Initiation rituals turn out to be more than meets the eye...

Generation One (Marvel UK) > Issue # 245
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Marvel UK issue #245

Writer: Simon Furman
Art: Jeff Anderson
Lettering: Helen Stone

Major characters (in order of appearance): Subsea, Tailgate, Flattop, Rotgut, Warhead, Slayride, Smeltdown, Jackhammer, Outback and Pipes.

Originally published: 18 November 1989. Cover date ("off sale") 25 November 1989.

Synopsis

In caverns deep underground on Cybertron three Autobot cadets - Subsea, Tailgate and Flattop - hide as a group of mutant Transformers hunt for them. Once the mutants have passed them the three Autobots move off, though Flattop is frozen with fear.

Up on the surface Pipes and Outback comment that initiations in the Underworld went out with the Ark but Flattop was headstrong and talked the others going in. Outback and Pipes agree to go in to rescue their fellows.

Down below the mutants find the Autobots and kill first Subsea then Flattop. Before they can kill Tailgate he blasts Smeltdown's furnace, triggering an explosion which kills all the mutants bar Rotgut. Tailgate throws the survivor into the pyre as Outback and Pipes arrive to find their help is not needed.

But the explosion has released something else, something that has not fed in countless years...

Note: This story is continued in Demons!.

Errors

Items of note

This is the first appearance of Tailgate (bar a one panel cameo in "Resurrection!") and Pipes.
It's not at all clear when the story is set. All three Mini-Autobots are cadets at the academy, but in his previous appearances Outback was a regular soldier. It's possible this story is set some years in the past but there is nothing for definite.
Issue #245 also contained a four-page Action Force mini-comic detailing how the European Action Force and its American counterpart G.I. Joe have merged to form G.I. Joe the Action Force, a name change that would be carried over to the back-up comic strips from issue #248 and the cover from issue #249, as well as the toyline. The mini comic was also given away free in some toy shops.

Reprints

This story was reprinted in the Titan Books trade paperback "Aspects of Evil".