Power Play!

	; Nuclear weapons are the right of all sentient beings, Prime!
	"Power Play!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	July 10, 1984 ("on sale" July 31, 1984)
Cover date	November 1984
Plot	Bill Mantlo
Script	Jim Salicrup
Pencils	Frank Springer
Inks	Kim DeMulder
Colors	Nel Yomtov
Lettering	Janice Chiang
Editor	Bob Budiansky
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity

The Decepticons attack a nuclear power plant in an attempt to secure fuel. Meanwhile, Bumblebee makes contact with some humans.

Synopsis

In an effort to secure fuel sources and raw materials, the Decepticons attack a half-completed nuclear power plant. They walk off with stripped machine parts, leaving stunned humans in their wake.

Meanwhile, an injured Bumblebee has been taken to the garage of Sparkplug Witwicky by his son, Buster. After much pleading, Buster convinces his dad to fix the car, even though it's the middle of the night. Once repaired, Bumblebee transforms in front of the startled humans and enlists Buster's help to find fuel for the Autobots. As they drive back to the Ark, Bumblebee explains the war between the Transformers. Buster runs into his friends Jessie and "O", and explains that his car is from another planet (who knew?). They speculate with Bumblebee on the recent attack on the nuclear power plant, while Ravage, disguised as a cassette in "O"'s boom box, listens in on their conversation.

At the Ark, the Autobots are debating about whether they should just take the energy they need or offer humans Cybertronian technology in exchange. A distress signal from Bumblebee inspires Optimus Prime to lead an Autobot group to the Witwicky garage. Sparkplug agrees to help the Autobots convert human fuel sources into a form Transformers can use. However, the introductions between Prime and the humans are barely finished when the Decepticons attack.

The Autobots appear to gain the upper hand as a battle rages in Sparkplug's scrapyard, but Megatron arrives, makes short work of Bumblebee, and nabs Sparkplug. Optimus Prime forces the Decepticon leader to release the human. As he and Megatron throw car parts at each other, Starscream grabs Sparkplug and takes off. Their objective obtained, the rest of the Decepticons retreat. Buster begs the Autobots to follow and rescue his father, but the fuel-depleted bots fall to their knees, unable to even help themselves.

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Featured characters

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

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Cliffjumper (11) Prowl (12) Bumblebee (15) Ratchet (19) Sunstreaker (20) Optimus Prime (21) Jazz (22) Wheeljack (23) Windcharger (24) Ironhide (25) Mirage (26) Hound (27) Sideswipe (28) Brawn (31)	Soundwave (1) Megatron (2) Ravage (3) Frenzy (4) Starscream (5) Thundercracker (6) Buzzsaw (7) Skywarp (8) Laserbeak (9) Rumble (13)	Jason Boyd (10) Sparkplug Witwicky (14) Buster Witwicky (16) Jessie (17) "O" (18) Doris Roland (29) Mitchell Roland (30)

Quotes

The humans employ far better design standards on their machines than on themselves! What a backward world!

— Skywarp

"Is he healed?"
"Blast it, son! I'm a mechanic, not a doctor! All I did was fix a broken fuel line and tune up some parts! It wasn't easy! I've never seen a car quite like it, and I've—"
KLIK
"Huh?"
KLIK
"What the—? ...Oh, no! It's falling apart!"

Buster and Sparkplug meet Bumblebee

"Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want? And how'd you wind up in my garage?"
"I am code-named Bumblebee, I'm from the planet Cybertron, I'm in desperate need of fuel, and your son drove me here! Do all small, pink things ask so many questions?"

— Sparkplug and Bumblebee

Notes

Continuity notes

While introducing himself to the Witwickys, "Bumblebee" says that his name is a "code-name." The idea that the names we know the Transformers by are not their "real" names is something that would very occasionally be revisited in future Transformers media, but in Marvel continuity specifically, it will be reiterated just a few issues from now in the UK story "Man of Iron."
"O" and Jessie catch a song by Marvel superhero-slash-singing-sensation Dazzler on the radio. This is the first in a series of references to mainstream Marvel continuity that the mini-series would make, which were quietly ignored once the series became an ongoing as the Transformers universe was retconned into being its own thing, separate from the Marvel universe.

Real-life references

Sparkplug states that he's "a mechanic, not a doctor", an homage to Star Trek's Doctor McCoy.
"O" notes that the television show That's Incredible! has been cancelled. The show had indeed ended its original run in 1984.

Continuity and plotting errors

Jesse is spelled "Jessie" in this issue.
Megatron orders all five of his fliers into the air, while standing around and watching them go. So how does he get to the subsequent battle himself?

Artwork and technical errors

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker began sharing their body molds sooner than most believe.

Continuing on from the precedent established last issue, finalized character models for a lot of the cast continued to be unavailable to artist Frank Springer at the time of this issue's production, leading many characters to be drawn using early designs, or based directly on their toys. The toy interpretations get even looser this issue, as characters like Bumblebee and Windcharger have very rough, inconsistent head designs. At the other extreme, throughout the issue, Sunstreaker is drawn using Sideswipe's character model, with his own head and color scheme.

Page 1: Starscream's right wing has a yellow decal while his left has a red one.
Page 3: The flashback to last issue preserves a coloring error from that story, as Soundwave is colored like Megatron.
Page 5: The portion of Harrison Nuclear Plant which Laserbeak attacks looks a lot like a steel mill, but not at all like a nuke plant.
Page 6:
- Panel 5: Starscream and Thundercracker are missing their wings as they transform in panel 5. This art is loosely copied later in the issue on page 18, and the error repeats there.
- Panel 6: Starscream is still missing his wings as he starts tearing the plant to pieces, and instead of his null rays, his jet mode missile-tanks are mounted on his arms.
Page 13:
- Panel 1: Optimus Prime appears to have goggles instead of standard optics.
- Panel 2: Jazz is colored like Hound.
Page 14: As the Autobots transform in a three-panel sequence, Prowl and Sunstreaker switch places in the middle panel.
Page 15: Ratchet is shown pulling up to Sparkplug's garage despite being left behind at the Ark.
Page 16: In panel 7, Thundercracker and Skywarp's cockpit cowlings are colored entirely orange.
Page 17, panels 5 and 7: Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's alternate modes are switched, thus representing Bob Budiansky's original plans for the two before Hasbro decided to switch the sculpts very late in the game. As you can see in the image at right, Sunstreaker's dialogue emanates from Sideswipe's vehicle mode, colored like Sunstreaker. Once transformed, the brothers are the correct colors, but are both drawn with Sideswipe's body. As a result, the Sunstreaker toy's exposed supercharger becomes the "rocket backpack" mentioned in Sideswipe's bio, as per Budiansky's original intent (more on this here). And they're not even switched right; yellow-Sideswipe's roof is blue, while is hood is red. For the reprint published in Titan's Transformers: Beginnings trade paperback collection, both of them had many of the uncolored white sections on their vehicle modes highlighted in yellow, including the headlights and the side windows. For "Sideswipe", this was carried over to the reprint published in IDW's Transformers Classics Vol. 1 trade paperback collection.
Page 21: The lower half of Prime's right leg is missing as he throws the engine block at Megatron.
Page 22: In panel 8, Jazz is colored like Hound again.

UK printing

Issue #3:

Published: 18th October, 1984
Back-up strips: Machine Man ("Byte of the Binary Bug!" part 3)
Fact File: Hound
Free gift: Transformers Iron-On transfer
Other features: Mail-in contest to win a Mini Vehicle toy; two single-page posters of animation stills from early commercials; "Robot Round-Up"

Issue #4:

Published: 1st November, 1984
Back-up strips: Machine Man ("Where Walk the Gods!" part 1)
Fact File: Gears
Other features: "Make Mandala Yours," a contest to win the "Mandala" board game; "Robot Round-Up"; two single-page posters of animation stills from early commercials; mail-in contest to win the A-Team soundtrack album

Other trivia

Advertised as part 2 in a four-issue limited series.
Both the "next issue" box of the previous issue, and the September 1984 issue of The Comic Reader (#219) solicited this issue's story title as being "Hey Buddy, Can Ya Spare Some Fuel?"—something that evidently changed when Jim Salicrup took over as scripter from Ralph Macchio.
Megatron appears in the cover corner box for both this issue and issue #4, the only times in the U.S. run that a Decepticon was featured (although issue #80 featured a Decepticon sigil). 'Cons would get a little more love from the UK corner boxes.
During the entire battle at the Witwicky's house, Optimus Prime's trailer sits parked, frequently in view. This is in stark contrast to the more fantastical cartoon, where it would just roll off-screen and vanish.

Courtesy of my...

Starscream launches cluster bombs.
Skywarp rakes the buildings with machine gun fire.
Laserbeak fires his laser cannons.
Sunstreaker readies his electron pulse gun.
Sideswipe blinds Thundercracker with a flare gun.
Optimus shoots Laserbeak with a laser rifle.
Ravage surprises Mirage before he can use his electro-disruptor.

Covers (3)

US issue #2: Megatron blasts Prime, by Michael Golden.
UK issue #3: Bumblebee with the Witwickys, by Jerry Paris.
UK issue #4: reuse of art from US issue #2's cover by Michael Golden.

US issue #2 - Megatron is angry that Prime stole his nose.
UK issue #3 - Furmanism inspiration?
UK issue #4 - Megatron is still angry!

Reprints

Collected Comics (UK) #1 (Marvel UK, 1985)
Collected Comics (US) #1: The Story Begins... (Marvel US, 1985)
The Transformers: A Federal Super Special (Federal Publishing Company, 1985)
The Complete Works Part 1 (Marvel UK, 1986)
Die Transformer #1 (Condor Verlag, 1986; reprints pages 1–7)
Die Transformer #2 (Condor Verlag, 1986; reprints pages 8–23)
The Transformers Comics Magazine #1 (Marvel US, 1986)
Transformers: Beginnings paperback (Titan Books, 2003)
Transformers: Beginnings hardback (Titan Books, 2003)
Classic Transformers Volume 1 (IDW Publishing, 2008)
The Transformers Classics, Vol. 1 (IDW Publishing, 2011)
Transformers: Classic Comic Collection, Vol. 1 (Chrirpy Bird, 2015)
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection, Vol. 1: Power Play (Hachette Partworks Ltd, 2017)
The Transformers: Classics, Vol. 1 (Hero-X, 2018)

IDW Transformers Classics edits

For The Transformers Classics series of trade paperbacks, IDW Publishing "remastered" the coloring of the series with varying degrees of success. These changes were sometimes to fix errors, but often to alter characters' color schemes to make them resemble their toy and/or cartoon selves, and were rarely applied with consistency. IDW's recolored version was also used for Hachette's Definitive G1 Collection.

Soundwave is colored blue throughout this issue, erasing his standard purple Marvel color scheme. Unlike in the previous issue, this does not extend to correcting the error that colors him like Megatron on page 3.
Page 1: Starscream's yellow right wing is recolored red to match his left one
Page 6:
- Panel 5: Skywarp's weapons and portions of his legs are colored red for some reason.
- Panel 6: Seemingly operating under the misconception that he is Soundwave, Starscream's boots have been recolored blue.
Page 13:
- Panel 1: The yellow decals on Optimus's pelvis, uncolored in the original art (as they so often are) are filled in yellow. This is also done on page 19, panel 1, but not in other instances of their absence.
- Panel 2: Jazz's colors are corrected.
Page 14, panel 1: For this panel alone, Hound's legs are recolored from their standard Marvel solid blue to green with white thighs.
Page 17, panel 5: Yellow-Sideswipe's roof and hood color are corrected to match the rest of his body, but the vehicles remain the incorrect colors overall.
Page 18, panel 3 and page 22, panel 4: For these two panels alone, Starscream's jet mode is recolored into its finalized mostly-white color scheme.
Page 23:
- Panel 4: Careless text recreation turns the sentence "--they are gone!" into the nonsense "--they are gome!"
- Panel 6: Jazz's colors are "corrected," but to blue-black, rather than the straight blue the comic normally uses for him.

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