Once upon a Time...

« The Transformers (UK) #265 » « Earthforce
To be fair, The Da Vinci Code is pretty awful as well.
"Once upon a Time..."
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	7th April 1990
Cover date	14th April 1990
Writer	Simon Furman
Artist	Andy Wildman
Letterer	Peri Godbold
Cover	Gary Gilbert
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity/Earthforce

Grimlock throws the book out of the window.

Synopsis

They had some top artists on this comic.

An initially unseen voice reads a book...

There was once a planet called Cybertron, inhabited by mechanical beings who could change their forms into machinery and weapons. There was a civil war between two factions: the evil Decepticons and the heroic Autobots. The Decepticons were led by Megatron, who took them to great successes until Optimus Prime emerged and fought back. He had a good lieutenant.

We see someone has been doodling all over the book as the story goes on...

Such was the scale of the conflict that Cybertron was knocked out of its orbit and sent drifting through space towards an asteroid belt. So Optimus Prime had the Ark constructed to blast a path through the asteroids. He succeeded, but the Decepticons attacked. Prime decided that, as they couldn't win, he had to destroy them all, and he crashed the Ark on a nearby planet. Four million years, later the Ark's computer revived them and gave them all the ability to transform into machinery, weapons and animals. "Dumb computer!"

The book then takes a shift in style as post-it notes are slapped over the text...

After that, the Autobots and Decepticons fight over fuel, Megatron and Shockwave fight over the Decepticon leadership, Optimus Prime and Megatron get killed off only to come back, some Transformers get Nebulan companions and more. Optimus Prime loses track of what's going on on Earth and dispatches the narrator and listeners to take care of it.

And it's at this point that the pictures get a bit, er, stylised...

Everything turns out non-violent after all! Megatron's convinced to try peace and that there is room on Earth for both factions after a nice cup of tea with Grimlock. The Decepticons abandon war and settle down to a happy, hippy lifestyle. Everyone lives happily ever after! Hooray for talking it out!

In Northern Canada, sixteen miles east of Churchill, the Earthforce shuttle has landed. Inside, Grimlock has been reading to his fellow Autobots. He asks them if they buy the story. The silence is deafening. "Me neither!" exclaims Grimlock as he throws the book out of the window. Grimlock declares that they will do things their own way instead of Optimus Prime's softly-softly approach. Prowl and Wheeljack are in trouble, so he orders them all to move out and "kick Decepticon butt!"

The book lies abandoned in the snow. It is the Autobot Code.

Featured characters

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

Quotes

"some transf [new line] transformers get humanoid heads and guns and engines"

—The Narrator is struggling to fit everything into his note.

"Everyone live happily ever after in peace and harmony. The end. You buy that? [His audience, the rest of the Earthforce, silently glares] Me neither! [Tosses his book out the window]

—Grimlock

"Optimus Prime say we to safeguard Earth. Fine. But we do it our way, make our own happy endings! So what you waiting for? Prowl and Wheeljack got Megatron, so got big trouble! Earthforce - move out! Let's kick Decepticon butt!"

—Grimlock

Notes

Artwork and technical notes

• Grimlock's additions to the story are lettered and drawn in a very childish manner, intended to be the Dinobot's own efforts. He's also played noughts and crosses in the margin, put silly glasses on Optimus, and written "i luv comics". The comic doesn't reach peak doodle until he starts mocking the idea of a negotiated peace.

Continuity notes

• Galvatron had first mentioned "your pathetic Autobot Code" in "Target: 2006" but in context that could have meant an informal set of values and practices. This is the first time the Code is shown to be an actual written set of rules.
• Grimlock's brief description of the comic storyline ends with "Prime come back [from the dead], lose track of what really happening on earth and we have to look after it"... skipping right over every story since "People Power!" That's one way to avoid pinning down Earthforce continuity!
• This was probably meant to run before "Desert Island Risks!": Bumblebee and Ironhide are still in base, the search for Wheeljack and Prowl yet to start.
• Prime cited the Code in "Two Steps Back!" and Grimlock had just promised restraint. Note also more disses of Optimus Prime of not knowing how to properly finish the job anymore, also raised in "Two Steps Back!". Dude holds a grudge.
• The idea of making peace has run through the comic since #1, usually with characters hoping for it or sad they can't achieve it (as in "Space Pirates!"). Grimlock not only considers this a ludicrous daydream, he finds it worryingly easy to convince the rest of Earthforce too.

Real-life references

• Part of the inspiration may be from The Prisoner, which had an episode of the same name and an unrelated episode that used a framing structure of Number Six telling a bedtime story.

Other trivia

• This is basically a 'New readers start here' story to set up Earthforce.
• Grimlock is the only character to speak in this issue.

Back-up material

• Additional Transformers story: "Blood on the Tracks"
• Other strips: G.I. Joe the Action Force - "Manoeuvring for Position" and Combat Colin
• AtoZ: Shockwave

Cover

• Issue #265 cover: The Autobot Code lies abandoned in the snow, by Gary Gilbert.

• 

  Issue #265

Generics

The two examples of generics from this issue both appear in "book-within-a-comic" The Autobot Code, so they may represent "real" characters or merely generics within the context of the book.

• 

  Another scene of the early days of the war on Cybertron, showing generics from both sides.

• 

  Megatron ruthlessly tortures a generic Autobot.

Reprints

• Transformers: Earthforce cover: Grimlock thumps a table — crop of the cover to UK issue #263, by Stephen Baskerville.
• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 20: End of the Road: Bludgeon (art reused from Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye profiles) above an interior scene of Grimlock punching through Fangry (from US issue #80), by Andrew Wildman.

• 

  Transformers: Earthforce
  (Titan Books, 2005)

• 

  The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 20: End of the Road
  (Hachette Partworks, 2018)