Deadly Paradise

When Sideswipe is falsely convicted of destroying the Nova Suspension Bridge, Prowl takes a team of Autobots to Carob Island in search of the truth.

Synopsis

The humans are just beginning to trust the Autobots, and starting to rely on them as allies. That trust is shattered when Sideswipe purposely destroys the Nova Suspension Bridge in broad daylight in front of several eyewitnesses. After Councilor Crabtree, one of the eyewitnesses, has finished recounting the event to his fellow council members, it is decided that Sideswipe is guilty of the accusations put against him. Furious towards Sideswipe's apparent betrayal, Optimus Prime tasks Prowl with hunting him down. Prowl finds Sideswipe easily, who doesn't resist, though Sideswipe does claim he is innocent. But Optimus explains that the evidence is damning, and that they must deactivate him if they are to have any hope to rebuild their relations with the humans.

The following days, morale is at an all-time low amongst the Autobots. Prowl confronts Optimus, and explains that the whole ordeal makes no sense. He question why Sideswipe would set himself up for a fall. Explaining that he suspects Decepticon involvement, Prowl asks for the chance to clear Sideswipe's name. Optimus Prime allows it.

Bumblebee is sent to the crime scene to search for clues. He happens upon a piece of jagged metal made out of an unusual ore. He returns to base to present his findings to Prowl. Prowl discovers that the ore in question can only be found in a specific island in the Pacific. Prowl gathers a small team made up of himself, Bumblebee, Windcharger, Brawn, Hound, and Ratchet, and leaves for Carob Island.

Now on the island, Prowl leads the team to investigate a nearby cliff face, finding a cave dug out in the rock. Nearing the cave's entrance, Prowl hears some sort of activity inside. He takes Brawn, Windcharger and Ratchet with him while the others wait at the cave entrance, and enters ready for battle. Within the cave, Prowl finds Decepticon gopher drilling machines. After a brief scuffle, Brawn, Ratchet, Prowl and Windcharger manage to tear the machines apart. When they exit the cave, Prowl and the others find the other Autobots missing. Prowl suspects they might be in trouble, and leads the remaining Autobots towards a domed fortress. En route, they encounter a woman draped in a magnificent mantle calling herself Madame Cee. Madame Cee explains that the missing Autobots are in good hands, and with a wave of her arms, reveals a horde of pig-like machines that surround the group. Prowl and his group follow Madame Cee into her domed fortress, but demands that she take them to see their friends. Once within Madame Cee's home, she insists that the Autobots should put themselves at ease. Prowl kindly asks to be shown more of her home, a request that Madame Cee grants. She shows him a workshop filled with advanced technology, and explains that she remodels old, worn out machines. Mostly into more robot pigs, an apparent object of obsession for her. Prowl suspects Bumblebee and Hound lie somewhere in wait in Madame Cee's workshop, and fears that they have been tampered with. Madame Cee continues to talk, explaining that she has recently acquired a new client who fully appreciates the artistry of her work. Just then, Prowl spots something that wasn't meant for his eyes: a scale drawing for constructing a duplicate of Optimus Prime.

Demanding to know who is responsible for the drawing, Prowl is answered by Ravage, who explains he is here to make sure that Megatron's work proceeds uninterrupted. Prowl grabs Madame Cee, and escapes Ravage, sealing a door behind him to prevent the Decepticon from following. Prowl then forces Madame Cee to lead him to where Bumblebee and Hound are being held. He is relieved to find them deactivated but otherwise unharmed. Prowl has Madame Cee reactivate his friends, and demands the whole truth from her. Madame Cee explains that Megatron is forcing her to build machines for him, and that she only ever wanted to build her pig machines. The Autobots learn that the parts Madame Cee builds are taken to another part of the island, underground. They leave her behind and search the island for Megatron’s temporary headquarters.

Prowl's group finds the entrance and proceeds forward, only to find themselves navigating a veritable maze, as passageways continue to fork with no indication as to which direction is the correct one. Then, they hear Megatron's voice just before force cages drop down and capture the lot of them. Megatron reveals himself and gloats that the Autobots will soon be deactivated. Prowl is able to use flattery to have Megatron show him how he "convinced" Sideswipe to join the Decepticons. Megatron humors him, and has Rumble, in charge of the cages, release Prowl to allow him a look at Megatron's workshop. Within it, to his shock, is a duplicate of Prowl. Megatron explains that using the high-quality ore of the island, and Madame Cee's tinkering, the Decepticons are building several Autobot clones, the Optimus Prime one nearly being complete. The truth is revealed: it was not Sideswipe who tore down the bridge, but a clone, loyal only to Megatron.

While Prowl is led back to his cage by two Decepticon guards, he considers the fact that Rumble is in charge of the force cages. Hitting upon an idea, Prowl taunts Rumble, saying the other Decepticons call him "Megatron's mouse" and "doer of little deeds". The guards laugh at Prowl's jokes and join in mocking their diminutive comrade. Infuriated, Rumble activates his pile-drivers and begins creating an earthquake. As his guards stumble, Prowl destroys the cage console with a couple of acid pellets and stuns Rumble. Stalactites fall and stun the Decepticons while the Autobots are kept safe in the force cage. When the force cages finally fail, the Autobots take care of the last few Decepticons standing. Starscream and Skywarp arrive to help the other Decepticons. They both tackle Hound, who throws them off, damaging his leg in the process. Windcharger then uses his electromagnetic powers to kill Starscream. Ratchet and Brawn work together to bring down Skywarp as well. Sneaking into a strategic position, Prowl returns to the room he last saw Megatron, and speaks up when he’s standing behind the Prowl replica. Megatron spins and shoots Prowl's clone, giving Prowl the window he needs to shoot acid pellets at the Decepticon leader. Megatron escapes through a secret passage, telling Prowl as the wall closes behind him that he will never find his way out of the megamaze surrounding the facility. Prowl then destroys Megatron’s computer and returns to the other Autobots with Megatron's drawings as the proof necessary to clear Sideswipe of his crime. He finds Ratchet unable to fix Hound, as his lubricant holder had become punctured earlier in the day, when they were fighting the Decepticons' drilling machines. This turns out to be a stroke of luck; the Autobots are able to follow the oil trail back out of the megamaze. Prowl and the others then return to the mainland, and clear Sideswipe's name, presumably reactivating him afterwards.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• The book's cover and title page have no title other than the standard Transformers logo. The title "Deadly Paradise" is printed on the top of most of the story pages.
  • Which can make this book tricky to track down online, since some retailers have the title as "Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye". However, since no other known Transformers books have had the same publisher, writer, or artist, any listing that includes this information should allow for a positive I.D.
• Although dated 1986, the book only uses characters from the 1984 lineup.
• The character art in this book is toy-accurate to the point of absurdity, including such elements as Bumblebee's head being painted onto a block.
• The Autobots sure are in the public eye in this micro-continuity. Pretty much the whole crowd recognizes and names Sideswipe as the Autobot who destroys the bridge.
• Optimus can't spare Jazz because he's Prime's second-in-command. It therefore falls to Prowl to lead this special operation to the Pacific. Interesting.
• One of the most violent deaths in Transformers history occurs in this book when Windcharger crushes Starscream. Jeez, that guy just can't catch a break.
• The Sideswipe situation apparently gets Optimus so pissed off, it makes smoke come out of his smokestacks. He might even be so mad he can't see straight, as the addition of white pupils to his yellow optics makes him appear cross-eyed on page 8.
• Transformers becoming pigs probably just seemed like a silly idea at the time this was written.
• If Megatron's operation had been allowed to continue any longer, it would have produced an evil clone of Optimus Prime! Can you imagine if that had actually happened?
• The Sideswipe clone is never caught or destroyed. He could still be out there somewhere, looking for new bridges to collapse...

Errors

• The first page mentions that the council will almost surely find Sideswipe guilty, implying he's literally before them standing trial, so his presence behind Crabtree in the illustration makes sense, if not the fact that he seems to be aiming his gun and missile launcher (his box art pose). Yet when Optimus Prime gets word of their decision at Autobot HQ, he has someone go find Sideswipe...who is sitting around the base, seemingly not having just come back from a trial. So the "Sideswipe" that Councilor Crabtree was pointing at was just a simulation, explaining why no one present ever addressed Sideswipe directly. There was no screen to project images onto, so either it's one of the biggest art goofs ever, or someone whipped up a life-size model! Pretty ironic, considering an even more accurate mock-up of Sideswipe committed the crime. A really confusing start to the story.
• Despite Madame Cee's obsession with robot pigs, all of the robots active in her workshop are vaguely humanoid, lacking animal attributes. It's never stated that her creations have emulated transformation powers, so we can't just assume they have barnyard alt-modes.
• Although Prowl calls Rumble, "the weakest of all Decepticons", not smallest, his jab, "Megatron's mouse," is clearly a crack about Rumble's size. While Rumble is one of the smallest year-one 'Cons in most continuities, the Decepticon group portrait on the inside cover depicts him as being the second tallest after Megatron! Even allowing that Rumble and Megatron are both standing on steps or a platform, Rumble's at least as tall as the Seekers, so the short-joke doesn't make much sense here.
• On the facing page, the Autobots are all in pretty accurate toy-scale. The only problem is Sideswipe's neck is...either missing, or so wide that it connects to the full edge of the windshield on his back. It honestly looks like his head's just floating above his shoulders, like Skeletor or Lodestar.

Real-world references

There's a lot of Greek mythology at play here:

• Madame Cee is clearly based on the sorceress Circe, "Cee" being a phonetic spelling of the first letter of her name. Circe lived on the Mediterranean island of Aeaea where she mesmerized sailors, led them to her mansion, then enticed them with food which turned them into the animal most closely matching their nature, usually pigs. After she worked her magic on some Ithicans, their shrewd captain and king Odysseus was able to see through her enchantment and threatened her with his sword until she changed them back with her magic wand. While Cee apparently uses scientific means to rebuild robots into pig-bots, she does have a mesmerizing effect on robots that only the logical Prowl can break free of. Thankfully, the parallels to the Odyssey end there, leaving Prowl in no danger of conceiving a son with Madame Cee who would someday kill him.
• Carob Island's Megamaze is similar to the Labyrinth on the island of Crete, though the year-one Decepticons don't have anything resembling a Minotaur, or even a bull. Also, since the Minotaur's slayer Theseus navigated the Labyrinth with a magic ball of string, the Autobots escaping the Megamaze by backtracking a trail of oil drops has a bit more in common with how Hansel and Gretel found their way out of the woods, blurring the reference from Greek to German on the last page.

External links

• Deadly Paradise scans online