The Final Battle!

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The name or term "The Final Battle" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see The Final Battle (disambiguation).
« Transformers: The Movie #3

This scale is actually correct. All other depictions are erroneous and should be ignored.
"The Final Battle!"
Publisher Marvel Comics
First published October 1986
Cover date February 1987
Adaptation Ralph Macchio
Breakdowns Don Perlin
Finishes Ian Akin and Brian Garvey
Colors Nelson Yomtov
Lettering Janice Chiang
Editor Bob Budiansky

Unicron attacks Cybertron, but one Autobot is about to light their darkest hour.

Synopsis

Ultra Magnus and the Autobots crash land on Junkion, where Galvatron catches up to Magnus and murders him, stealing the Autobot Matrix of Leadership for himself. He flies off to confront Unicron.

When Hot Rod and the other separated Autobots return from the Quintesson planet, the Junkions, led by Wreck-Gar, repair Ultra Magnus and reveal their planet of junk to be a giant spaceship. They head for Cybertron to combat Unicron.

Galvatron attempts to use the Matrix to make Unicron obey him, but the Matrix will not work for him. Unicron swallows Galvatron whole as he proceeds to attack Cybertron. The Decepticons attempt to fight back, but to no avail.

"And by 'scramble', I of course mean, 'lurch zombie-like in every direction except at Unicron.'"

The spaceship piloted by Hot Rod and Kup flies right into Unicron's eye, and Hot Rod confronts Galvatron from inside Unicron. They battle briefly, and as Galvatron attempts to crush Hot Rod by the neck, the Matrix begins to glow. Hot Rod takes a hold of it, and is changed into Rodimus Prime. Rodimus dispatches Galvatron, and then uses the Matrix to destroy Unicron. Rodimus tracks down the Autobots still inside of Unicron, and they escape out of Unicron's other eye just before he is completely destroyed. Rodimus Prime then leads the Autobots to reclaim their homeworld, easily dealing with the diminished Decepticons, and leading Cybertron into a new age of peace.

'Til all are one.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Humans Junkions Others

Notes

Differences with the film

Gruesome!

The comic adaptation continues to be based on a slightly earlier version of the script than the finished film uses. Alternate scenes, details, and staging derived from the script include:

  • Daniel describes the crash on Junkion as being "more fun than a rollercoaster." In the script, he specifically refers to a coaster at "Futureworld," but the comic refers only to "Funworld."
  • There's another instalment of the "Ultra Magnus doesn't understand Perceptor" running gag that didn't make it into the finished movie that sees Perceptor describe the makeup of Junkion as "a chaotic amalgam of discarded ferrous and non-ferrous articulations."
  • Springer is the one to declare "Showtime's over, we've got work to do!" instead of Ultra Magnus, as in the finished film.
  • Ultra Magnus is drawn and quartered by the Sweeps, rather than blown to pieces (right).
  • Looking down at the Junkions as their ship descends, Kup reminisces about the Crocodillos of Stronterom (but see "Errors," below).
  • Though the dialogue has Hot Rod refer to them as the traditional cubes, the energon he offers the Junkions is in the form of a handful of long, thin sticks, per the script's call for "energon sticks." In the finished film, he offers them one of the small wafers previously seen being given to the Allicons on Quintessa.
  • Hot Rod also talks some TV to Wreck-Gar, adding "Void where prohibited" after Kup has said his line. In the script, though, this line was attributed to Kup too.
  • Instead of simply providing the Autobots with a ship, as in the movie, Wreck-Gar turns the entire planet of Junk into a rocket ship. The finished film features a vestigial reference to this abandoned idea, when Wreck-Gar describes the planet as a "sleek sexy import with turbo handling."

Other changes made to the story, usually in the name of condensing and simplifying it, which are not derived from the script include:

  • In the finished film, the Quintesson and Junkion stories run parallel, and the story cuts back and forth between the two narratives. Per the decision to consolidate all the Quintesson scenes into one unbroken story for issue #2, this issue relates the Junkion portion of the story as one similarly-unbroken adventure. The scene of Galvatron returning to Unicron and learning that Ultra Magnus still lives, however, is cut, with Galvatron simply describing for Magnus how Unicron told him this information.
  • Writer Ralph Macchio's fondness for expository dialogue requires Wreck-Gar to speak several lines without "talking TV," which results in the Junkion leader doing "caveman-speak" like a cartoon Dinobot.
  • The Autobots' fight with the Junkions is cut, with Hot Rod and Kup's group arriving just as the Junkions begin to approach the others after Magnus's destruction.
  • Kup provides an explanation for how his group found Magnus's, noting that they tracked their ship's exhaust.
  • After the Autobots crash through Unicron's eye, only Hot Rod's battle with Galvatron is shown; all other scenes of both the Autobots dealing with the dangers inside the planet-eater, and of the Dinobots and Junkions battling him outside, are cut. In particular, this means that Jazz, Cliffjumper, Bumblebee, and Spike are never shown being rescued by Daniel—yet Bumblebee and Spike do appear among the Autobots when they reunite and escape Unicron's body in the final pages.
  • Blurr is part of the Autobot group who travel inside Unicron.

Visual differences from the film, resulting from incomplete or outdated reference material include:

  • Daniel's exo-suit is red and blue instead of white.

Art and technical errors

  • Just like the previous issue, this one is also simply called "Transformers: The Movie" on its cover, without a definite article, even though issue 1 was called "The Transformers: The Movie". The indica for all three issues identify the series' title as "Transformers: The Movie Vol. 1".
  • Basically everyone on the cover is off-color to some extent. Especially notable are Hot Rod's grey boots; accurate to the movie itself, but not to either his standard Marvel colors, or to the colors uses in this mini-series.
  • Throughout this issue:
    • Springer's "abs" are yellow instead of dark green; accurate to his animated appearance, but not to his finalized Marvel color scheme.
    • Wreck-Gar sports an early color scheme that does not match his finalized Marvel colors. His abdomen, "belt" and hip-pouches appear in shades of orange rather than light blue, and his arms and legs are rendered only in two shades (orange and yellow-orange), where the final colors give him brown shins and red hands.
    • Cylconus's wings and engines are grey instead of light-blue.
    • That sticky-uppy thing on Galvatron's back is consistently colored light blue instead of purple. His belt is light-blue instead of red.
    • The flames on Hot Rod's chest are orange instead of yellow, and he has orange highlights on his arms that shouldn't be there.
    • Unicron's entire helmet and lower jaw/beard are colored purple; his finalized Marvel colours would make them white. His famous glowing red "abs" are coloured orange like the rest of his body.
    • Rodimus Prime's feet are red instead of light blue/white. The "headlight"/"windscreen" detailing around his waist is light blue instead of yellow and orange.
  • Page 2:
    • Panel 2: A triangular panel on Ultra Magnus's torso is yellow instead of red.
    • Panel 5: Arcee's thighs and right shin are purple instead of white. Purple is largely used to shade Arcee's white parts through this issue, but nobody else in the panel has any shading. The tip of Perceptor's cannon is white instead of blue/black.
  • Page 3:
    • Blue inks are printed noticeably off-center on this page.
    • Panel 1: Perceptor's forearms, and the panel on his stomach, are colored light blue-white, instead of dark blue.
    • Panel 3: Springer's torso is light green instead of dark green.
    • Panel 5: While Arcee's lower legs are shaded with purple, her upper legs are shaded with light blue.
  • Page 4, panel 6: Springer's Autobot symbol is uncolored, left the same light green as his chest.
  • Page 5, panel 3: Even allowing for his early colors, Wreck-Gar is miscolored in this panel; the center of his chest is red instead of light blue, and some printing errors cause yellow blobs to appear over the light-blue portion further down.
  • Page 6, panel 5: Scavenger's head is solid blue-black, lacking any blue-white highlights for his eyes and mouth.
  • Page 7:
    • Panel 4: Galvatron's shoulder-pylons are purple instead of light blue blue, his face is the same purple instead of grey, and his hand is grey instead of light blue.
    • Panel 5: Ultra Magnus's pelvis and lower left leg are coloured solid grey instead of blue and white.
    • Panel 6: The tread on Galvatron's arm is purple instead of light-blue. His hand is still grey instead of light-blue, as is his left hip-guard.
  • Page 8:
    • 'Panel 4: Ultra Magnus's eyes are white like the rest of his face, instead of dark blue.
      • Panel 7: Galvatron's hand's still grey. Instead of the featureless green rock it's otherwise depicted as, the Matrix is here rendered as a sort of rounded cuboid, with a circular opening.
  • Page 9:
    • Panel 1: Cyclonus still has grey wings and engines instead of light-blue.
    • Panel 5: Grimlock's mouthplate is white instead of blue-black like the rest of his head. Sludge is coloured like Grimlock (despite standing right next to Grimlock), with a yellow chest and solid-blue black head. Wheelie is purple instead of orange.
  • Page 10, panel 1: Kup's speech bubble points to Arcee.
  • Page 11:
    • Panel 5: The Matrix is uncolored.
    • Panel 7: Galvatron's left kneepad is light blue instead of grey, while his right thigh is grey instead of purple.
  • Page 16, panel 2: Galvatron's right tread is purple instead of light blue.
  • Page 18: The Junkion planet-spacecraft is drawn to be the same size as Kup and Hot Rod's Quintesson cruiser, when moments beforehand it was large enough for the Quintesson ship to land on.
  • Page 19-20: Galvatron's eyes are blue instead of yellow.
  • Page 19, panel 3: Hot Rod's Autobot symbol is uncolored, leaving a blank white patch on his chest.
  • Page 21, panel 3-4: Rodimus Prime is missing his spoiler.
  • Page 22, panel 4: Spike is wearing the exo-suit he has in the film, instead of the space suit he wore in the previous two issues. Bumblebee is colored like Grimlock; Kup is colored like Springer.
  • Page 23, panel 4: Springer has grey thighs instead of green. Blurr's just kind of a solid-blue lump.

Other trivia

He sells Micro Machines better than he sells the Autobot cause.
  • Blurr gets his only line of dialogue in the entire comic adaptation this issue.
  • According to a 2015 Facebook entry of Ask Vector Prime, the Unicron depicted in this comic was in fact blasted out of this dimension by the Matrix and later became the Planet X seen in the Galaxy Force cartoon.

Cover

Issue #3: The Autobots attack robot-mode Unicron.

Reprints

Reprint notes

Marvel UK

  • All three issues of the mini-series were collected into one special for release in the United Kingdom. This reprint edits the date from 2005 to 2006, to keep continuity with the regular weekly comic's recent story "Target: 2006," which—working from an even older draft of the film than the one on which this adaptation was based—placed the events of the movie in that year.

IDW Transformers Classics

Like the regular monthly series, this mini-series also had its colors "remastered" for The Transformers Classics series of trade paperbacks, with varying degrees of success. The process was applied less thoroughly to these issues; notably, Hot Rod was not recolored into toy-accurate red-and-orange, unlike in previous volumes.

Advertisements

  • Inside Front Cover: M&Ms
  • Between Pages 4 & 5: Lazer Tag Game Kit
  • Between Pages 5 & 6: Captain Crunch "Save The Captain" Promotion
  • Between Pages 7 & 8: East Coast Comics
  • Between Pages 8 & 9: Comic Related Ads
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