In the Beginning...

A human hacker logs into the Decepticon mainframe and reads an overview of the Autobot/Decepticon war.

Synopsis

Teen hacker Adam Reynolds mis-dials while trying to reach his local bank and instead reaches the Decepticon mainframe computer. A fluke results in him typing the correct access code, and he reads in amazement the history of the Autobot/Decepticon war.

However, Adam inadvertently triggers a security system when he tries to access a file his code doesn't give him access to. The Decepticon Mainframe Computer sends a 1,000,000 volt surge down Adam's phone line, destroying his computer and burning up his printouts. Adam would have been killed—except his cat startled him back from the computer a moment before it exploded.

Adam is not dissuaded. He wonders if there's an Autobot computer online somewhere...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Continuity notes

• This story broadly recaps the events of issues #1-65 of the regular UK Transformers comic. The questions Adam specifically asks the computer focus on the histories of Optimus Prime and Megatron, the saga of the Dinobots, the creation of Jetfire and the Constructicons, and the battle for Decepticon leadership between Megatron and Shockwave—all given this attention in order to prime readers for the other stories in the annual, which are each about one of these characters or storylines.
• The story features no original illustrations, instead reusing art of:
  • Megatron and Optimus Prime from "And There Shall Come...a Leader!"
  • Grimlock and Sludge from issue #50
  • Frenzy from issue #59
  • Shockwave and Optimus Prime's head from issue #31
  • Guardian from issue #32
  • Bumblebee from issue #30
• At the mid-point of the story, the reader is directed to turn to other pages of the annual to read the full "data-files" on Optimus Prime and Megatron, which describe their rise to power on Cybertron. Prime's profile notes his role as head of the Elite Flying Corps, as seen in issue #46, and summarises the events of "And There Shall Come...a Leader!" from last year's annual.
• Adam Reynolds would return in a similar story, "The Saga of the Transformers — So Far!," in the Transformers Annual 1989.

Transformers references

• Optimus Prime's profile notes that he originally intended to train as a medical officer before joining the war effort. This feels like it's extrapolating on the remark in his full-length profile (later published in The Transformers Universe) that compares Optimus to an Earth doctor.

Other trivia

• Optimus and Megatron's profiles contain unique Cybertronian calendar dates, "1st Cycle 820" and "1st Cycle 549," a dating system we haven't seen before. This system would reappear in "The Quest!" and over twenty-five years later it would be adopted by writer James Roberts for the stories he wrote for IDW Publishing.
• Megatron's profile makes mention of his power to manipulate antimatter. The write-up reflects Bob Budiansky's original intent for this power, noting how Megatron uses his fusion cannon to channel the antimatter as a power source; this was in contradiction to how Megatron used the power back in issue #21, when he channeled it through his body and wielded it as a weapon directly. The comic would stick with this depiction of the power, ignoring the profile, when Megatron did it again in issue #104.

Cover

• Transformers Annual 1986: Prime and other early Transformers, by Barry Kitson.

• 

  Transformers Annual 1986

Reprints

• 

  The Transformers Classics UK Volume 2 (IDW Publishing, 2012)