Dinobots Strike Back
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| "Dinobots Strike Back" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Ballantine Books | ||||||||||||
| Imprint | Find Your Fate Junior | ||||||||||||
| First published | 1985 | ||||||||||||
| Writers | Casey Todd | ||||||||||||
| Illustrator | William Schmidt (interior pencils and cover painting) | ||||||||||||
| ISBN | ISBN 9780345341501 ISBN 0-345-34150-3 | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 73 | ||||||||||||
- Dinobots Strike Back is a multipath adventure in Generation 1.
Featured Characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
Synopsis
Bombshell attacks the Dinobots with his cerebro-shells, ordering them to go on a rampage. But Swoop escapes, bringing help from the Autobots.
Once rescued at Bandit's Bluff, Grimlock remembers overhearing Bombshell's thoughts, which leads Skids and Bumblebee to investigate Dolphin Bay, where Decepticon activity had been spotted recently. They uncover a hidden Decepticon base, and a sinister plan to convert the bay's black coral into superfuel for the Decepticons!
Can the Autobots destroy the power plant before it comes online and the Decepticons become unstoppable? The answer to that question... is up to you!
Errors
- Last line in the infamous ending where Windcharger accidentally tears the Dinobots apart with his magnetic field: "Except for Swoop, the once mighty Dinobots have met the same fate as the original dinosaurs -- they are now extinct!" Since pterosaurs aren't actually dinosaurs, that sentence ought to be abbreviated.
- After disabling Bumblebee, Frenzy wants to leave his body at the entrance to the Decepticons' base as a warning to other Autobots. Even though it's a secret base.
- On page 65, Skids worries that, "If the Dectpticon computer was telling the truth, it won't be long before the Dectptions are super robots." He's right to worry, but...what "Dectpticon computer"? He heard about Operation Black Coral from Bumblebee, who overheard Megaton talking about it.
Notes
- Autobot headquarters is the Ark.
- Bombshell shoots Swoop with an explosive shell which temporarily shrinks him down so small that he's in danger of being eaten by a lizard in the desert! This interesting weapon's not mentioned in Bombshell's Marvel TF Universe bio. If anything, it's usually the Insecticons themselves who have the ability to shrink in their alt-modes in various continuities.
- Bombshell does shrink when he transforms, but not down to actual Earth insect size. In Swoop's hand, he's roughly the size his original toy would be relative to an adult human hand.
- Seaspray is repeatedly described as transforming into either a destroyer or a battleship, but never a hovercraft. And he's freakin' huge!
- Unfortunately, we never see a picture of his warship mode, just several of the submarine piloted by Skids and Bumblebee.
- Skids is described as a red compact throughout this book. (Which was in fact one of his Diaclone color schemes.) This makes it one of the few times his altmode has been properly characterized, as opposed to being a minivan. He is depicted with his correct, more human-like head. In the picture where he's face to face with Bumblebee, he's clearly shorter than Bee, which also makes sense considering a Honda City Turbo is even smaller than a VW Beetle, a rare instance of real-life vehicle scale asserting itself in otherwise toy-accurate artwork
- Bumblebee's chosen for the sea mission because he performs better underwater than the other Autobots, an ability from his tech spec that's come up once in a coloring book, but not in the bigger continuities.
- A rare appearance by Topspin among the Autobot assault force, apparently because he's their only water vehicle besides Seaspray. His fellow Jumpstarter Twin Twist is therefore nowhere around.
- The Dinobot story for which this book is named is little more than a prelude to the main plot. (Though some endings do never get beyond it.)
- Lots of victory parties in this one. The Decepticons even build a mountaintop bonfire! No one gets drunk though.
- This book was available individually, or as part of a six-book box set with the other five "pre-Movie era" books in the series.
Keywords
Autobot Memorial Power Plant, Bandit's Bluff, Black coral, Dolphin Bay, Gravedigger, Hidden Valley, Star mini-submarine
External links
