Deadly Paradise
From MediaWiki
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 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.
Synopsis
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
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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.
- 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.
- 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?
Errors
- 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 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 shot at 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.
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 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 following a trail of oil drops has a bit more in common with how Hansel and Gretel found their way out of the woods, turning the reference from Greek to German.
