The Smelting Pool!

	; Apparently it melted Blaster's paint right off!
	"The Smelting Pool!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	February 1986
Cover date	June 1986
Writer	Bob Budiansky
Penciler	Don Perlin
Inker	Keith Williams
Colorist	Nel Yomtov
Letterer	Janice Chiang
Editor	Michael Carlin
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

This article is about issue #17 of the Marvel US comic. For the Decepticon torture and recycling device, see Smelting pool.

On Cybertron, an Autobot spy discovers a message sent to the Decepticons from Earth.

Synopsis

The Transformers' homeworld, the planet Cybertron, is a war-torn, resource-strapped wasteland. Struggling survivors hide from ruthless Decepticon overlords, who hunt them down for sport and scrap metal. The Autobot Blaster, waiting to meet up with his partner Scrounge, encounters one such hunter, and trashes him but good.

Scrounge, meanwhile, has infiltrated the Decepticon headquarters fortress Darkmount, using the wire-guided sensors in his Very Special Arm. He records an interstellar transmission received by Shrapnel and some other Decepticons, who claim it is of world-shaking importance. While retracting his Very Special Arm sensors, Scrounge trips an alarm; he retreats, but Shrapnel captures him outside the fortress.

Blaster returns to Autobase, but only to try and convince his fellow Autobots to search for Scrounge. Citing Scrounge's past unreliability, base commander Perceptor is reluctant to do so, but yields when he's outvoted by his troops.

Shrapnel takes Scrounge to the court of Decepticon commander Straxus. Straxus crushes Scrounge's Very Special Arm during a brief interrogation, and orders him tossed into the smelting pool, a pit that serves the dual function of execution chamber and raw materials processing for the Decepticon war effort.

Perceptor's Autobots question the fuel-starved Empties about Scrounge's disappearance, and learn of his capture. The others give up hope, but Blaster continues the hunt alone. Infiltrating Darkmount, he is briefly captured and brought before Straxus (where a large construction project is underway), but the tyrant isn't interested and orders him tossed into the pool.

Blaster soon finds Scrounge... what's left of him, at least; the pool has melted away much of his body. The other Autobots arrive to save Blaster. Scrounge is already too badly damaged to be saved, but he passes on a recording of the Decepticon message to Blaster, who is pulled out of the pool by Powerglide. As the Autobots fight their way out of Darkmount, Blaster uses the molten metal pumped from the smelting pool as a weapon to drive off the attacking Decepticons.

Back at Autobase, the Autobots play the recording and discover that Optimus Prime lives on among the Autobots on Earth. This gives the team new hope, and Scrounge is remembered for his sacrifice.

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Empties
Blaster (5) Scrounge (6) Powerglide (9) Cosmos (10) Seaspray (11) Warpath (12) Beachcomber (13) Perceptor (14) Optimus Prime (26)	Ferak (1) Shrapnel (7) Kickback (15) Bombshell (16) Ramjet (17) Straxus (18) Dirge (19) Thrust (20) Megatron (21) Laserbeak (22) Soundwave (23) Ravage (24) Starscream (25)	Telus (2) Rotorbolt (3) Unnamed Empty (4) Wheezel (8)

Quotes

"Burn, you tin-plated tyrants! Feel what Scrounge felt when you tossed him into your stinking pit!"

—Blaster lets the Decepticons have it

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

There's a huge design disparity between the toy-based characters and most of the generics invented for the issue; the latter are spindly, don't seem to turn into anything, and look like 1950s sci-fi robots.
Page 19, panel 2: Dirge and Thrust have their colors switched.
Perceptor rather inexplicably has the upper half of his face colored dark blue in this issue, as if it were shaded by the rim of his helmet. This strange convention would be copied over into all his appearances in the 2013-14 Regeneration One series.

Continuity errors

Outside Darkmount, Scrounge wonders "why the Decepticons would suddenly be interested in a neutralist who's specialty is interdimensional engineering." The letterer should have used whose (possessive), not who's (contraction of who is).
The narration states that the smelted Transformers' metal will be used to build newer Transformers. In the absence of the Creation Matrix - lost for four million years on Earth - it's not clear how those Transformers would be given life.
The transmission received on Cybertron states that the Decepticons on Earth were led by Megatron and that the Autobots were led by Optimus Prime. However when Soundwave sent the message (in US issue #10), Shockwave was leader of the Decepticons, with Megatron lost and presumed dead. At the time Optimus Prime was also a severed head, and a captive of Shockwave.

Continuity notes

Our first look at Cybertron since the first issue, almost 18 months prior! It is shown to be a hellish nightmare where citizens struggle to survive and Decepticons ruthlessly murder anyone they come across.
Cybertron seems to have two moons.
Soundwave sent the message in issue #10.
This issue features the Cybertronian alt modes of the second year Mini Vehicles, though most of them aren't terribly different from their Earth forms. The Coneheads and the Insecticons seem to already have their Earth forms, which might be in anticipation of their planned (but aborted) arrival on Earth next issue.

Real-life references

UK printing

Issue #66:

Backup strips: Rocket Raccoon and Robo-Capers

Issue #67:

Backup strips: Rocket Raccoon and Robo-Capers
Fact File Interface: Perceptor

Other trivia

The title on the issue's first page is given as "Return to Cybertron Part 1: The Smelting Pool!." Ostensibly, this would make "The Bridge to Nowhere!," "Return to Cybertron Part 2", although it is not explicitly named as such.
This issue was reprinted in the Titan Books collection Transformers: Cybertron Redux.
This issue was reprinted as issue #5 of IDW Publishing's Generations series.
The picture of Blaster on the cover uses his cartoon and Marvel UK face (without his visor).
Bob Budiansky cites this issue as one of his favorites, and recalls it being inspired by the barren hellscapes shown in the 1984 movie Terminator.^[1]

Changes in the IDW Transformers Classics reprint

On page 6, panels 6 and 7 Shrapnel's hand and arm are "corrected" to a muddy brown. (No attempt is made to correct the error which renders Shrapnel's thumb yellow in panel 6, though.)
On page 8, panel 1, Cosmos's shoulder is now miscolored blue.
On page 8, panel 3, Powerglide's light pink hi-lights become the same dark grey as his face and arm.
On page 19, panel 6 the grating on the refinery is recolored blue instead of grey.

Covers (13)

US issue #17 - Cybertron could only afford red.
UK issue #66 - Delicious Transformer soup.
UK issue #67 - I can write my name in the snow too.

US cover: Blaster falling into the smelting pool, by Herb Trimpe.
UK issue #66 cover: reuse of art from US cover.
UK issue #67 cover: Blaster attacking Decepticons, by John Higgins.

Transformers Comic-Magazin issue #5 - There must be an explanation for this...
The Transformers Comics Magazine issue #9
Cybertron Redux TPB
Cybertron Redux HC

Transformers Comic-Magazin issue #5 cover: a strange Optimus Prime medley.
The Transformers Comics Magazine issue #9 cover: recolored version of US cover.
Cybertron Redux TPB cover: Blaster, Ramhorn, Bombshell, Shrapnel, Kickback and half of the space bridge, by Andrew Wildman.
Cybertron Redux hardback cover: Blaster in the smelting pool, by Don Figueroa, Gary Erskine & Chris Blythe.