Megatron cuts loose and nearly slays his opponent. Optimus intervenes, but the Overlord remains blind to Megatron's growing ambitions, and reprimands Optimus for interfering in the contest.
Meanwhile, the Vos athletic team breaks into Tarn's power generator with the purpose of planting a bomb, destroying Tarn, while at the same time leaving evidence to suggest that it was Iacon who was responsible. The resulting war would decimate Tarn and Iacon, leaving Vos (ruled by a criminal syndicate headed by Starscream) the most powerful city on Cybertron. However, the team is caught in the act by a lowly second-engineer. The bomb still goes off, but not before Vos's guilt becomes known. Tarn soon becomes a barren warzone as its conflict with the enemy city escalates. Though Xaaron of Iacon attempts to convince his fellow councilors to send their forces over as peace-keepers, his request is shot down by High Councillor Traachon. The latter is convinced that should Iacon refrain from getting involved, the war will not affect them. Further, he believes that it might be in Iacon's best interest if the other two city states annihilate one another.
Back in Tarn, the hostilities traps the athletes and the Autobot Overlord in what is now the frontline of an inter-city war. The Autobot Overlord is ancient and frail, and requires frequent care. Megatron and Optimus Prime accompany the Overlord's two bodyguards, Ravage and Nightstalker in attempting to return the Overlord to Iacon through the battlefield. However, the fighting becomes too intense, and Optimus Prime leaves the other three with the Overlord to go to Iacon alone and gather reinforcements. After Prime's departure, a small force of shock troops, the remainder of Tarn's defunct military, attacks. In order to protect his master, Nightstalker sacrifices himself in a suicide explosion, leaving only Ravage and Megatron to stand guard. Megatron, seeing that Cybertron is on the cusp of a major political change, leaves the Overlord to die, with Ravage following suit.
When the war between Vos and Tarn finishes, Megatron convinces the survivors to unite as a new faction, the Decepticons, against Iacon. He tells the gathered crowd that Iacon could have easily intervened to prevent the war. As they once had done in the gladiatorial arena, Megatron's admirers chant his name, signaling the beginning of his rise to power.
Featured Characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
Notes
Artwork and technical errors
- Megatron and Sunstreaker are described as wearing masks, which (so we can see it's Megatron) aren't there in the art.
Continuity errors
- While Megatron comes by his fusion cannon in the course of the story, the last illustration with Megatron and Ravage looking at the dying Overlord is after that point, and so he should be wearing it.
Continuity notes
- Optimus Prime is but a successful Iaconian athlete in this story.
- However, he's still "Prime"! This is because back then, Prime was part of his name and not a title. We can quietly ignore his name, or do a literal reading that he already had the Matrix but during the Overlord era that no longer meant spit.
- The Autobot Overlord is the last of his line, with influence but little real power since the Overlords' "planet-wide autocracy" gave way to the city-states in the wake of an energy crisis caused by a continuing birth rate combined with a plummeting death-rate.
- Emirate Xaaron and High Councilor Tomaandi appear to be Iacon politicians, with General Traachon being the leader of the Iacon military.
- This story tells us how Megatron originally came across his fusion cannon.
- Shockwave and Starscream are mentioned as leaders of Tarn and Vos, respectively. It's not explicitly stated but this does imply why those two keep trying to take command from Megatron: they used to be in charge and want that back (and Megatron used to be Shockwave's subject!).
- Tornado from "The Enemy Within!" shows up.
- This story precedes "And There Shall Come...a Leader!" chronologically and retcons that story's stance that Megatron and Prime did not know each other before the war.
Real-life references
- The terrorist attack on the Games was a reference to the events surrounding the 1972 Munich Olympics.[2]
- The "spark" for the gladiatorial setting came from Optimus Prime and Megatron's fight on Sherman Dam in "More than Meets the Eye, Part 2".[2]
Other trivia
- This story is prefaced with the title "A Tale from Cybertron".
- The State Games are mentioned by Alpha Trion in Transformers: Exodus as being an annual event held in Tarn during Cybertron's Golden Age.
- This is one of the more influential stories in the comics. The concept of the Decepticons having their origins in gladiatorial games and of political tensions in a declining Cybertron were visited again in both the Dreamwave and IDW G1 continuities and in the Aligned continuity family. IDW's Megatron Origin is in many ways a retelling of "State Games", using combat games (albeit illegal), economic depression and anger towards the politics of Iacon as major plot points.
- James Hill pitched an adaptation of "State Games" as a comic to IDW Publishing in 2007. The pitch is included in The Transformers Classics UK Volume 2.
Covers (2)
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Transformers Annual 1987 -
The Transformers Classics UK Volume 2
- Transformers Annual 1987 cover: Prime and other early Transformers, by Barry Kitson.
- The Transformers Classics UK Volume 2 cover: Centurion, Professor Morris and his neural relay link, Soundwave, Shockwave, Megatron, Buster's battlesuit, the Overlord and Nightstalker, by Andrew Wildman.
