18 - Action Masters Meet Action Force / Bridge to Somewhere

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

MEGATRON

Allegiance: Decepticon
Function: Leader
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers UK Annual 1987 ('State Games')

"Peace through tyranny." / "Everything is fodder."



Thomas S. Arashikage, Storm Shadow, is a former U.S. Army L.R.R.P. (Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol), former Cobra Viper, last Grand Master of the Arashikage Ninja Clan, sword brother to the inscrutable Snake-Eyes, leader of G.I. Joe's original Ninja Force, and mentor to their successors, the current Ninja Force affiliated to the Avengers, Earth's mightiest heroes, which includes Laserblade, son of Scarlett and Snake-Eyes, Styletta, daughter of Jinx, silent ninja Hush Job and teenage Thunderian Wildkitten. Drawing from generations of secret lore and years of practical combat experience, Storm Shadow imparts to the Ninja Force such esoteric techniques as the 'Cloak of the Chameleon' and 'Screaming Whirlwind'.

Following the Battle of Klo in 1991, Bludgeon led his surviving Decepticons to Earth to retrieve their fallen leaders from the Ark, whose final descent had been reported to him by the Combaticons and Constructicons (who, having been built on Earth, had been overlooked by Primus when he teleported the other active Decepticons to Cybertron). They found the Ark guarded by the elite forces of G.I. Joe / Action Force and the Canadian military. While his followers engaged the humans, Bludgeon entered the ruined spaceship, only to find more human defenders stationed within. Bludgeon identified the humans' leader and struck at him with his katana. He missed. Bludgeon tried again to kill the human, but once again the human anticipated him and avoided his strike, retaliating with disorienting smoke and light grenades, and shuriken (throwing stars) to his Pretender shell's eye holes. Bludgeon grew frustrated with his inability to cut down his diminutive tormentor, and recklessly followed the ninja onto an unstable section of decking, which collapsed beneath his weight, just as Storm Shadow had planned. Bludgeon barely succeeded in arresting his fall into the Ark's flooded cargo hold, and when he climbed out he realised that the human had been playing for time. Although the Decepticons destroyed ten military vehicles for every robot warrior that fell, more humans were on their way, and Bludgeon could not afford even light casualties after the losses already suffered that year on Cybertron and Klo. He swallowed his pride, grabbed the body of Megatron and ordered the retreat, leaving Shockwave, Starscream and the Ark to the humans.

Megatron - the real Megatron, not the Straxus-built clone referred to in this database as Action Master Megatron - required a further dose of Nucleon to heal him of the injuries sustained in the crash, but Grimlock soon led Bludgeon to Hydrus Four, and the Decepticons reached their goal ahead of the Dinobots. Megatron lived again, albeit very, very briefly.
___

Growling madly, the part-finished thing that had once been Megatron staggered into view. The monstrosity stopped, looking up with a face that wasn't really a face at all. Its eyes, resting in a bed of raw, naked wires, fixed on Prime. It snarled... and charged!

"Yes!" urged Bludgeon. "Kill Prime - kill them all!"

The Megatron thing charged onwards, howling madly as it reached for Prime.

"Together," said Prime.

"Together," agreed Grimlock.

The colossal double blow tore Megatron in half, his shattered upper torso almost exploding with the impact.

He staggered.

And fell.

And lay still.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

RATCHET

Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Chief Medical Officer
First appearance: Marvel's Transformers #1

"You break it, I'll remake it."



The Megatron thing charged onwards, howling madly as it reached for Prime.

"Together," said Prime, outwardly resolute but with a soul in torment.

"Together," agreed Grimlock.

The colossal double blow tore Megatron in half, his shattered upper torso almost exploding with the impact.

He staggered.

And fell.

Grimlock transformed back to dinosaur mode and ripped Megatron's essential circuits out with his teeth before stomping up and down on top of them.

Prime turned away.

In a life-support facility back on Cybertron, his friend Ratchet, kept alive by the Nucleon coursing through his mangled body, his mind terminally intertwined with that of Megatron, died.
___

It was scientific engineering genius Greg D. Scott of Casper, Wyoming, who inspected at length the body of Ratchet, recovered from the Ark by G.I. Joe. He was fascinated by the apparent merger of the Autobot medic's cerebral functions with those of the missing Decepticon Leader, and with the way the Nucleon kept him alive, albeit in a comatose state. It was also Scott who, very reluctantly, personally handed the fallen hero over to Action Master Optimus Prime, to take back to Cybertron. Only a handful of humans and Autobots knew that Ratchet still lived, after a fashion, up until the Battle of Hydrus Four.

One night in 1994, Scott was working in his laboratory on top secret plans for the robotic battle armour suits G.I. Joe / Action Force urgently needed to fight Cobra and their extra-terrestrial allies in outer space. Suddenly, the lab was raided by Destro, who managed to capture some of the plans and fatally wounded the young inventor, leaving him a shattered shell of a man. G.I. Joe scientists used the remaining plans to rebuild Scott's broken body, taking robotic parts from the fallen Decepticon Micromasters of the Air Strike Patrol, destroyed by the mutant Dynamo in 1990, and Robo-JOE (Jet-tech Operations Expert) was born, with a permanently integrated bio-armour space suit linked with silicon wires, alien computer chips and muscle tissue. This powerful half-man / half-robot fought as a valued member of G.I. Joe's Star Brigade in their brief war in space in 1994, seeking justice and revenge on Destro, but was unable to accept the conflict's outcome, which saw Destro freed from Cobra's brainwashing, granted a full pardon and awarded a lucrative government arms contract. Feeling embittered and betrayed, he disappeared from public view, and his fate remains unknown.

Ratchet is remembered as Megatron's bane and the greatest hero of the Autobot-Decepticon war, thwarting the Decepticons' founder on three occasions with his self-sacrificing actions. Prime never forgave himself for knowingly sealing his friend's fate, despite there being not the faintest shadow of a doubt that it was what Ratchet would have wanted to see done.



FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

MOTORVATORS: ACTION MASTER MICROMASTERS



When Emirate Xaaron developed the Micromaster process to conserve energy, back in 1988, the names of the first Autobots to transfer their brains to miniature bodies were Flame (not the mad scientist, another Flame), Lightspeed (not the Technobot, another Lightspeed) and Gripper (the one and only). On their very first test mission they had the extreme bad luck of running into Trypticon, who panicked and stomped the suckers flat. (Thunderwing was very cross when he heard this, as he wanted to capture one of them alive in order to acquire the Micromaster process for the Decepticons.) Three years later, Grimlock brought Nucleon to the Autobots, and Gripper, Flame and Lightspeed were brought back from the brink of death. They all felt an intense power surge through their bodies, making them stronger, faster, more alive than ever before! But... they could no longer transform. They had become the first and only Action Master Micromasters!

The trio quickly came up with an ingenious means of getting around their lack of mobility - they hauled their original, pre-Micromaster bodies out of storage and plugged themselves into the voids left inside them when Xaaron stripped out their cerebral and neural circuits back in 1988. When they transformed the larger bodies into their vehicle modes, the Action Master Micromaster sat in the driver's seat. In robot form, the driver controlled the body from behind the facial hologram. In either mode, the larger body, running on energon, received all the benefits of the enhanced powers conferred on the smaller robot by the Nucleon running through its systems, whilst retaining the ability to transform. Thus... the 'Motorvators' were born!

In the year 1991, the Motorvators fought well in the Battle of Klo, but it was in the later Battle of Hydrus Four that they distinguished themselves, drawing the Double Powermaster Overlord out into the open with their extreme driving and setting him up for an ambush by Ultra Magnus, Computron and Omega Supreme. Then in 1993 they finished the job by teaming up with Steeljaw to hunt down and destroy Overlord's last surviving vehicular component.

BATs (Cobra's original Battle Android Troopers) were totally artificial robotic troopers with primitive logic circuits. They could absorb enormous amounts of battle damage and still continue their missions as long as their trigger-finger circuits were intact. In 1994, the B.A.A.T.s (Battle Armoured Android Troopers) were deployed, with lower intelligence than before because their circuits had been modified for weapons and assault capabilities only. Battle destruction and elimination of G.I. Joe forces were the only orders programmed into the circuitry of these walking space tanks. The B.A.A.T.s were so brainless and trigger-happy that they could become confused during space battles and fire at anything that moved - including other B.A.A.T.s. But on Earth, they posed a deadly threat to any innocent civilians who happened to cross their path.

Following the last stand of Cobra's military forces in 1995, many B.A.A.T.s went rogue, with no officers to control them. Destro, now freed from Cobra Commander's mental thrall, revealed that the robots were built with Decepticon Micromaster technology salvaged and sold on to Cobra after the Battle of Klo, and SHIELD appealed to the Autobots to assist a squad of ex-G.I. Joe volunteers in tracking down and destroying every last one. The job called for fast vehicles with serious firepower and proven tracking skills, but also compact agents who could follow a B.A.A.T. unit anywhere. The Motorvators, with their faithful Steeljaw, were considered the ideal 'bots for the job, and were given Earthen disguise modes to carry it out, which they retain to this day.

The last surviving B.A.A.T. was destroyed in the 2018 Slaughter Arena tournament on Mojoverse Battle Station Zero, and, in the year 2021, the Motorvators underwent a further evolution, as they reinstalled their cerebral circuitry in the chest modules of their larger robot forms and binary-bonded to homeworldless superhumans who now took the places previously occupied by the discarded Action Master Micromaster figures. Thus they became the first 'Brainmasters' - and that was the end of the only Action Master Micromasters.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

OVERKILL: ACTION MASTER NANOMASTER



"His eyes have seen the legions of Rome trample the Gauls and Nervii into the dust. His hand lifted the horse-hair baton that signalled the first charge of the Carthaginian armoured elephant phalanx. His ears have heard the rattle of French cuirassiers on the streets of Moscow. But it is his mind we must fear the most. The thoughts of the Cobra Emperor have not drifted from global conquest since the reign of King Solomon..."

In 1986 a secret cabal of Cobra scientists, under the direction of Destro, Dr Mindbender and the Interrogator, combed the tombs, sarcophagi and relics of the great despots of history to find cells containing D.N.A. traces. From these long-dead genetic blueprints they produced a composite clone with the military genius of Napoleon, the ruthlessness of Julius Caesar, the daring of Hannibal and the fiscal acumen of Attila the Hun - the ultimate Cobra Emperor! A master of political intrigue and a brilliant tactician, Serpentor was able to temporarily wrest power from the Cobra Commander imposter Fred VII, until Zartan killed him with an arrow to the head.

But what can be done once can be done again, and in 2019 an unholy alliance of the Decepticon Backfire, Kang the Conqueror and the sorceress Evil-Lyn created a second Serpentor clone, identical to the first, and used him to rally the scattered remnants of half a dozen once-great armies to a single cause, namely the capture of a newborn Matrix-bearer. On Pz-Zazz, Serpentor recruited the Decepticon mercenary named Overkill, and ordered him to launch a co-ordinated assault on Mount Verona on Earth, together with three other Decepticons, three Sharkticons, four Eternian Evil Warriors, eight Cobra Mega Monsters, ten Red Ninjas and the New Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

It was a trap, but Overkill escaped the fate of his comrades by virtue of the fact that, as so often, his size-changing circuits failed him when he transformed from cassette to Tyrannosaurus mode, and he spent the entire battle running around trying in vain to bite Autobots, Avengers and Circuit-Breakers in the shins and ankles. He went completely unnoticed. Meanwhile, on Grand Central Space Station, Serpentor was taken into custody by the Autobot Micromaster Astro Squad.

Reunited after the battle with his partner Slugfest, and back at his proper size, the furious Overkill decided that his ability to transform was more trouble than it was worth, and so he obtained a container of Nucleon from Gutcruncher, in order to receive a major power boost and remain a giant Tyrannosaurus forever. But tragically, after waiting a few days for the Nucleon to take effect, he made the mistake of testing to see if he could still transform, and was in the form of a rat-sized Tyrannosaurus when the freeze occurred. He emerged from his chrysalis as a superpowered, six-inch dinosaur - the first and only Action Master Nanomaster. And for reasons we won't go into, he's stuck that way - permanently.

Overkill was also the name of an experimental prototype for the third generation of Cobra Battle Android Troopers in 1992, but, because of his advanced micro-computers and enhanced tactical logic programs, the cost projections were just too high for profitable mass-production. He might have continued to gather dust on a shelf in the Cobra research labs if Cobra Commander hadn't decided to utilise him as a battlefield commander for the android troopers. It was Cobra Commander's idea to add a voice synthesiser program to repeat demoralising slogans at deafening volumes. Overkill's primary job was to operate the destructive Cobra Earthquake battle vehicle.



FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

'ALMOST' ACTION MASTERS

There were many other Autobots besides Prowl and Wheeljack who were revived with Nucleon around the time of the battle with Unicron in 1991, and who would have become Action Masters if they hadn't taken a dose of the antidote, Nucleon II, immediately following the Battle of Hydrus Four, before the 'freeze' set in. These Autobots were Beachcomber, Bluestreak, Brawn, Gears, Hoist, Hound, Ironhide, Jetfire, Landmine, Mirage, Perceptor, Powerglide, Seaspray, Silverbolt, Slag, Sunstreaker, the Monsterbots, the Technobots and the Throttlebots... two of whom have G.I. Joe / Action Force namesakes.



As well as being an Autobot, Gears is also Captain Joseph A. Morrone, of Westerly, Rhode Island, a technological genius whose first big invention came in 1994 when he helped bring Robo-JOE to life by integrating human muscles and brainwaves with robotic battle armour and computer circuitry from the fallen Decepticon Air Strike Patrol. This process led to the development of G.I. Joe Star Brigade's Power Fighter units, which operated as an extension of the pilot's own body, only with a lot more firepower and combat capabilities. This technological breakthrough earned Gears a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, as well as a place on Cobra's top ten hit list.



Fighting Cobra Mega Monsters called for powerful weapons and skilled soldiers trained to use them. Staff Sergeant Joseph R. Balkun of Molson, Washington, a.k.a. Mirage, was just such a soldier, a specialist trained by Roadblock, who taught him how to lay down heavy cover fire and launch shoulder-mounted rockets while under an enemy attack. When in 1993 G.I. Joe's Mega Marines began recruiting men and women who could handle heavy, high-tech firepower, Mirage was their first choice.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

G.I. JOE: STREET FIGHTER II

1. AXER IN ACTION



[Note: In 1993, the cast of the video game Street Fighter II were included as part of the G.I. Joe line.]

Dr Mindbender (a.k.a. Dr Brainwave) was at one time an excellent orthodontist and a very kind and honest man. Tinkering with electric brainwave stimulation as a means of relieving dental pain, the good doctor made the tragic mistake of experimenting on himself. He underwent a complete personality change and became hateful, deceitful, and vain! Dr Mindbender abandoned his practice and devoted all his time to perfecting his digital brain-scrambling into a hand-portable weapon system capable of reducing the most strong-willed individual to a cowering wimp.

Dr Mindbender joined Cobra in 1986, but after he allied himself first to Serpentor, and then to the Cobra Commander imposter Fred VII, the original Cobra Commander had Mindbender buried alive on Cobra Island in 1990, and he died. But he was resurrected as a clone in 1993, and the clone Mindbender served Cobra loyally until its defeat in space by G.I. Joe's Star Brigade in 1994.

Despite the Decepticon Turbo Master having secretly brokered the recent alliance between Cobra Commander and the Blackstar forces, Turbo Master's fellow Decepticon, the bounty-hunter Axer, threw himself eagerly into the highly lucrative hunt for Cobra fugitives, now wanted dead or alive on all civilised human worlds. Axer quickly tracked Dr Mindbender to a secret Cobra laboratory on one of the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, where the evil scientist was developing mind-control drugs to order for a new employer back on Earth.

Who was Mindbender's new patron? Rising from the ashes of Cobra's narcotic commerce arm, the Headhunters, with a body enhanced through the genius of Dr Mindbender, was a new crime kingpin - master of a secretive international criminal organisation called Shadowlaw. His name... M. Bison!

Axer learned that Dr Mindbender had endowed the ex-Headhunter Bison with super-strength and agility, and untested psychic abilities, making him allegedly the most feared underground street fighter in the world.



FILE ENDS

[Philip Ayres]

Martin.....

Did you know there are official Transformers/Stretfighter crossover toys?

tfwiki.net/wiki/Street_Fighter_II_%C3%97_Transformers

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Yes, but I had forgotten... Hmmm...

IT'S ALL CONNECTED!

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

G.I. JOE: STREET FIGHTER II

2. GUTCRUNCHER'S GOLDMINE



Although there was a big bounty out on Dr Mindbender's head, Axer had learnt over the centuries that his frequent employer, the entrepreneurial Gutcruncher, was often willing to make him a better offer for his captured quarries, and this time was no exception. The impstient Axer wanted Mindbender taken off his hands for a fat pay cheque, while Gutcruncher was prepared to make an investment that would pay off over time - and Dr Mindbender promised to do that in two ways, with his work and with information.

Another wanted fugitive was Crystal Ball, the Cobra hypnotist. Born of a Romanian father (who supposedly had 'second sight') and an American mother from Bangor, Maine, Crystal Ball actually was the seventh son of a seventh son, and such men, the gypsies of old believed, were possessed of supernatural powers. That may or may not be true, but Crystal Ball could sometimes read minds, making him a unique addition to the Cobra forces - and threatening to render Dr Mindbender's brainwave scanner redundant. Mindbender was quick to give up his old rival's location to Gutcruncher, who sold the information on to the Autobots, and, through them, to G.I. Joe / Action Force.

Little suspecting that he had been betrayed, Crystal Ball was hard at work in a remote facility in the jungles of Brazil, perfecting his mental control over the monster who had once been a man but was now simply called Blanka. When Blanka made his debut in Shadowlaw's fighting tournament, little was known about his past. Normally passive and docile, when enraged he would attack like an uncaged animal. He used speed and agility to inflict maximum damage on opponents such as the Indian Yoga fighter Dhalsim and former U.S. Special Forces member Guile, tearing into their flesh with his claws and teeth, or discharging his pent-up energies to electrocute his foes.




FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

G.I. JOE: STREET FIGHTER II

3. SPROCKET'S SURPRISE



The Autobot scout Sprocket, not yet an Action Master at this time, flew high over the location provided by Gutcruncher, taking aerial images to pass on to his human allies. To his disappointment, there was no sign of a rogue Decepticon presence (since the Battle of Hydrus Four, Decepticons who wanted to remain at peace with the Autobots had been warned to stay away from the human worlds on pain of death), but his superb eyesight informed him that the ancient step pyramid was crawling with Red Ninjas.

The Red Ninjas were ruthless mercenaries who worked mainly for Cobra Commander. They earned top dollar in battle because they were one of the most feared ninja warrior clans of all time. When Red Ninjas entered a fight, they were in it until the bitter end (or until they got paid more money to fight someone else). G.I. Joe was the only force to defeat them at the height of their power, and even they had to call upon every tactic and weapon in their arsenal before they were able to subdue them. Red Ninjas possessed advanced ninjitsu skills that are hard to find, and they fought like razor-toothed sharks in a feeding frenzy.

Of noble blood, the former Red Ninja called Vega successfully blended the Japanese art of ninjitsu with the skills he learned as a matador. The result was a beautiful yet fearsome ballet that earned him the title, 'the Spanish Ninja'. Vain and egotistical, Vega lived by the philosophy that beauty was strength. Despising anything ugly, Vega viewed himself as 'perfect' and used a mask to prevent his face from becoming scarred in battle. M. Bison took him out of the clan to employ him as his personal assassin, and also to fight for the crowds in his bloody but lucrative street-fighting tournament. Vega would invariably dispatch his fallen opponents with his three-pronged claw.



FILE ENDS

[Philip Ayres]

Aug 8, 2019 17:25:46 GMT Grand Moff Muffin said:

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

G.I. JOE: STREET FIGHTER II

2. GUTCRUNCHER'S GOLDMINE

It's a shame we never got the Action Force version of Crystal Ball from Bangor, Wales.

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

G.I. JOE: STREET FIGHTER II

4. OVER-RUN ON OVERDRIVE



Major Earl S. Morris, a.k.a. Bullet-Proof, served in Central America, the Golden Triangle and the Caribbean as a field officer of the Drug Enforcement Agency before drawing the assignment to head up G.I. Joe's D.E.F. (Drug Elimination Force) detachment. His codename wasn't picked out of a hat - it was given to him by the very people he tracked down, the world's drug leaders and their private armies of Uzi-wielding thugs. In countless raids and all-out firefights they saw him leading his men into the thick of the action, and he never took a single hit.

In his helicopter mode, Sprocket's partner, Over-Run, made sure to make a lot of noise as he swept down from the sky and took out the step pyramid with a full spread of air-to-ground magnetic missiles. Over-Run had no appreciation for ancient Earth architecture, but in his defence, the missiles would not have homed in on their target if the stone structure hadn't been simply camouflage for an awful lot of metal. The sound of the Autobot's approach gave Crystal Ball and the Red Ninjas a sporting chance to get out before the missiles hit, and to flee into the jungle where Bullet-Proof, Shockwave (the human), Storm Shadow and the rest of G.I. Joe's D.E.F. and Ninja Force awaited them.

One member of Storm Shadow's Ninja Force, Chun-Li, was absent from the assault on the pyramid. Unlike many of her fellow contestants, she did not enter M. Bison's fighting tournament for personal glory. As a recent recruit to G.I. Joe's international arm, Action Force, she had been secretly tracking the movements of Cobra's Headhunters' successor organisation, Shadowlaw, for some months. The trail had led her to the tournament, and she had obtained compelling evidence that one of the Grand Masters, perhaps Vega or even Bison himself, may have been responsible for the disappearance of her father, a Chinese agent who had been working alongside Bullet-Proof and his D.E.F. in their initial enquiries about Shadowlaw. Stunned by her good looks, the opponents Chun-Li faced in the early rounds of the tournament (American Ken Masters and the Japanese Ryu) made the mistake of underestimating her abilities and found themselves flattened by a few well-placed kicks! Yet while her quest for justice led her on towards a final, fatal confrontation with her enemy, at heart Chun-Li remained, to her last, a young girl yearning to live a normal life.




As Chun-Li fought the monster Blanka in the tournament's final round, the victor's reward being the honour of dying at the hands of the invincible Grand Masters, Bison and Vega, Over-Run rejoined Sprocket at a high altitude and they engaged their afterburners and laid in a course for Shadowlaw headquarters, Snake-Eyes and Jinx poised for action in the Autobots' passenger-only cockpits.

Crystal Ball had told them everything they wanted to know about M. Bison's operations.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

ACTION MASTER THUNDERCRACKER

Allegiance: Cameron Space Control
Function: Space Marine
Sub-group: Action Master
First appearance: Life and Freedom



Master Sergeant Conrad S. Hauser, a.k.a. Duke, born in St Louis, Missouri, passed up an officer's commission because he wanted to follow the action, and as commander of G.I. Joe's Star Brigade in their brief space war with Cobra in 1994, action was just what he got. Using his robotic battle armour, a technological breakthrough made with the aid of Tony Stark and the Autobot aerospace engineer Rad, there wasn't a place in space Duke couldn't go to weed out his Cobra enemies. He would charge into their off-world base camps, and their bullets and lasers would bounce off him like harmless pebbles. And with the added muscle-enhancing power the armour provided, his strength became that of ten ordinary men. How did Duke feel about this new armour-plated technology? "It's great... like wearing a portable fortress," he would boast. "I just wish they'd put in some air conditioning next time."

Ten years after the defeat of Cobra, a handful of ex-Joes, including Duke and Rock'n'Roll, helped the Targetmaster Nebulan Arigoz, codenamed Silencer, convince Cameron Space Control to work with Earth and Nebulos to form the Cameron Space Marines, an elite force of humans and Autobots in a permanent state of readiness to defend their planets from extra-terrestrial threats, Decepticon or otherwise. Rock'n'Roll eventually joined the Space Marines in a Powermaster capacity, teamed with the Autobot Sideswipe, while Duke was recruited by Silencer to help train the young Circuit-Breakers and Robot-Buster pilots who would be sent out to fight and die on alien worlds.

Katy Witwicky first gave life to a machine in 2008 at the age of sixteen, in a secret facility somewhere off the coast of Japan, under the strict supervision of her father and a number of secretive government types in dark suits. It was a robot cobbled together by humans from parts of the Decepticons Skywarp and Thundercracker recovered from Scorponok's base, together with Nucleon-infused pieces of Starscream retrieved from the Ark. It had a blue face with a golden helmet, a purple torso, pink shoulders and lower legs, and green forearms and feet. It had no wings and didn't look like it could transform. Katy did her best, and her father seemed pleased with the result, though it was a decade before she saw it again, and she had no idea what became of it in the interim. Only when Tyrannitron (another robot Matrixed by Katy) made enquiries about him in September 2018, for the purposes of obtaining a systems boost from Starscream's circuits to save the life of the Dinobot Snarl, did SHIELD give Action Master Thundercracker permission to step out of the shadows, where he had been operating in secret for the past ten years, exploiting his Skywarp-inherited teleportation ability to the full, and start fighting openly in defence of his homeworld, Earth. In October 2018, Action Master Thundercracker was reunited with Katy when he fought in space alongside Asgardians, Avengers and Cameron Space Marines (both human and Autobot) against the invasion fleet of the evil sorcerer Mumm-Ra. Preferring the way his Solo Mission Jet Plane responded in the vacuum of space to how it handled in a planet's atmosphere, Action Master Thundercracker promptly put in an application for a transfer to the humans' elite space forces, and SHIELD reluctantly granted his request. His exo-suit's rocket boosters (often mistaken for missiles) were duly replaced with state-of-the-art hyperdrive engines, allowing him to go anywhere at any time.

Duke was still working as a mentor for new recruits to the Cameron Space Marines more than a decade on from first accepting the role when Silencer asked him to take the inexperienced but super-powerful Earth-born Action Master under his wing and prepare him to be sent on solo special assignments anywhere in the known Galaxy. Duke enjoyed a challenge, but he found his new pupil even more cocky, precocious and argumentative than a certain half-Nebulan, half-Terran Circuit-Breaker cadet he had taught back in 2012 who made Sub-Lieutenant a year later and was now the alliance's most decorated heroine. Fortunately, Duke covered the essentials of surviving on Grand Central Space Station early on in Action Master Thundercracker's bespoke training programme, because a few months later the robot was suddenly called into action to go there in pursuit of his evil twin - Action Master Starscream!

(Action Master Thundercracker's Solo Mission Jet Plane resembles a purple F-117 Nighthawk and converts into high-density exo-suit battle armour made from Galvatron's remains and so impervious to most armaments.)

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: PRISONER OF WAR

The year 1984. Inside the Decepticon fortress...

Soundwave: "I'm picking up a signal from the humans, great Megatron!"

Megatron: "Let's hear it, Soundwave!"

Voice on radio: "This is General McBregg of the United States Army! We come in peace and only wish to talk!"

Megatron: "Bah! Starscream can handle this petty annoyance!"

Sparkplug (thinks): It's about time! I was wondering when the cavalry would arrive!

Within seconds Starscream takes off with Skywarp and Thundercracker...

Starscream: "The humans never learn! How many times must they be fired upon before they realise how vulnerable they are?"



Grunt: "Look out! They're hitting us with cluster bombs!"

Duke (to Cover Girl in the Wolverine): "Fire the anti-aircraft missiles! Blow that sucker out of the sky!"
___

Wolverine armoured missile carrier as appearing in Marvel's Transformers #3 (check if you don't believe me):


___

Duke: "Get our jets up there now!"

Thundercracker: "Let's see what happens when they can't hear their leader's commands!"

Thundercracker's deafening sonic boom stuns the soldiers!

Grunt: "ARGH!"
___

Infantry trooper Robert W. Graves, a.k.a. Grunt, was born in Columbus, Ohio. He graduated in the top ten of his class in Advanced Infantry Training. Grunt was one of the original G.I. Joe line-up, and was part of the team sent with Duke to support the regular U.S. Army against the Decepticons when they first showed up in Oregon in 1984. He was a highly motivated, systematic individual, a stand-up guy who didn't blow his cool in a firefight. But if there was one thing he really hated, it was being hit with cluster bombs and sonic booms.


___

Spider-Man: "I've fought alongside some weird characters in my career, Optimus - but this has to be a first!"

Optimus Prime: "I am sure tales of your exploits would be interesting, Spider-Man, but, for now, can you inform your military to step aside and allow us to deal with the Decepticons?"

Spider-Man: "Trust me - they'll never buy it coming from me! But I've got a plan!"

And so...

Soldier: "C'mon, Ralph - stop playing tricks!"
___

Tank commander Ralph W. Pulaski, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, came from a blue-collar, middle-class background. He put himself through college on a Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarship and work as a heavy equipment operator. He was picked to be one of the original G.I. Joe team. Steeler was young, reckless, often clashed with authority, and occasionally played tricks such as swiping the helmets from the heads of daydreaming privates. But he was one tough soldier!


___

Grunt: "Hey, Sarge, why are all those other cars following the jeep?"

Duke: "Who cares? We're bugging out!"

Spider-Man: "Hi, ho! Hi, ho! It's off to work we go!"

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: WRECKING HAVOC

High above the Cascades range, Nortern Oregon.

Voice on radio (Breaker): "104 - your bogey still closing, bearing 230 at 2.5 miles, do you have visual contact?"

Ace: "That's a negative, Wolf 2. Have you got a confirmation of that speed? There's nothing that fast! Is this part of the exercise?"
___

Alvin R. Kibbey, a.k.a. Breaker, was born in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and recruited by Colonel (later General) Hawk in 1982 to be the first communications officer for G.I. Joe. Efficient and self-assured, he had an uncanny ability to turn adverse situations to his favour. For example, when Cobra tried to steal a new tank that contained no ammunition, the Joes turned the tank's speakers to full blast and amplified the sound of Breaker's gum popping through a microphone in order to fool Cobra into thinking the cannon had fired a live round, leading to their surrender. Breaker's gum came in handy again when he was captured and tied with rope along with Gung-Ho and Stalker, and they rubbed the gum on the ropes to coax rats into gnawing through them. In 1988 he was manning the communications tower for a low-flying training exercise led by his friend Ace when the radar operator picked up Cyclonus and Scourge heading right for Ace's Skystriker at incredible speed. In 1991 Breaker was killed along with Crazylegs and Quick Kick whilst trying to escape from Trucial Abysmia in a stolen Cobra Rage tank.


___

The men flying these Grumman F-14 Tomcats justifiably believe they are piloting one of the deadliest superfighters in the air today. Fast, manoeuvrable, equipped with state-of-the-art defensive and weapons systems, the F-14 is a match for any plane on Earth. Sadly, the planes these pilots face today are not of this Earth!

102 co-pilot: "Tally-ho! 102 has visual contact - 12 o'clock high. Eddie - get us outta here!"

Cyclonus: "Greetings, human germs! I'm Cyclonus and this is Scourge. We're in need of a little target practice. You'll do!"



102 pilot ('Eddie'): "Mayday! We're hit. Condition critical! Will eject..."

Ace: "102 is down, repeat, 102 is down! Break right, 106. Let's blow these suckers right out of the air!"
___

John-Edward O. Jones ('Eddie') was born in Cambria, California. Being a full-blooded Apache Indian and the son of a famous Hollywood stunt man, Eddie had a lot to live up to. Gifted with both a photographic memory and a talent for drawing, and having failed to make a living from the collapsing syndicated cartoon industry, he decided to embark on a new career in the military. He gave up on the idea of flying when the F-14 he was training on under the supervision of G.I. Joe's Skystriker pilot, Ace, was shot out from under him by a Decepticon from the future (don't ask), but he quite enjoyed the thrill of ejecting and parachuting to Earth, and so he found his vocation at last - as a parachute reconnaissance scout. It was in this capacity that Altitude joined the Joes at the rank of Sergeant Major of the Army two years later, as part their newly formed Sky Patrol.


___

Ace: "We're sitting ducks for these two out in the open. Follow me down, I'm heading into the weeds!"

108 pilot: "Roger!"

Ace: "Stay with me and keep it tight. Block their view. On my signal, break left, sharp. This is gonna have to be split second! NOW!"

Nightstick: "No! That peak!"

Cyclonus: "I see it, I see it- GNNK!"

Ace: "Now I've got you! Sidewinder away!"

THE END

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: THE INTERPLANETARY WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

PART 1

August 1989. On the set of Cecilia Santiago's popular TV gossip show, 'New York Talks'...

Cecilia Santiago: "Ladies and gentlemen, joining wrestling champion Jake 'The Jackhammer' Jackson and Flo Roccoco, the bird lady of Brooklyn, is our next guest. Head of this city's newest band of vigilantes, he describes himself as an Autobot Micromaster of the mechanical race of beings known as 'the Transformers'. Let's welcome... Roadhandler! I hope I got all that right, Roadhandler."

Roadhandler: "Not bad... for a human."

Cecilia Santiago: "So let's get right to it. Many people say the Autobot Micromasters are a threat... a danger to this city, to this world. What is your reaction?"

Roadhandler: "They're talking out of their tailpipes! We're the best thing that's ever happened to this town! The Decepticons would've fried half of this city if we hadn't stopped 'em... but we're not limiting ourselves to 'Cons! There are some pretty nasty humans out there too. Last week Powertrain reeled in a thief, and just yesterday Tailspin was pitching crooks into the back of Mudslinger. There's plenty to keep us busy in this city."

Cecilia Santiago: "The word is that reputed Autobot Leader Optimus Prime disapproves of your tactics."

Roadhandler: "All he does is stay on his spaceship and watch the Earth rotate below. He's no leader of mine."

Cecilia Santiago: "My sources tell me that, in March of this year, sixteen of Optimus Prime's best Autobots sacrificed themselves to defend this city from a crazed Decepticon who had gained god-like powers, and that earlier, in January, Optimus Prime himself fought a powerful Decepticon from the future in order to prevent the Earth from being torn apart by a rift in time and space. He sounds like a hands-on kind of guy to me. The industrialist, G.B. Blackrock, and Ethan Zachary, founder of Alternate Reality, Inc., have both issued personal statements urging the public to put their faith in Optimus. What do you say to them?"

Roadhandler: "Look, in just a few weeks we did what Op and his crew never could - gain the respect and trust of humans. And when I say humans, I mean normal humans, not the rich and the powerful few like Blackrock and Zachary. We Micromasters can see the world as it really is, not how it appears when you look down on it from on high."

Cecilia Santiago: "Seven feet tall is still pretty high for some of us... But are you basically saying that you Micromasters are our friendly neighbourhood Transformers?"

Roadhandler: "Straight-talking rather than friendly... we'll leave the in-fight banter to Spider-Man. But you've got the overall idea. And there are more than enough bad guys to go around, here in New York City, especially while Scorponok's Decepticons remain at large."

Cecilia Santiago: "So you think the Decepticons are still in the area? Apart from those two who sprayed graffiti on the Statue of Liberty, and the Insecticon attack on Washington D.C. a couple of years ago, the Transformers have tended to steer clear of the East Coast since coming to Earth. I'd assumed it was because we had so many superheroes running around over here, but perhaps all villains and heroes get drawn to the Big Apple eventually. Any thoughts?"

Roadhandler: "Scorponok doesn't play by normal Decepticon rules. He has a human partner, Lord Zarak of the planet Nebulos, who transforms into his head. Zarak is drawn to human centres of power. Maybe that's why he's picked New York, rather than build a base in some more remote location like his predecessors. But it changes nothing as far as we're concerned! We're here too, and we'll be the ones to stop him!"

Flo Roccoco: "I think what you're doing is wonderful. You're a real hero."

Jake 'The Jackhammer' Jackson: "Aw, he's just a tin-plated tinker-toy."

Roadhandler: "WHAT?"
___

Cobra troopers could be an unruly bunch at times. They weren't motivated by patriotism, unit loyalty, honour or sense of duty. It took a brutal, unfeeling taskmaster to whip them into fighting trim and Big Boa fit the bill to a tee. He had a voice like a bullhorn, fists the size of frozen turkeys and the disposition of a rabid grizzly bear. He would kick open the Cobra barracks door at 0500 and make everyone do the low-crawl up the mountain while pushing bowling balls with their noses. Then, it was a twenty-mile run through the bramble thickets, more push-ups than you want to know about, and a two-mile swim upstream with flak jacket and helmet. And after breakfast, he would start on the hard stuff!

When Lord Zarak saw Roadhandler accept the challenge of Jake 'The Jackhammer' Jackson live on television, he immediately contacted Cybertron to send him some Decepticon Micromasters to pit against the Autobot. And he contacted his Cobra allies to send a trainer to prepare the Air Strike Patrol to fight the human way. Cobra Commander sent him Big Boa. His attempt to lick the Decepticon Micromasters into shape was... not entirely successful.



TO BE CONTINUED

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: THE INTERPLANETARY WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

PART 2

After Roadhandler had accepted Jake 'The Jackhammer' Jackson's live on-air challenge to a wrestling match, Cecilia announced a commercial break, during which the Autobot Micromaster drew her to one side.

"Cecilia... you are remarkably well-informed about Autobot casualties sustained during the Underbase incident, and the background to the Time Wars. I have to ask - who is your inside source?"

"I am!" came an all-too-recognisable voice from behind them. Roadhandler turned, reluctantly, to greet his fellow Autobot...

"Countdown."

"You were expecting Fortress Maximus?"

"I didn't know any other Micromasters were scheduled to travel to Earth."

"They weren't. I'm here because of you."

"Look, if Optimus doesn't like what I say about him on air, he should get his own television booking."

"It's not what you're doing, it's what you're not doing. I'm here to pick up the tasks Prime had originally intended for you to accomplish, but which you never stuck around long enough to hear him explain to you when you first arrived on this planet."

"Such as?"

"Such as have meetings with U.S. government officials in order to establish diplomatic relations and gain formal approval for our presence on American soil and any Autobot activity within population centres... including appearing on television chat shows. You just broadcast your location to the world. The only reason there isn't a RAAT contingent waiting outside to take you into custody for questioning is because Cecilia had me square your appearance with the authorities in advance."

"It's like I explained to you when we first met," Cecilia added. "Everyone needs some help some time."

"Okay, okay," grumbled Roadhandler. "But me and the others, we left Cybertron to get away from guys like Mr Perfect here. Did you know that, according to his tech-specs, Countdown has fought a thousand battles and circled almost a million stars, defending the rights of the innocent? Intelligence, ten, courage, ten, skill, ten..."

"I did not know that," said Cecilia, as Countdown shuffled his feet, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Of course you didn't, because, unlike Sky Lynx, Countdown is also modest. He makes me sick."

"Don't worry, old friend," laughed Countdown, clapping Roadhandler heartily on the shoulder. "I'll be gone in a day or two, once I've finished off all the paperwork with SHIELD. Intergalactic menaces to thwart, defenceless planets to protect, you know how it is. And you can get back to your promising career as a part-time wrestler, part-time crime-fighter. Maybe even get a moustache like Jackhammer Jake's..."

As they walked back onto the set to resume their interview, Roadhandler confided in Cecilia, "I hate that guy."
___



"And the next contenders... Zangief the Russian bear wrestler, and Japanese sumo wrestling champion Edmond Honda!"



To be fair, while Roadhandler's wrestling career was short-lived thanks to the Decepticons' interference, the Autobot Micromasters' crime-fighting achievements went from strength to strength. After returning to Earth following the battles with Unicron and Bludgeon's Decepticons in 1991, the Off Road and Race Car Patrols carried out a number of highly successful joint operations with G.I. Joe's D.E.F. (Drug Elimination Force) detachment, led by Major Earl S. Morris, a.k.a. Bullet-Proof.

The Headman started out mugging old ladies for their Social Security cheques, moved on to robbing convenience stores, then learned the ropes about drug dealing while serving time in the state penitentiary. A hardened criminal if ever there was one, the Headman wouldn't think twice about annihilating anything or anyone who got in his way. Nothing was sacred to him. A truly evil villain with a fixation on order and control, he created a drug empire based upon paramilitary standards with strict discipline and a rigid chain of command. The result was an organisation that quickly devoured its competition and in 1992 threatened to spread its addictive poison throughout the entire world.

The Headman recruited his personal bodyguards from the greediest, most ruthless drug dealers and criminals in the world, including Cobra and the remnants of Lord Zarak's Z Foundation. He offered them a big money stake in his global operation and a chance to live out their meanest fantasies in return for absolute loyalty and obedience. Headhunters were driven workaholics with evil ambitions, willing to undergo constant and rigorous training by Big Boa in advanced weapon systems and fighting styles, to further their careers in the Headman's organisation and the greater Cobra crime empire.



Lieutenant Skip A. Stone, a.k.a. Cutter, was born in Kinsley, Kansas. Intercepting drug-runners in coastal waters and on the high seas was a speciality of the U.S. Coast Guard, and that's where Cutter learned his trade. He was the skipper of a high-speed drug interceptor craft before he transferred to the G.I. Joe team in 1984 to serve as pilot on their Killer WHALE hovercraft, and in 1992 he was assigned to the D.E.F., alongside Bullet-Proof, Mutt, Shockwave (the human) and their Autobot Micromaster allies, where he knew he could utilise those hard-earned skills to the max. Armed with a rocket-propelled grappling hook launcher, Cutter could snag escaping speedboats crammed with illegal drugs, or scale the back walls of suspected hideouts alongside the Autobots Highjump and Tote, and still have one hand free to shoot it out with the bad guys.



The D.E.F. and the Autobot Micromasters brought the Headman, Big Boa and several leading Headhunters to swift justice, but one slipped through the net... one who became known to the world the following year as M. Bison!

THE END

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

Route 43 - Jacksonville to New Orleans...

The satellite's lethal cargo of gas was intended to be released into the Earth's atmosphere, trapping the sun's heat for Megatron to convert into energon. The trapped heat would have melted the ice caps, causing massive flooding. Prowl knew he had to stop the satellite, even at the cost of his life!

Prowl: "The canisters are empty. I made them safe days ago. Now come on... sit back, rest your bones, and enjoy the show!"
___

Daniel W. Price, a.k.a. Clean-Sweep, was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Having received specialist training as an 'anti-tox trooper', he was short-listed in 1990 as a candidate for G.I. Joe / Action Force's proposed new 'Eco-Warriors' division. In 1990, the Autobot Prowl put in an emergency call to G.B. Blackrock for immediate assistance making safe a crashed and partially submerged Decepticon rocket containing highly toxic greenhouse gases. The closest response team was a unit in training, consisting of the experienced Joes, Barbecue, Deep-Six and Flint, and potential new recruits Clean-Sweep and Ozone - the five prospective Eco-Warriors. Arriving on the scene with his combination robotic sludge sucker/neutraliser gel dispenser at the ready, Clean-Sweep activated his sludge detector/analyser computer and carried out a rapid survey of the downed missile.



Chief Petty Officer Malcolm R. Willoughby, a.k.a. Deep-Six, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and joined G.I. Joe in 1984 as diver and pilot of the SHARC (Submersible High-speed Attack and Reconnaissance Craft) flying submarine. His Eco-Warrior armoured diving suit was built not only to withstand the pressures of deep water, but also to resist the corrosive action of the worst aquatic pollutants (including Cobra's toxic sludge). Guided by telemetry fed to him by Clean-Sweep, Deep-Six submerged and proceeded to stabilise the cargo of Megatron's satellite, while chemical laboratory specialist Ozone used his backpack computer to formulate countermeasures to neutralise its hazardous contents.



In 1992 and 1993, the Eco-Warriors repeatedly confronted and thwarted the schemes of Cobra's Chief Environmental Operative, Cesspool (disfigured multi-millionaire Vincent A. D'Alleva from Newton, Massachusetts), and Cobra's extremely environmentally unfriendly Sludge-Vipers, Toxo-Vipers and Toxo-Zombies.




THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: MANOEUVRES

Blitzwing: "Okay, okay! Since we're here, we might as well have some target practice! Let's go, Astrotrain!"

Tank gunner: "What the-? Is this part of the test?"

Tank commander: "Uh-huh! Whatever it is, it's not one of ours and it's takin' the offensive. Blow it out of the sky!"

Blitzwing: "Definitely unfriendly, but then, two can play at that game! UUUH! Uuur... Blast it, Astrotrain - why aren't you watching my back?"

Astrotrain: "Because I've got my own problems! For humans - these guys are good!"


___

Sherman R. Guderian was born in Brooklyn, New York. There are sections of Brooklyn that are less accessible to outsiders than the mountains of Transylvania. In Heavy Metal's old neighbourhood, a trip to Manhattan (just across the East River) was considered a major expedition. Aspiring to become middle-class was daydreaming, pure and simple. Heavy Metal enlisted to go to Finance School, his ultimate goal to become a Certified Public Accountant. But one day at Fort Belvoir, he watched a column of tanks roll by and was never the same again. He put in for a transfer to Armor that same day. Heavy Metal joined G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1985 as driver of the Mauler Main Battle Tank. In 1987 the tank he was in was crushed by one of the Megatrons in London. In that same battle, Wild Bill's Dragonfly chopper was shot down. In 1990, however, Heavy Metal got even when he became the first Joe to destroy a Decepticon outright, blowing up Octane with a high-explosive warhead strike to the Triple Changer's full fuel tank, though Wild Bill's chopper got shot down in that battle too, by Astrotrain on this occasion. In 1991 Heavy Metal was captured in Trucial Abysmia and executed by a SAW-Viper, along with his comrades Crankcase, Doc and Thunder.



David L. Katzenbogen, a.k.a. Bazooka, from Hibbing, Minnesota, was driving an Abrams tank in the 'Third Horde' (Third Armored Division) when he came to the realisation that an illiterate farmer armed with a 200-dollar disposable rocket launcher could knock out a million-dollar tank with less than two weeks of training. He put in for a transfer immediately. He was a decisive fast-thinker with all the instincts of a natural survivor. Bazooka joined G.I. Joe / Action Force with Heavy Metal in 1985 and fought alongside him in London against Megatron in 1987 and back in the States against the Decepticon Triple Changers in 1990.


___

Blitzwing: "C'mon, Astrotrain - leave him! If he survives, he might just think about his 'games' in the future!"

Octane: "Blitzwing! Astrotrain! Don't leave me... DON'T LEAVE ME!"

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: UNFOLDINGS/REALIGNMENTS

Omega Supreme: "Anomaly! Large scale transformation!"

Jetfire: "Are you sure?"

Omega Supreme: "Yes."

Jetfire: "Access visual data from ten minutes previous!"

Silverbolt: "See? It is still in the process of morphing!"

Jetfire: "Could it be... another one of us?"
___

Cobra Commander: "What's going on here? Who's taking the blame for this fiasco?"

Dr Biggles-Jones: "Destro escaped with the help of the G.I. Joe ninjas. Scarlett took a sword thrust next to her heart! Why would they do that if she were a double agent?"

Slice: "Snake-Eyes is a master swordsman and this was too easy a cut to miss! Let's let her bleed out and see how the Joes react to it!"

Cobra Commander: "I like the devious twists to your slimy mind, Slice! But I have other plans for her! Let's let the Cobra medics patch her up and- huh? What's that falling out of the sky?!"

Jetfire: "Oh... this is nothing but another non-sentient construct! Not one of us."

Cobra Commander: "Listen... can we talk?"

Jetfire: "One moment, please. Jetfire to Silverbolt - stand down. Negative on Decepticon presence. I repeat, negative on Decepticon presence. Now, what did you want to talk about?"
___

Slice and Dice joined Cobra in 1993 at a time when most of Cobra's High Command had deserted Cobra Commander. Captured Cobra documents indicate that Slice may have been a renegade ninja from Storm Shadow's own Arashikage Clan. It is believed that Slice created his own evil sword technique by observing the battle strategies of scorpions and adapting the movement that he called the 'Scorpion Slash'. He was an expert with all edged weapons, small handguns and explosives, and enjoyed working with his Cobra ninja cohort, Dice. Slice could usually be found driving the Cobra Parasite when not in his martial arts studio.


___

Somewhere, high above the Atlantic...

Voice on radio: "You're topped off, Wild Bill! Prepare to disengage!"

Wild Bill: "Thanks much, pard. Next time we'll get an oil change! Listen up, Joes. We still have another four hours to our destination. Anybody who's hungry can- Wait, hold that thought. I'm getting a radio signal from the Autobots! Hawk, get a load of this. Our 'bots detected the reconfiguration of the Silent Castle and thought it was a Decepticon. When we flew out of Transcarpathia, Jetfire was flying in at Mach 29!"

Hawk: "What? Did he come into conflict with Cobra forces?"

Wild Bill: "No. Cobra Commander tried to make a deal with him, but as soon as he realised his mistake, Jetfire hightailed it."

Hawk: "Hmmm. All right, then. Stick to the plan. Maintain course for the Gulf of Mexico, and Cobra Island!"
___

In the Castle's medical facilities...

Slice: "Well?"

Medi-Viper: "She's going to make it. This cut was made with near-surgical precision. You can hardly call it a wound trauma."

Slice: "See? It's parallel to the muscle striation! Very slight damage. It's a clean cut, too. No ragged edges, no major arteries severed."

Medi-Viper: "One in a million chance!"

Slice: "More likely, an extremely skilful cut, executed by a master!"

Dr Biggles-Jones: "Still doubting her, Slice? What does it take to convince you?"

Slice: "A lot. Dice, what do you think?"

Dice: "I dunno... I'm still thinking about that big white Autobot, and wondering what we could have gained if only it had been a Decepticon..."


___

Rumour had it that Dice was once a Cobra Night-Creeper, but was kicked out for being too evil. Dice operated as partner to the Cobra ninja swordsman Slice, specialising in choke-holds, pressure points, snares, traps, blunt instruments and eye-gouging. His weapon of choice was the Bo-Staff, which he could manipulate with blinding speed and bone-crushing power. His most dreaded technique was a motion he called the 'Flying Dragon'. But Dice was at his most troublesome when he got behind the wheel of the Cobra Rat.



Dice was unconvinced by his partner's suspicions of the G.I. Joe turncoat, Scarlett. He just couldn't believe anyone could be that good a swordsman. So he remained silent, to his regret, as it turned out that not only was Scarlett still working for G.I. Joe but Dr Biggles-Jones was a spy for the U.S. Department of Defense, and the pair were successfully exfiltrated after months of secret information-gathering inside the terrorist organisation, bringing with them the location of the mind-controlled town of Millville, which the Joes wasted no time in liberating.

Slice and Dice imparted their combat skills to one of Cobra's last notable recruits, Vypra, but left the organisation some time before its final large-scale military defeat at the hands of G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1995. They were reported killed soon afterwards in a run-in with Storm Shadow and Jinx.

Ann A. Conda (assumed to be an alias), a.k.a. Vypra, was born in New Orleans but raised in the backwoods and swamps of Louisiana. She grew up mean, nasty and uncontrollable. She would have enlisted in the military, if it weren't the case that she regarded soldiers as wimps. She finally signed up with Cobra, liking both the name and the attitude of the terrorist organisation. She rose astonishingly fast through the ranks and proved herself as someone not to be underestimated. Although her primary specialty was as driver of the Rattler 4-WD, she didn't need to be behind the wheel of a Cobra vehicle to be a threat to the G.I. Joes - she was just as effective all by herself.



At the end of Cobra's brief, poorly judged space war with the Joes' Star Brigade in 1994, the Cameron mercenary known only as Captain Blackstar fled Earth's Solar System with several high-ranking Cobra officers, including the Mega-Viper, trainer of Cobra's Mega Monsters, and Vypra. By the year 2019, only Blackstar and Vypra still lived, and in their desperation staked their lives for glory and freedom in the 2019 Galaxy Kombat tournament on Derut Four. Vypra killed her first opponent, Giader the War Weasel, but was subsequently slain by Giader's fellow Battle Beast, Web Slinger Deaspider, in the tournament's second round.



THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: THE BIG BROADCAST OF 1987

Senator Larkin: "This is... Power Station Alpha! Impressive, isn't it, gentlemen?"

Hawk: "It certainly is a beauty."
___

Wreck-Gar was not a happy Junkion. He liked a good story as much as the next television addict, but the Autobots were peddling fantasy as fact rather than fiction. They maintained that he, Wreck-Gar, a hero of the 2006 battle with Unicron, had travelled back in time from 2007 to 1987 and, whilst there, saved the life of the famous Bumblebee, rebuilding him as one 'Goldbug'.

But 2006 had passed without any sightings of Unicron - unsurprising, as the Cybertronians' Chaos-Bringer had been demonstrably obliterated in 1991. And Wreck-Gar had never gone anywhere near a time-jump device.

Yet the Autobots insisted on crediting him with the creation of Goldbug. He didn't like it, because he hadn't done it. And what made it doubly annoying was the fact that the pictures he'd been shown of Goldbug were pretty much exactly in line with how he would have redesigned Bumblebee if he had done it.
___

Beach Head: "Keep firing, Roadblock! We can't let them near the station."

Roadblock: "What do you think I had in mind, Beach Head?"

Hawk: "Watch your fire, men - we want to protect Station Alpha, but we certainly don't want any casualties!"

Scarlett: "And don't worry about the clowns with the weapons! Snake-Eyes and I will take care of them!"
___

Staff Sergeant Wayne R. Sneeden, a.k.a. Beach Head, born in Auburn, Alabama, was a lane instructor at the Ranger School in Fort Benning and an Observer/Advisor at the Covert Ops School in Central America. Meticulous, patient and strong-willed, he liked getting up at 0500 hours to take a ten-mile run and P.T. session before breakfast. He enjoyed squatting motionless beside a jungle trail for three days straight waiting to ambush bad guys that might never show up. What he hated was people who weren't interested in doing their best. Most folk would get mad on occasion or at least get irritable - not Beach Head. He thought anger was a waste of time and energy. Rage clouded the vision and polluted logic. Fury impaired judgement and made you careless. The results of anger were totally unacceptable to Beach Head. He wouldn't get angry... he would get even. There are some who say that long after the official disbanding of both G.I. Joe and Cobra, Beach Head discovered where Cobra Commander was hiding - and got even with him.


___

At the Ark, home base of the Autobot Transformers, a very sombre ceremony is nearing its grim conclusion - the funeral of Optimus Prime!

Perceptor: "We thank you, Optimus Prime. Farewell. We send you to join with the universe, to return to the cosmic dust from which all life began and from which it will begin again."

Blaster: "So, too, must we begin anew. We cannot let this stand in the way of our mission! Of course it will be difficult... we will all miss Optimus... but he would want us to carry on in his absence!"

Omega Supreme: "That's right, Blaster! I know I'm going to do my best to carry on - to be true to his memory. Optimus Prime meant a lot to all of us! It was because of Optimus that I was endowed with life by the Creation Matrix. He programmed me to be the Ark's ultimate, unbreachable line of defence. I will stand strong against any attack! I will not let him down... and I know the rest of you won't either."
___

What Wreck-Gar needed was a counter-narrative - an alternative story for the origin of Goldbug that didn't involve him. And the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. It would be his magnum opus, a tale that would displace the Autobots' so-called historical fact in the minds of the Cybertronians and, more importantly, the humans. It shouldn't be difficult to sell - a story that didn't involve time-travel always trumped a story that did, in the eyes of 'serious' historians.

Wreck-Gar perused the records for inspiration, and kept being drawn back to the exploits of the human special forces unit known as G.I. Joe (or, when operating in Europe, Action Force). Their stories had intertwined with those of the Transformers on Earth from the moment Mount St Hilary erupted to the final defeat of Cobra Commander in 1995 and G.I. Joe's official disbanding. What could be more plausible than one extra interaction between the Joes and the Autobots in 1987... an interaction that resulted in the birth of Goldbug?
___

Blaster: "Sensors indicate that there is an air fleet headed in the direction of the Ark."

Ratchet: "Is it a Decepticon assault?"

Omega Supreme: "If it is, they shall see that Omega Supreme is ready to defend the Ark with every microchip of his being! I shall stand strong against them or any other who would presume to strike at us. None shall attack our home while I guard the gates!"
___

Wreck-Gar took Cobra's historical attempt to seize control of Power Station Alpha, which had been thwarted by the Joes, and Cobra's brief assault on the Ark, which had been repulsed single-handedly by Omega Supreme, and laced them together with a completely fictional plot that brought the Decepticons and Cobra into an alliance several months before Lord Zarak made that alliance a reality - and he turned it into a thrilling tale of cerebro-shells, corrupt senators and a threat to end all life on Earth. As an afterthought he threw in a steamy love affair for the main hero, and the friendship between a boy and a dog, as those things always seemed to go down well with human test audiences. He took a few liberties with continuity, but he doubted anyone would care much about that.
___

Stanley R. Perlmutter, born in Iselin, New Jersey, was a natural with animals. He liked them and they liked him. His problem was that he got along better with dogs than he did with humans. Mutt graduated from Jungle Warfare Training School and was attached as part of a cadre to Special Ops School and as an advisor to the Security and Enforcement Committee, before joining G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1984. Mutt and his dog, Junkyard, were members of the security detail for Power Station Alpha in 1987. By the time they were appointed to the D.E.F. (Drug Elimination Force) in 1992, Mutt and Junkyard had worked together so long that they no longer needed to give each other audible or visual signals. It was almost as if they functioned as one organism. On D.E.F. operations, Junkyard would sniff out contraband substances and set up the bad guys so that Mutt could take them down with his dual net launcher. If the bad guys decided to put up a fight, they risked being ripped to shreds by a howling, savage beast - and then they'd have to contend with his dog! After helping to dismantle M. Bison's Shadowlaw drug empire in 1995, Junkyard was ready for a well-earned retirement, and Mutt took a few years out to adjust to the end of their special partnership. But while the narcotics industry remained in existence, he couldn't sit idle for long, and eventually returned to the fray. He believed it to be what Junkyard would have wanted.


___

Omega Supreme: "Abandon this foolish effort. There shall be no breach of our defences!"
___

The Junkions had made a film out of Unicron's non-existent attack in 2006, and called it 'The Transformers: The Movie'. Wreck-Gar fully expected his new screenplay to be an even bigger box-office smash. He had secured Sienna Miller, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel Nichols and Ray Park to play the Baroness, Roadblock, Scarlett and Snake-Eyes respectively, and he was confident he could make it worth the Insecticon Bombshell's while to play himself.

The Autobots would take more convincing, but if all else failed he could always fall back on computer-generated imagery for the battle scenes.
___

Baroness Anastasia DeCobray was the spoiled offspring of European parents who made sure that she and her brother, Eugen, had the best of everything in life. During the time of the South-East Asian conflict, Eugen used his power and influence to deliver medical supplies and other needed items into the war-torn region. On one tragic occasion, Anastasia accompanied him on what would result in a deal gone bad. Eugen was fatally wounded just as a soldier burst in and apprehended the saboteurs. Anastasia, who had been in another room, believed that the soldier had destroyed both her brother and his supposedly peaceful contacts. This set her on a course of revenge that would lead her into a life of international terrorism. She joined the ranks of Cobra, rising to become its top intelligence agent. A highly intelligent and ambitious individual, the Baroness enjoyed pitting Destro, her companion, against Cobra Commander even as they all plotted the overthrow of G.I. Joe and the conquest of the world. In 1987, that ambition led the Baroness to play a crucial role in the attempted hijacking of Power Station Alpha - an attempt thwarted by G.I. Joe without any involvement on the part of the Autobots or Decepticons, who had other things to worry about at that time. The Baroness's final fate remains unknown.


___

Scarlett: "If what I'm reading is accurate, this baby is even more dangerous than we thought! It's leaking awesome energies at a level that's about to become critical. Even if diverted from its mission, it could still be responsible for the loss of a substantial number of innocent lives! General, Scarlett here. Detonation devices are in position. The rest is up to you..."

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

His name is Galvatron. He rules (or might have ruled) the Decepticons in the year 2009.

Welcome to the future (or, more accurately, the past). One of many possible futures (a past that thankfully never came to pass), but the future (past) nonetheless. It is a future (past) where the Decepticons rule(d), where the pulse of life, of light, has (had) been smothered by...

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: RHYTHMS OF DARKNESS

PART 1

Icepick: "AAHK!"

Wildfly: "Icepick!"

Slog: "Found the trip-wire. Of human design. Booby-trap."

Galvatron: "You did this, Rodimus Prime! You taught them how to fight us! Like you taught them how to hide from us!"

(He really didn't.)
___

Tormod S. Skoog, a.k.a. Tripwire, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota. He dropped out of high school at a naval base in Yokosuka, Japan - his father was career navy - then spent two years in a Zen monastery pondering the meaning of life. He was expelled for breaking too many dishes and spilling every conceivable liquid. He joined the army at 19 and received spiritual awakening on the grenade range. He became proficient with all NATO and Warsaw Pact explosives, detonators, ignition initiators and blasting machines. Tripwire freaked people out. He was always clumsy, jittery and dropping things except when working with high explosives - the only things known to calm him down.

Colonel (later General) Hawk recruited Tripwire to G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1983, as a mine detector. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, Tripwire was one of the few Joes to survive the Decepticon invasion of North America facilitated by Unicron in 2005, shortly before the Transformers' Dark God consumed their homeworld, Cybertron, with the majority of Autobots and neutral Cybertronians still upon it. He quickly turned his talents from the detection of booby-traps to their creation, in the service of the rag-tag Autobot-human resistance.



Admiral Everett P. Colby, codenamed Keel-Haul, born in Charlottesville, Virginia, was commander of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier U.S.S. Flagg. He graduated from Annapolis and Navy Flight School before flying Phantom F-4s off the Intrepid in the late 1960s. He attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and the Armed Forces Staff College. Holder of the Navy Cross, Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal, Keel-Haul was a respected military historian, a nationally rated chess player and possibly the world's worst clarinet player. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, the veteran Admiral Keel-Haul was ordered in 2009 to lead a full-scale nuclear attack upon his own Decepticon-occupied country if the Autobot-human resistance didn't show the world a victory by midnight, Eastern Standard Time.


___

Lisa Wilkinson: "I've listened to as much of this as I can stomach! What exactly is it you're looking for here, Prowl? Sympathy? Well, I'll shed no tears for you, that's for sure! I've cried enough as it is! You think you're the only ones, don't you? The only ones who've been hurt, the only ones who've lost their home, their friends! Well, you're not! I've lost my home, my friends, my family - and it's all because of you!"
___

Sergeant Lonzo R. Wilkinson, a.k.a Stalker, was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was the war-lord of a large urban street gang prior to his enlistment, following which he became fluent in Spanish, Arabic, French and Swahili and graduated at the top of his class in Basic Combat Training and Advanced Infantry Training. He received special training from the U.S. Army's Language School and Intelligence School, and was recruited by Colonel (later General) Hawk in 1982 to be one of the founding members of G.I. Joe. Intelligent and perceptive, Stalker functioned well in high-stress situations, moving like some sort of jungle cat - silent, fast and strong. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, Stalker was killed in 2005 when the Deluxe Insecticons (who died in 1989 in our timeline) seized control of the SHIELD Helicarrier and crashed it into Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, with the loss of all hands and 100% fatalities within the School's grounds, just prior to the main Cybertronian Decepticon invasion of Earth.

Stalker was survived by his daughter, Lisa, a U.S. Air Force pilot who became a resistance cell leader on the East Coast of North America, commanding, among others, her father's former G.I. Joe comrades Tripwire and Zap, and Spike, brother of the deceased Matrix-bearer, Buster Witwicky, who was a casualty of Skystalker's complete bombardment of the Portland area of Oregon (and levelling of Mount St Hilary) in the year 2006.



Lance J. Steinberg, a.k.a. Clutch, 'VAMP' (Multi-Purpose Attack Vehicle) driver from Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Eric W. Freistadt, a.k.a. Short-Fuze, mortar soldier from Chicago, Illinois, were two more Joes from the original 1982 line-up who were killed in the course of the fall of North America to Galvatron's Decepticons.



TO BE CONTINUED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: RHYTHMS OF DARKNESS

PART 2

Cyclonus: "It was so much better before... Earth was ours for the taking, our present from Unicron before he departed. We destroyed, we annihilated - we had a good time!"
___

In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, Operation: Volcano succeeded in killing Dirge, Ramjet, Thrust and the Insecticons. Without Bombshell, there were no Stunticons or Combaticons, and without Evil Roller establishing contact with Zartan, the Decepticons' early communications with Cobra never happened. Death's Head and Wreck-Gar did not appear on Earth in 1987, so Goldbug was never created, and no message was sent to Nebulos that year. Lord Zarak never arrived to establish his Z Foundation and form his alliance with Cobra Commander. History unfolded quite differently, and it was one of Cobra Commander's lieutenants, the Australian mercenary Major Sebastian Bludd, who came to an understanding with Megatron in 1993, allowing the Decepticons a base of operations on Cobra Island in the Gulf of Mexico in return for Decepticon protection from G.I. Joe.

Born in Sydney, Major Bludd received his initial military training in the Australian Special Air Service. He later joined the French Foreign Legion and worked as military advisor in a number of countries, ending up on wanted lists for crimes in Rhodesia and Libya. Proficient with every form of infantry weapon in use at the time, Bludd had a tactical mind like a steel trap. Major Bludd also wrote poetry... badly. ("When you're feeling low and woozy, slap a fresh clip in your Uzi! Assume the proper firing stance, and make the suckers jump and dance!")

Major Bludd's ill-advised courtship of the treacherous Megatron would lead, six years later, not only to his own death, but also to that of his employer and nearly every other member of the Cobra terrorist network.


___

Getaway: "No more running, no more hiding! Cyclonus, Scourge - this is where you get yours!"

Cyclonus: "An Autobot! Get him - AAHK!"

Scourge: "Watch out, you idiot - OOOF!"
___

Rafael J. Melendez, a.k.a. Zap, was born in New York City, and recruited by Colonel (later General) Hawk in 1982 to be one of the founding members of G.I. Joe. He was the Joes' specialist in armour-piercing and anti-tank weapons, and also functioned as their demolitions man. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, Zap came out of retirement following the Decepticon invasion of North America in 2005 and joined the struggling Autobot-human resistance. In 2009 he was part of the team led by Lisa Wilkinson and Prowl that attacked the Decepticon Powerbase (East Coast), where he used an energon-enhanced bazooka designed by one Dr Biggles-Jones to put a hole clean through the central nervous system of Scourge, one of Galvatron's top lieutenants, albeit at the cost of the life of Zap's Autobot comrades, Getaway and Guzzle.


___

Chainclaw: "Your killing days are over, Decepticon!"

Cyclonus: "Nuh-no... No!"
___

High above the Earth, a spy satellite watches, relaying the battle live to headquarters of the European Crisis Coalition in Geneva.

E.U. President: "It's not enough! The people have seen enough of their fellows fight and die against the Decepticons! We need something more - we need a victory!"
___

It is presumed that Cobra's Water Mocassin pilot, Copperhead, was native to or otherwise intimately familiar with the Florida Everglades. Intelligence sources ventured a guess that he raced speedboats in high-stakes races in Monaco and Japan. His major weakness was gambling. Odds are that he got started by placing bets on his own races. Apparently he compounded his folly by selling his services to Cobra in the hopes of paying off his bookies. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, Copperhead was one of the few Cobra operatives to escape the Megatron massacres on Cobra Island in the year 1999.



No-one knew what Firefly's real name was or what he looked like. He was known by his work. Expert in all NATO and Warsaw Pact explosives and detonators, he always placed his charges in the place that afforded maximum damage. There was never any question about his infiltration skills since no-one ever reported seeing him enter or leave any target area. Not even Cobra Commander knew much about Firefly. His fees were paid into a numbered Swiss bank account and were always payable in advance. He made no guarantees and gave no refunds. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, Firefly was away on assignment during the Megatron massacres on Cobra Island. In 2009 he teamed up with Copperhead, the surviving ex-Avengers Hawkeye and War Machine, and the Autobots Sideswipe, Tracks and Wheeljack, to infiltrate Decepticon Powerbase (West Coast) while the world's - and Galvatron's - eyes were on the East Coast... and covertly obtain a quantity of Nucleon that would give the remaining Autobots the power boost they needed to overthrow the Decepticons.



TO BE CONCLUDED

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: RHYTHMS OF DARKNESS

CONCLUSION

"Galvatron - we have come for you!"

"Who? Where did you- AAAH!"

"I am Hook. We three are servants of Unicron. He sent us through the years to find you, to bring you to him! Line - yours!"

"Unh! Getting tangled, can't- No! Why is Unicron doing this? I served him faithfully! He gave me Earth!"

"Different Unicron. Sinker - finish it!"

"No! It's not fa- AAAGH! Urrr..."

Sinker: "Is done. We go. To Unicron."

(To their credit, while all this was going on, the Pretender Monsters weren't just sitting back, eating popcorn. No, they were moving to the aid of their leader. Not quickly enough, but they were moving. By the time Sinker had rendered Galvatron momentarily senseless, the Decepticons had engaged Hook in close-quarters combat. And when Hook, Line, Sinker and Galvatron made their exit through space, time and reality, travelling back from a 2009 where Unicron had consumed Cybertron in 2006 to a 1990 where Unicron was just months away from attacking the Transfomers' homeworld, the Pretender Monsters were caught in the backwash of the dimensional jump - and vanished.)

Jazz: "They- they beat him! They beat Galvatron! I don't know how or why... but we've been given a chance! Let's do it - let's fight for this planet!"

Prowl: "Our planet, Jazz - our planet! Earth belongs to human and Autobot!"

(Heavy Duty, Tripwire and Zap: "Yo, Joe!")

The beginning...
___

Sergeant Lamont A. Morris, a.k.a. Heavy Duty, born in Chicago, Illinois, joined G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1991, following in the footsteps of his cousin Roadblock. He was used to slicing through Cobra armour like a pizza knife through melted cheese, and so never put his trust in wearing any kind of armour himself, until he was eventually outfitted with robotic battle armour built with Autobot and Stark technology. From that day on, he wouldn't enter a firefight - or space - without it. "It enhances my strength and my ability to take on Cobra Vipers - ten at a time!" he declared. Moving with such heavy armour required powerful muscles and co-ordination, both of which came naturally to Heavy Duty. He was a classical musician when not out pounding Cobras and Decepticons, and he compared the excitement of entering a space battle in full body armour to playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with real rockets blasting in the background. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, Heavy Duty entered the battle for the Decepticons' East Coast Powerbase immediately following the deaths of Cyclonus and Scourge, just as Galvatron and the Pretender Monsters were spirited away by the servants of Unicron. His fearsome appearance struck terror into the hearts of the already demoralised remaining Decepticon troops, enabling the three surviving Autobots and their human allies to press their psychological advantage and gain a seemingly impossible victory.



Heavy Duty's Star Brigade comrade, Seymour P. Fine, a.k.a. Sci-Fi, born in Geraldine, Montana, had a fascination with electronics and high-tech laser optics, which forced him to take a leave of absence to complete his Master's degree in electrical engineering. His studies led him to combine a laser weapon's remote target designator and optical sensors to create a security system without parallel that has since been adapted by NASA. An obvious genius with lasers and radically designed instrumentation, Sci-Fi became the first member of G.I. Joe to pilot a star-fighter. He handled the jet's controls with confidence, even at 'quasar' velocities exceeding the speed of light. In combat he fired laser rockets with incredible accuracy, and turned more than a dozen Cobra Invaders into burnt-out pieces of galactic garbage. In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, the now-veteran space warrior Sci-Fi led the fighter squadron that destroyed Skystalker's shuttle in Earth orbit in 2009, although the victory came at an extremely high price in terms of young human lives.



In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, the Decepticons got to the Nucleon on Hydrus Four first, and took it all, hoarding it away in their West Coast Powerbase until the year 2009, when the mercenary Firefly found a way to get in and steal it so that the last surviving Autobots - Prowl, Inferno, Jazz, Sideswipe, Tracks and Wheeljack - could receive its power boost and become the first Autobot Action Masters, ready to go forward and liberate America, while Sci-Fi travelled in his star-fighter to the human colony worlds of Cameron and Nebulos, escorting a diplomatic mission to propose a new defensive alliance, and the Internet was completely scrapped and every network computer on Earth smelted down due to their all being infected by a digital copy of the Decepticons' late Military Operations Commander, Shockwave. (If only someone had thought to make a copy of Optimus Prime on disk before he died and use it to repel Decepticon infiltrators in the World Wide Web, the 21st Century might look very, very different indeed...)

Okay, so the Creation Matrix was gone forever, Unicron was still out there, and the men and women of Damage Control had their work cut out for them, but on that day at least, life was surely good.

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: RHYTHMS OF DARKNESS

EPILOGUE

None of the above events ever took place. It was once one of many possible futures. Now it is an impossible past. Primus woke in 1989, calling Unicron to Cybertron in 1991. Optimus Prime and Scorponok were in command and ensured that the majority of Decepticons fought against Unicron rather than for him. Primus woke again in 1991 to transport their forces to Cybertron. Operation: Volcano had not gone ahead, and so the Insecticon Bombshell lived to steal the Creation Matrix's life-giving program from Optimus, which he now uploaded directly into Unicron's mainframe. Optimus Prime launched himself into the jaws of Unicron, carrying the original Creation Matrix, while Ramjet flew a fragment of it directly into the Chaos-Bringer's brain. Unicron was destroyed. The Autobots were first to the Nucleon, and outnumbered the Decepticons following Unicron's destruction, while the humans (including G.I. Joe / Action Force) ransacked the undefended bases on Earth and permanently decommissioned every deactivated Decepticon that they found there - along with the Galvatron that had been subdued by Fortress Maximus. Bludgeon almost succeeded in resurrecting Megatron on Hydrus Four, but both of them were killed by the Autobots. The Autobot-Decepticon war was over.

Cobra forged alliances with aliens and used Decepticon technology to take their war with G.I. Joe into space in 1994. With the aid of Autobot technology, G.I. Joe's Star Brigade was formed, and Cobra was comprehensively defeated, first in space, then, a year later, on Earth. Their war was also over.
___

Captain David D. Dubosky was born in Plainfield, New Jersey. He joined G.I. Joe / Action Force as an astronaut in 1989, taking his codename from the decorated Autobot space hero, Countdown, who had visited Earth hot on the heels of the first wave of Autobot Micromasters, in a much-needed diplomatic capacity. It had been predicted that the battles of tomorrow would be fought in the cosmic realm of space, and in 1994 that theory became reality as G.I. Joe's Star Brigade fought to protect Earth - and the universe - from Cobra's dastardly 'Cobranauts'. These 'space snakes' invaded the upper atmosphere, causing the Joes to send up their own stellar specialist - Countdown - to stop them before it was too late. Dubosky was a qualified space shuttle commander, Ghoststriker X-16 fighter pilot, NASA astronaut, electrical engineer and ranking chess master. If Cobra wanted to pick a fight in space, Countdown was there to checkmate their every move!



George A. Roberts, a.k.a. Gar, a.k.a. Space Shot, a mercenary from the planet Cameron with a long-standing grudge against Cobra's Blackstar allies, joined G.I. Joe's Star Brigade as an interstellar pilot in 1994, taking his codename from the Decepticon Micromaster Spaceshot who fought on to the bitter end in the Battle of Klo. Roberts filed a fictional birthplace of Everett, Massachusetts, though in truth he was known throughout the Galaxy as a fly-by-night freighter pilot with a rebellious reputation. Blindfolded, he'd fly loads of cargo through the rings of Saturn for fun, the kind of fun most pilots would have nightmares about. Duke knew he couldn't pass up recruiting such a skilled pilot, and after a few hard lessons in military discipline Space Shot became less of a rebel, and more of a hero. He went on to defend four space stations from Cobra attacks, and made the Blackstars look like flight school trainees.



In the 'Rhythms of Darkness' timeline, neither Countdown nor Space Shot ever joined G.I. Joe.
___

Unicron and Megatron died in 1991, so the former never changed the latter into Galvatron. Two Galvatrons existed, both just popping into existence, supposedly time-travelling 'future' versions of Megatron. The first arrived in 1986 and was later sucked up into a rift in time and space in 1989, as if it had all been a terrible mistake on the part of the universe. The second was dragged kicking and screaming into 1990 by Hook, Line and Sinker, got his revenge on Unicron by helping Emirate Xaaron waken Primus, survived the second crash of the Ark and was short-circuited when Fortress Maximus threw him into the sea. He was retrieved and dismantled by the humans, who used his unique armour to build their own Transformers, such as Action Master Thundercracker.

The Decepticon Dinoforce, formerly the Pretender Monsters, popped into existence in the year 2009. They have memories of an Earth where Galvatron ruled, Unicron's present to the Decepticons before he departed. They had destroyed, they had annihilated - they had had a good time. But now back home on Cybertron, a planet which they remembered being devoured by Unicron, they find that the best policy is to keep their big mouths shut.

THE END

Aug 8, 2019 18:00:25 GMT Philip Ayres said:

It's a shame we never got the Action Force version of Crystal Ball from Bangor, Wales.

The Dreadnok Monkeywrench is from Rhyl.

As a homage to THIRTY YEARS since that generation-defining cult classic, DESTINY OF THE DINOBOTS, the Grand Moff Martinverse presents...

G.I. JOE VS TRANSFORMERS: DESTINY OF THE DREADNOKS

A team of authority-hating misfits who like nothing better than to destroy other people's valuable property, led by a mean-spirited, shape-changing super-soldier able to disguise himself as an ordinary man, before revealing his true warrior nature.

But enough about the Dinobots. We're here today to talk about those sons of fun, the Dreadnoks!

According to Wikipedia, the Dreadnoks were originally meant to be a race of humanoid bears, to capitalise on the popularity of the Ewoks from the then-recently released 'Return of the Jedi'. Larry Hama, writer of the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comic book, was highly critical of the proposal, telling Hasbro, "You can't have the good guys running around shooting at teddy bears." Hama suggested to Hasbro that obnoxious bikers would be a more realistic alternative.
___

Buzzer, a.k.a. Dick Blinken (Richard Blinken-Smythe) from Cambridge, England, was an extreme left-wing Cambridge sociology don who went to Australia to research the biker gang phenomenon only to be transformed into the very subject of his research. Years of intellectual displeasure caused repressed psychotic anger, manifested in an intense desire to chainsaw apart the expensive gewgaws of technological society. A scavenger of the swamps, Buzzer could cut through steel, wrought iron and any metal except armour plate with his diamond-toothed chainsaw.



There were devils in Tasmania, and Ripper, a.k.a. Harry Nod from Grim Cape, was probably the meanest of them all. He was expelled from nursery school for extorting candy from his schoolmates and spent most of his adult life in various correctional institutions. He was a professional criminal motivated by greed and a malignant dislike for the niceties of civilisation. Specialising in edged weapons and cutting tools, Ripper was known throughout the swamps for using his blade like a cross between a fireman's axe and a can opener to unlock gates and crack safes.



Torch, a.k.a. Tom Winken from Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia, was remanded to reform school at age fourteen. He escaped and went to sea in the Merchant Marine where he learned the use of the cutting torch. He later rode with the Melbourne Maulers Motorcycle Club. Torch was an illiterate, unrepentant thug whose penchant for sudden and unexpected violence was matched only by the utter depth of his stupidity. He used an oxy-acetylene torch as a general cutting tool when remodelling stolen cars and cracking safes, and scavenged the swamps for fun and profit.


___

With their love of chocolate-covered doughnuts, grape soda and ultra-violence, the Dreadnoks were easily seduced to the side of Cobra by the promise of easy money. They first came to the attention of G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1984, at which time they operated out of a gas station headquarters. Over the course of the next decade they got into a number of serious scrapes with the Joes and rival factions within Cobra, sometimes saving their leader/protector Zartan from the enemy, sometimes relying on him to save them. Their wanton acts of destruction gained them greater publicity than many more insidious and competent Cobra units, and were often glamorised by the less responsible sections of the broadcast media, leading to their being mimicked by some more impressionable viewers.

A few years after the Dreadnoks' rampages began being broadcast on television, those television signals were picked up by the Junkions, a race of junk robots of Cybertronian origin living on a mobile planetoid a few light-years from Earth. Up until that point in time, the Junkions all transformed into garbage-sifting harvester units riding on caterpillar tracks. Within months of being hypnotised by the Dreadnoks' antics, the Junkions had transmogrified themselves into an unhinged biker gang!
___

"To his credit, Grimlock didn't hesitate. He pulled, metal shredded and his hands came apart. Much to Crankcase's horror, Grimlock charged, head lowered, straight at him. Even Bludgeon, fast though he was, didn't react in time. His hurled sword cut slightly across Grimlock's back, but otherwise missed. Grimlock didn't even feel it. He was in so much pain already that such an injury was tiny in comparison. Grimlock connected, the top of his head hammering Crankcase backwards, indenting him into the far wall."

The Triggercon Crankcase was believed to have died in the Battle of Hydrus Four, until he reappeared on Earth in the mid-1990s as part of a new team of psychotic Decepticons out for revenge on the Autobots and their human allies. Calling themselves 'the Dreads', this fearsome quintet, made up of Berserker, Crankcase, Crowbar, Dreadbot and Hatchet, went on a Dreadnok-style road rampage across America until violently halted with extreme prejudice by Jetfire, the Aerialbots and a team of SHIELD agents in Robot-Buster exo-suits.
___

By the year 2018, the Dreadnoks were, miraculously, all still alive. Now in their sixties and on parole after serving more than two decades in prison, they had already been drinking heavily for three hours when night fell and Mumm-Ra's questing magic probe settled upon them and a number of their fellows in a biker bar just outside the city limits, detecting in them their barely suppressed destructive and rebellious tendencies. The alien sorcerer gave them a mental nudge to bring their anger and resentment towards the establishment to the surface, and then, at just the right moment, inserted in the mind of their leaders a notion of the Avengers as the lynchpin of that establishment. Mumm-Ra placed a block on their capacity for self-preservation and rational thought, and, like a child with a pull-back-and-go toy, settled down in front of his viewing pool to watch the chaos that would ensue as Buzzer, Ripper, Torch and the rest ran for their bikes. All he wanted from these expendable agents was a distraction...

The crazy biker threat was met by Daniel 'Laserblade' O'Hara, son of Scarlett and Snake-Eyes, riding the Protectobot Groove, and the demonically possessed, flaming-skulled Ghost Rider.

The advantage of riding an Autobot motorcycle is that you have both hands free for fighting. The lead Dreadnok fired his chainsaw-shotgun, but the momentum of the discharge was absorbed by the vibranium in Laserblade's costume, and the tech-ninja's vibro-katana sliced the weapon cleanly in two and then slashed backwards, shredding the Dreadnok's rear tyre. With his other hand, Daniel loosed two electro-shurikens, which both shocked and unseated the next two bikers in line.

The Dreadnoks and their allies who encountered the Ghost Rider were treated less gently.

When the police rounded up the gang and Daniel learnt that most of them were of pensionable age, he wished he'd gone a little easier on them. A couple of them had broken ribs or hips falling from their bikes, while others had experienced slipped discs, and, most tragically, Monkeywrench (Bill Winkie from Rhyl, North Wales), one of the pair of bikers tasered by his shurikens, had suffered a fatal heart attack. But they had been driving like demons, and, before departing, the Ghost Rider assured him that devilish forces had been urging them on throughout their rampage.



Soon afterwards, the septuagenarian master of disguise, Zartan, was busy busting his Dreadnok pals out of jail. Again. As in the olden days, he wondered why he bothered. Most of them were overdue for retirement and suffering from assorted injuries. They gathered in a forest clearing outside the city to plan their next move, but it just wasn't their night, as Mojo's many-armed talent-hunter, Spiral, took that opportunity to teleport into their midst, killing the Dreadnok poacher Gnawgahyde and swiping a couple of Cobra Mega Monsters, a Battle Armoured Android Trooper, and Randy 'Roadhog' Horton, a former Road-Jammer, to take back to the Mojoverse for purposes of interdimensional entertainment.

As the remaining Dreadnoks scattered as quickly as they could manage (which for some, was not very quickly at all), an undercover police officer, Robin Lindley, called in Protectobot, Avenger and Ninja Force reinforcements to round them up. They got Buzzer, Ripper and Torch, along with other Dreadnoks such as Road Pig (Donald DeLuca from Goblu, Michigan), Thunder Machine driver Thrasher, and Zanzibar (Cayman Islands pirate Morgan Teach).

Zartan got away. Again.




THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

COBRA MEGA MONSTERS

When in 1991 the G.I. Joes Clutch and Gung-Ho scouted the abandoned Decepticon base in the Louisiana Bayous, they found that the spider-like ship provided in 1990 by Ravage to Action Master Megatron (a.k.a. the Minispy Overlord and Evil Roller) was gone. However, plenty of Decepticon junk remained, together with overwhelming evidence not only that Cobra had provided the materials and manpower to build the now-departed mobile headquarters of the faction of Decepticons led first by Action Master Megatron and then later by an alliance of Soundwave and Starscream, but also that the terrorist organisation had continued to operate alongside the Decepticons long after the base's construction. In particular, in exchange for further Decepticon weaponry to use in their fight against the Joes, Cobra Cyber-Vipers had handed over to Action Master Megatron precious time-travel technology stolen by Zartan from the Baxter Building in New York - technology that Cobra had been unable to fathom, but which the Decepticon faction leader was successful in modifying to create his first prototype 'Flashback Doorway'.

Sergeant (later Sergeant Major) Ettienne R. LaFitte, a.k.a. Gung-Ho, was born in Fer-de-Lance in the Louisiana Bayous, not far from the abandoned Decepticon/Cobra encampment that it was his job to scout some forty years later. He joined G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1983 as a jungle warfare training instructor, but went on to become a bio-military and heavy weapons expert.

Dr Mindbender created the Cyber-Vipers because he needed intelligent soldiers to do two things - handle his highly dangerous bio-engineering operations laboratory, and keep his genetically enhanced 'Mega Monsters' (named after his Decepticon patron) under control. The Cyber-Vipers did both, and also proved themselves to be first-rate fighters, half-man and half-robot, their evil brains enhanced by Mindbender himself using Decepticon technology obtained in a private deal with the Insecticon Bombshell.



More disturbing than the trade in time-travel tech was the evidence of Cobra's plans to adapt Decepticon and Nebulan science to create genetically enhanced bio-beasts to use in its war of terror. Dr Mindbender had not had the opportunity to put these plans into action in 1990 before being buried alive on Cobra Island by a vengeful Cobra Commander and dying a slow and miserable death. But Mindbender was resurrected as a clone in 1993, and as soon as they heard this, Clutch and Gung-Ho feared that he would pick up where he had left off - which he did, with the creation first of the experimental monster called Blanka, and then of the Mega Monsters proper - the Bio-Vipers and Monstro-Vipers!

Bio-Vipers were once a battalion of ordinary Cobra Eels (Cobra frogmen with specialities in underwater demolitions and marine engineering), until Cobra Commander ordered them to 'volunteer' for Dr Mindbender's experiment in genetic alteration. Mindbender bio-genetically crossed the Eels with an assortment of the ocean's deadliest predators, turning them into ferocious Mega Monsters that stink like low tide. They have sandpaper skin like a shark, razor-sharp piranha teeth, and the strength and tentacles of giant squid. They become so violently out-of-control that Mindbender had to add computer-integrated body and brain implants (courtesy of the Insecticon Bombshell) to control them. When Cobra Commander needed vicious reinforcements in the final days of his struggle with G.I. Joe, he called the Bio-Vipers up from the depths and unleashed them on his enemies. When not at work for Cobra and its various successor organisations, Bio-Vipers enjoy polluting the ocean, disrupting vital shipping lanes and hunting innocent sea life.



Monstro-Vipers were once a team of ordinary Cobra Range-Vipers (Cobra's wilderness troopers), until Cobra Commander ordered them to 'volunteer' for an experiment in genetic alteration. Dr Mindbender bio-genetically crossed the Vipers with rabid werewolves, giant 'Bigfoot' creatures and the most gruesome grizzly bears he could find. This horrid fusion process made them one quarter man, three quarters monster - the most brutal 'battle beasts' to ever stalk the Earth! The only way to tame their terror was to implant computer-controlled processors in their bodies and minds (courtesy of Bombshell), and, while he was at it, Dr Mindbender also gave them inner body chambers containing exploding gut bombs! Note: Monstro-Vipers have a keen sense of smell, and when stalking their prey can detect a human scent from miles away.



Two new Joes were initially recruited in 1993 to serve as 'Mega Marines' alongside Clutch and Gung-Ho, to combat the threat of the Mega Monsters. They were codenamed Mirage... and Blast-Off.

Jeffrey D. Thompson, a.k.a. Blast-Off, was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, and became the best firefighter the state had ever seen. Single-handedly, he once extinguished an entire forest fire when other firemen became incapacitated by smoke inhalation. This courageous effort of patience and skill earned him a spot in G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1993, but, instead of putting fires out, he was expected to light them, right under Cobra's backside. When it was discovered that Cobra Mega Monsters were vulnerable to flames and extreme heat, Blast-Off was issued with a super-charged flamethrower and immediately assigned to the Mega Marines team. Gung-Ho gave him just one order - to burn those monsters like marshmallows on a camp fire!



The Mega Marines were only partially successful in eliminating the threat of Cobra's Mega Monsters, as several have been seen at large in recent years. In 2018, a Bio-Viper and a Monstro-Viper were captured by Spiral and forced to fight and die in the 2018 Slaughter Arena tournament on Mojoverse Battle Station Zero (the Bio-Viper at the hands of the humans Dani Dareheart and Randy 'Roadhog' Horton, the Monstro-Viper in the jaws of the Sharkticon Micromaster Gnecksnapper), and eight more were killed on Earth in 2019 by assorted heroes during the Battle of Mount Verona. Long after the demise of both the original Megatron and Overlord (Action Master Megatron), the name of Megatron lives on in the surviving Mega Monsters!

(The Insecticon Bombshell, who has apparently been behaving himself since the battle with Unicron, denies all knowledge of the number and whereabouts of the surviving Mega Monsters, and even more strenuously denies any suggestion that he retains any power of control over them. The shrewd young Circuit-Breaker Dani Dareheart, having conducted several transactions with the Insecticons in recent years, is highly sceptical of Bombshell's claims. She is convinced that he is merely awaiting the most profitable moment to reveal his hand. As to whose benefit and whose downfall, the half-Nebulan Cameron Space Marine would prefer not to make any assumptions.)

FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

COBRA VIPERS, ACCORDING TO PAVEL CHEKOV OF THE U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

("Excuse me, I'm looking for the nuclear wessels.")

"Wipers were the backbone of the Cobra Legions. If you wanted to get anywhere in Cobra, you had to start out as a Wiper or Wiper Pilot. That was the bottom of the pyramid, but serwing in the Cobra infantry was considered a small price to pay to gain access to the glittering prizes at the top. Cobra didn't reward success with parades and medals. It offered material wealth, power, and an outlet for the terrible urges that drive the greedy, the enwious and the cruel."



"Cobra Commander really loved his Wipers. He had Aero-Wipers, Air-Wipers, Alley-Wipers, Aqua-Wipers, Astro-Wipers, Bio-Wipers, Cyber-Wipers, Desert-Wipers, Elite-Wipers, Fast-Blast-Wipers, Flak-Wipers, Frag-Wipers, Gyro-Wipers, Hazard-Wipers, HEAT-Wipers, Heli-Wipers, Hydro-Wipers, Ice-Wipers, Jungle-Wipers, Laser-Wipers, Medi-Wipers, Mega-Wipers, Monstro-Wipers, Motor-Wipers, Nano-Wipers, Neo-Wipers, Night-Wipers, Ninja-Wipers, Nitro-Wipers, Para-Wipers, Pit-Wipers, Range-Wipers, Rock-Wipers, Sand-Wipers, SAW-Wipers, Secto-Wipers, Shadow-Wipers, Shock-Wipers, Sludge-Wipers, Star-Wipers, Strato-Wipers, Sub-Wipers, Swamp-Wipers, Techno-Wipers, Tele-Wipers, Terra-Wipers, Toxo-Wipers, Track-Wipers, Zombie-Wipers, and, for wery special occasions... Wipers."

Where are they all now, you ask? I'm afraid... they all got wiped out.



Star Brigade's enemies were the Astro-Vipers, the Techno-Vipers, and the TARGATs (Trans-Atmospheric Rapid Global Assault Troopers). The TARGATs wore suits that contained ceramic composite heat shielding armour, providing coolant safety during atmospheric re-entry. When two or three of them returned to Earth at the same time, they could be mistaken for a meteor shower - until they started shooting.



FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

G.I. JOE: BEAST WARS

Alaska. An old man and a wolf navigate the desolate snowscape, two sentient creatures sharing a single heartbeat, moving stealthily, if not swiftly, one silent, the other uttering an occasional word or two to his companion in this, the latest in a series of treks across the remoter reaches of the continent of North America.
___

Through more than a decade of more-or-less continuous hostilities between Cobra and G.I. Joe / Action Force from 1982 to 1995, a wide range of animal allies were deployed on both sides of the conflict.

Mutt and Law (Christopher M. Lavigne, who left the regular Military Police to join the Joes in 1987) had their faithful canine companions, Junkyard and Order.



Charlie Iron-Knife, a.k.a. Spirit, a Native American Shaman from the Taos Pueblo Reservation in New Mexico who joined the Joes as a tracker in 1984, had his pet bald eagle, Freedom, while Cobra's falconer, Raptor, an ex-yuppie tax consultant caught poaching on a Cobra mink ranch by Destro, worked hard to develop a bird of prey strong enough to attack a G.I. Joe right up until his untimely death from botulism in 1990, when Cobra Commander buried him alive in a landlocked freighter on Cobra Island.



Chief Petty Officer Hector X. Delgado, a.k.a. Shipwreck, from Chula Vista, California, joined G.I. Joe in 1985, and was often accompanied on naval missions by his imaginatively named pet parrot, Polly. Snake-Eyes the famous G.I. Joe ninja had a tame wolf, Timber, who he sometimes shared with his sword brother, Storm Shadow, while charismatic 1988 recruit Spearhead (Peter R. Millman from St Louis, Missouri) had a pet bobcat named Max.



And then there was the reptile trainer, Croc Master, hired by Cobra following an advertisement in a newspaper. Despite G.I. Joe operatives killing his pet alligator, Lolita, Croc Master allied himself with the Joes and Serpentor during the Cobra Island civil war. Cobra Commander subsequently buried Croc Master alive with Raptor and several other of his enemies, and Croc Master suffered the same fate as Raptor, dying as a result of consuming tainted food.


___

Alaska. An old man and a wolf navigate the desolate snowscape, two sentient creatures sharing a single heartbeat, moving stealthily, if not swiftly, one silent, the other uttering an occasional word or two to his companion in this, the latest in a series of treks across the remoter reaches of the continent of North America.

They share a single heartbeat because, while the man is human, the wolf is mechanical. Only one of them has the power of speech, because the human, Snake-Eyes, had his vocal cords severed (and his face disfigured) while rescuing Scarlett from a helicopter crash on one of their earliest missions together against Cobra. Snake-Eyes' tame wolf, Timber, is long dead, as are all the other G.I. Joe and Cobra animals. The old ninja's walking companion is the ex-Decepticon, Carnivac, who remains unwelcome on the Transformers' homeworld of Cybertron, where he once carried out atrocities against Autobots and neutrals, and then abandoned his fellow Decepticons. But he has only ever done good on Earth, and so is permitted to stay on a world from which all other Decepticons are forbidden to set foot on pain of death.

FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

IRON GRENADIERS

The Destro clan has designed and sold weapons for centuries, and James McCullen Destro is the faceless power behind their present-day incarnation, MARS (Military Armament Research Syndicate), a state-of-the-art weapons manufacturer and one of the largest multinational corporations in the world. After G.I. Joe / Action Force freed Destro from Cobra Commander's mental control at the conclusion of the 1994 war in space, Destro ordered his private army of Iron Grenadiers, Ferrets ('DEMON' drivers), Nullifiers (Anti-Gravity Pod pilots), Undertow frogmen and others such as anti-tank specialist Metal-Head to fight on the side of the Joes in their final military assault on Cobra's Earthbound forces. Destro led the Iron Grenadiers into battle himself, his original general, Voltar, having died from botulism after being buried alive by Cobra Commander in 1990 with Croc Master, the original Dr Mindbender, Raptor and other unfortunates.





SHIELD subsequently saw fit to employ Destro, along with Tony Stark and others, to dissect Shockwave, Galvatron, the Seacons, the Stunticons, the Terrorcons, the Air Strike Patrol and all the other Decepticons they had captured and terminated, and use the technology to create new and improved Centurion units, Robot-Buster exo-suits, Road-Jammer devices and Circuit-Breaker costumes with which to defend the Earth against any further threats from beyond the stars.

FILE ENDS

[Grand Moff Muffin]

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

NINJA FORCE: FIRST CLASS

The original ninjas or shinobi were covert agents or mercenaries in feudal Japan who specialised in espionage, sabotage, assassination, deception and surprise attacks. They employed a range of weapons, including the katana and shuriken. The noble samurai considered the ninjas' subtle ways to be dishonorable, but ninja in the modern Marvel universe - both western and Japanese - are the most skilful martial artists in the world, and more than a match for a samurai. Ninjas have often been credited in popular culture with having supernatural abilities, in part because several prominent ninjas, such as the mutant Zartan, the X-Man Psylocke and the sinister cult called the Hand, have possessed additional mutant or magical superpowers unrelated to their ninja skills and training.

After being accepted into G.I. Joe / Action Force, the former Cobra operative (and now First Sergeant) Storm Shadow founded a new sub-team of heroic ninjas called 'Ninja Force'. The initial line-up in 1991 consisted of Storm Shadow himself, Dojo, Nunchuk and T'Jbang, though the roster was soon afterwards expanded to include the more experienced G.I. Joe ninjas, Jinx, Scarlett and Snake-Eyes (arguably the most highly skilled non-superpowered ninja of Storm Shadow's generation) and the Chinese-born Action Force operative, Chun-Li.

Master Sergeant Michael P. Russo from San Francisco, California, a.k.a. Dojo the silent weapons ninja, was the secret pupil of a ninja master in hiding who taught him how to use the chain-and-sickle, the three-section staff, the sai and the throwing dirk. The most talkative of the Ninja Force, Dojo believed, like Spider-Man. that a steady patter would disrupt the thoughts of his opponents, setting them up for his surprise 'Lightning Strike' manoeuvre (apparently inspired by a failed scheme of Megatron's to harness the power of windmills - don't ask). Dojo could often be seen driving the G.I. Joe 'Brawler'.



Sergeant Ralph Badducci from Brooklyn, New York, a.k.a. Nunchuk, studied mystic fighting forms at the school of a mysterious blind master in Denver before moving to San Francisco where his distinctive style caught the eye of Storm Shadow. As suggested by his codename, Nunchuk specialised in nunchaku attack styles, utilising the form known as the 'Samurai Smash' (which he tested out on scaled-down facsimile constructs of the samurai skeleton Decepticon Pretender, Bludgeon), and could occasionally be spotted commanding the G.I. Joe Battle Wagon.



Sergeant First Class Sam LaQuale from East Greenwich, Rhode Island, a.k.a. T'Jbang, was a former disciple of the master swordsman of the Arashikage Ninja Clan. He forged and honed his own personal sword, precisely balanced for his ultra-secret technique, the 'Silent Backslash'. For a time, T'Jbang swore an oath of silence. The reasons for this were known only to his second cousin Storm Shadow. T'Jbang would often charge into combat flying one of the G.I. Joe Battle Copters, or occasionally the Autobot helicopter Over-Run (before Over-Run became an Action Master, that is).



Among the G.I. Joe Ninja Force's early foes were Firefly, Slice, Dice, the Red Ninjas and the Cobra Night-Creepers, the most dangerous of whom was the Night-Creeper Leader. Captured Cobra documents revealed the existence of a contract between Cobra Commander and a syndicate of high-tech ninjas led by this mysterious ninja master. All investigations into his origin and the structure of his Night-Creepers ran into dead ends, but sources suspected that he moulded them with the scruples of a Wall Street stock manipulator, the lethal skills of a master of the martial arts and the stealthy talents of a cat burglar, then armed them with sophisticated anti-detection and weapons technology and hired them out to Cobra. It ultimately took Snake-Eyes to bring down the Night-Creeper Leader in one-on-one combat in 1993. Then in 1994 the Ninja Force teamed up with G.I. Joe's Drug Elimination Force and the Autobots Sprocket and Over-Run to take down M. Bison's secretive international crime organisation, Shadowlaw!



FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

NINJA FORCE: THE NEXT GENERATION

Following casualties sustained by the original Ninja Force - first in their bloody 1994 campaign to destroy Shadowlaw and then in their costly 1995 pursuit, alongside the X-Man ninja Psylocke, of the murderous mutant Sabretooth - Storm Shadow and Snake-Eyes recruited three promising New York ninjas to replace their fallen comrades - Robert J. Travaano from Hartsdale, a.k.a. the 'Rising Sun' ninja Banzai, Sergeant Lloyd S. Goldfine from Queens, New York, a.k.a. the snow ninja Bushido, and Joseph A. Rainone from Somers, New York, a.k.a. Pile Driver operator T'Gin-Zu.

Banzai successfully completed his first mission in 1995, teaming up with the Autobot Micromasters Free Wheeler and Swindler to track down and eliminate the last surviving Headhunter Stormtroopers and their leader, Urban Crime Commander Danimal J. Rogers, a.k.a. Gristle, who had holed up in Gristle's home base in Montego Bay, Jamaica.




Banzai's blood brother Bushido was paired with the Autobot Pretender Chainclaw in 1996 to pursue M. Bison's lieutenant, the Muay Thai fighter Sagat, to a hideout deep in the Himalayas, where the cold weather specialist and the ursine ground trooper put the notorious crime boss and his Cobra Ninja-Viper bodyguards permanently on ice.




In 1997 T'Gin-Zu drove his Ninja Raider, the Pile Driver (a 'Rapid-Assault, Tornado Attack Vehicle') against the Texas stronghold of the last remaining Cobra/Headhunters/Shadowlaw drug baron, the heavyweight boxer Balrog. The Pile Driver shot Balrog's Air Devil henchmen out of the sky, upon which the fugitive became convinced that it was really an Autobot in disguise, and promptly surrendered. Since that time, T'Gin-Zu - now a ninja master - has chased fugitive Red Ninjas across the globe, sometimes with Jinx at his side, but more often pursuing them alone.




The Ninja Force remained active long after the official disbanding of G.I. Joe / Action Force, embracing advances in technology to supplement their martial arts skills, and eventually becoming subsumed into the Avengers. In 2018 they fought alongside the Avengers and Autobots against the forces of the undead sorcerer, Mumm-Ra, during which battle two of their number - Sai-Spy and Star Samurai - lost their lives, but as a consequence of which a number of heroic Thunderians joined their ranks. In 2019 they made first contact with the Battle Beasts, and carried out operations against the forces of Ratbat / Mr Johnson on Planet Beast in 2020. In the year 2021, the Ninja Force consists of Daniel 'Laserblade' O'Hara, tech-ninja son of Scarlett and Snake-Eyes, Styletta, daughter of Jinx and T'Gin-Zu, Hush Job the silent ninja, size-changing martial-artist Swift of the Midnight Wreckers, and the Thunderian Wildkitten, pilot of the Thunderstrike. Storm Shadow, living out his twilight years alone in the Savage Land, remains active as the team's occasional mentor and instructor.

FILE ENDS

FACT-FILE INTERFACE

STAR BRIGADE

In the year 1994, the faltering terrorist army Cobra made one last desperate play for supremacy, launching its 'Invader' space rockets, landing troops on Earth's Moon and forging an alliance with the last remnants of the malevolent Lunartix Empire. With Earth just beginning to forge its own tentative alliances with Cameron and Nebulos, the United Nations was determined that the forces of humanity should be the ones to reign in Cobra and their alien supporters, to demonstrate to their lost colony worlds that the civilised nations had full control of their own planet. But they requested Autobot assistance in kitting out G.I. Joe to undertake combat in the vacuum of space. Optimus Prime ordered Rad to help the humans develop star-fighters and, after early successes, an 'Armor-Bot' - essentially a variation of the Robot-Buster suit first developed by Wheeljack in 1986, capable of space flight.

The initial G.I. Joe Star Brigade line-up consisted of General Hawk, Colonel Payload, Captain Countdown, Master Sergeant Duke, Staff Sergeant Roadblock, Sergeant Heavy Duty, Ozone, Rock'n'Roll, Sci-Fi and Robo-JOE.

Colonel Mark Morgan Jr, a.k.a. Payload, was born in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He grew up watching the early space shots blasting off through the Florida sky. He often stared through a hole in the space centre's security fence and rode the flaming booster rockets in his dreams. Payload worked hard on making those dreams a reality by joining the Air Force on his 18th birthday. He flew F-4 Phantoms over South-East Asia, paying his dues and becoming an expert pilot. When he returned to the U.S. he signed up for the astronaut training programme. He was assigned to G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1987 as pilot of the Joes' space shuttle, the Defiant. His first task was to head up a mission to stop Cobra stealing U.S. spy satellites, and in 1991 he led a mission to rescue survivors from Trucial Abysmia. In 1994 he became a founding member of G.I. Joe's elite Star Brigade team, fighting to protect Earth and other planets in the deepest voids of space.



David F. Kunitz, a.k.a. Ozone, was born in Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, and joined G.I. Joe / Action Force in 1991 as a member of their 'Eco-Warriors' division. In 1994 he became the Star Brigade's specialist in atmospheric dispersal toxins. He was an expert at neutralising various forms of airborne sludge and other harmful chemicals while replenishing the ozone layer around the Earth's atmosphere. Not only did he protect the planet from environmental devastation, he also enjoyed kicking Cobra's butt half-way across the universe. The way he figured it, everyone should help preserve the Earth's fragile environment, but they should leave the Cobra butt-kicking to the professionals - i.e. Star Brigade.



With the aid of a combination of Autobot and Stark technology, and with their number bolstered by three new recruits - chief engineer Gears (Captain Joseph A. Morrone, from Westerly, Rhode Island), explosives expert Effects (Staff Sergeant Aron Beck, from Fort Worth, Texas), and interstellar pilot Space Shot (George A. Roberts, originally Gar, from the planet Cameron) - the Star Brigade routed the Cobra Blackstars, Astro-Vipers and B.A.A.T.s now operating in the asteroid belt and drove the few surviving Lunartix raiders out of Earth's Solar System.



FILE ENDS

Credit for all G.I. Joe file cards to www.yojoe.com

[Grand Moff Muffin]

I'm amused by the very large number of names that belong to both Transformers and G.I. Joe characters. This thread has already featured the file-cards of the G.I. Joe characters Blast-Off, Blaster, Countdown, Flash, Gears, Grand Slam, Hawk, Mainframe, Mirage, Overkill, Predacon, Road Pig, Roadblock, Rumbler, Shockwave, Space Shot, Stalker and Windmill.

Just limiting the list to 'G1' Transformers, there are also the following 20th Century G.I. Joe characters: Airwave, Barricade, Bullhorn, Cloudburst, Crankcase, Dogfight, Falcon, Lightfoot, Outback, Overlord, Recoil, Scoop and Skydive.

And if 21st Century TFs and Joes are allowed, there are many more name-twins.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_G.I._Joe:_A_Real_American_Hero_action_figures

Martin

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE

"Are we nearly there yet?"

The car's driver twisted around to respond to the pouting five-year-old strapped into the booster seat directly behind him.

"Stop fidgeting. We'll soon be-"

"Uncle Jimmy, look out!" cried the little girl, pointing.

The man turned back to the road just in time to see half a giant steel suspension bridge materialise right in the car's path.

A second later, they were across it.
___

The year 2024. Thirty-three years after the Autobot-Decepticon war ended, Decepticon Leader Trypticon thundered towards the Great Dome of Iacon in his mobile battle station mode flanked by two dozen of his elite troops, an army of thousands following in his wake, all guns blazing.

Acting City Commander Grotusque stood in Iacon's control centre, absorbing sitreps from all critical sectors and co-ordinating the defence of the Autobot capital.

"Metroplex's transformation circuits have failed on every level," warned Mirage. "Backup systems are not responding. Sabotage is the only viable explanation."

"I want Grapple, Erector, the Rescue Force, the Construction and Rescue Patrols and the Metro Squad to get the civilian population into the bunkers without delay. All other Autobots to report to defence positions."

"Dome force-field powering up," announced Trailbreaker.

"Pointblank, Downshift and Red Alert confirm core communication, energy and water infrastructure securely locked down," added Cosmos.

"Good. Overdrive - have Groundshaker hold position at the north-east gate with Cliffjumper, Deadwheeler, Doublecross, Scamper and Slammer. And instruct Cloudraker and Fastlane to take up station with Gusher, Pipeline, Retro and Surge at the north-west wall. All other forces to converge on the southern border and stand by."

On the walls to either side of the open south gate, the Air and Battle Patrols stood nervously alongside Camshaft, Crosshairs, Huffer, Landfill, Overload, Quickmix, Repugnus, Scoop and Warpath as the Decepticon phalanx drew ever closer. "Er, remind me, when are we supposed to close this gate?" queried Landfill.

"Not yet," came the voice of Grotusque over inter-Autobot radio. "On my signal, not before."

Astrotrain, Blitzwing and Trypticon roared through the gates with their twenty-two companions, who once inside the city immediately combined to form Bruticus, Devastator, Monstructor and Predaking. Trypticon discharged his cargo of Insecticons and Micromasters and transformed into his dinosaur mode, and all five Decepticon giants turned as one to face out over the wall currently being manned by Landfill and the other Autobots.

"Now!" snapped Grotusque, and the gates clanged shut, sealing the domed force-field as waves of Red Mutant Zoid Tarantulons broke against Iacon's outer defence perimeter.

"Where are Prowl and Thunderclash Prime?" demanded Full-Tilt, climbing the fortifications to take up position between Huffer and Repugnus.
___

Godmaster Optimus Prime sped along the Earthen highway, breaking all speed limits, heading straight for the explosions and laser fire lighting up the forest hillside. Krark, Prince of Darkness, Lord of the Red Mutant Zoids, had come to Earth, and had so far proven to be unstoppable. He had knocked Jetfire and the Aerialbots out of the sky, absorbed the lightning strikes of the Circuit-Breakers to charge his own batteries, demonstrated an immunity to Road-Jammer technology, overriden control of the Centurions sent against him, and shrugged off the combined firepower of Iron Man, Defensor, Omega Supreme and the Robot-Busters. It was rumoured that Krark had been upgraded by Unicron himself decades earlier in return for aiding the Chaos-Bringer in devouring the planet Zoidstar. So the Earthen Autobots called in the most powerful Autobot of them all.

Just as Optimus was nearing the battle zone, Krark swooped down from the sky like a falcon and sliced Prime's first combining trailer in two with a swipe of one of his ultra-sharp wings. The second trailer, Godbomber, skidded away and transformed to robot mode, while the cab module rolled off the road and did likewise. Krark rose into the sky once again, screeching in triumph, having neutralised his greatest foe before their duel had even begun.
___

Cybertron. The Powerdasher drill Zetar surfaced in the midst of a battalion of Hellcats and Hellrunners, followed by his fellow Powerdasher Roadfire and the Sixchanger Quickswitch, also in drill tank mode. The three large Autobots tore through the ranks of the Red Mutant Zoids with their drills and energy weapons, while the Powerdasher jet Sonic Bomber strafed their lines from the air, and the Sparkdashers Hardspark, Hotspark and Wildspark, enhanced by the fire magic of their Battle Beast partners, melted Red Scavengers, Slitherzoids and Spinebacks down into pools of molten metal.

"Pull back!" ordered Grotusque from the city as Zoid reinforcements moved in, led by Mammoth the Destroyer and a score of Redhorns. Quickswitch and Zetar transformed into their suborbital fighter jet modes and soared clear with Sonic Bomber, while Roadfire and the Sparkdashers retreated into the tunnel created by the Autobot drill tanks and returned the way they had come, collapsing the tunnel behind them to deter pursuit by burrowing Slime Zoids.

A phalanx of Terrareds peppered Zetar with anti-aircraft fire, and a squadron of Zarks swooped down and severed his wings, forcing him to transform and land. The giant Powerdasher detached the Z-shaped sword from his back and cut down a pair of Zatons who moved in, eager to finish him off. Many more Red Mutant Zoids followed hard behind them, and Zetar was soon overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Suddenly, Predaking was there beside him, blowing Znakes and Zunders away with the mortar cannons on his feet, shielding the Autobot with his electric force-field and then grabbing him by the horns on his head and flying him back to the relative safety of Iacon's Great Dome. (Note: Never in the history of Cybertron has there been a battle featuring so many instances of the letter Z.)
___

"What are we doing here, Uncle Jimmy?" protested the wide-eyed little girl, looking out over a gaping Cybertronian chasm as the flashes of battle lit up the night sky on the jagged horizon.

"I don't know, honey. But don't fret. We'll figure this out... somehow." He turned to look behind them as the Space Bridge dematerialised, stranding them where they were. "We can't go back, and this car won't make it across that gap. What we need is another bridge."

"Okay, I'll try," sighed the child, frowning.
___

"Optimus!"

On Earth, Ultra Magnus, Prowl, Wheeljack and Thunderclash Prime struggled to rise to their feet as Krark abandoned his assault upon the four high-ranking Autobots to focus his full evil attention on the newly arrived hero, upon whom Krark's enemies had been pinning all their hopes - hopes now dashed, thanks to the destruction of his primary trailer. Unless...

"Ginrai, go!" ordered Optimus, firing his laser rifle at the Zoid, who merely laughed as the bolts bounced off his Unicronian exo-skeleton.

"You fools! You have forsaken your homeworld, which even now is on the verge of falling to my Zoid army - and you have failed this world, which is also now doomed. Take comfort, if you can, in the knowledge that you won't live to see- What?"

He spun just in time to see the Asgardian Ginrai transform to engine mode and lock onto Ultra Magnus's chest, sending a power surge through the large Autobot's body. Godbomber split apart and formed up around the new Godmaster pairing, increasing Magnus's height and physique and giving him flight capability and a wicked-looking shoulder cannon, charged with the trio's combined energies.

"Get the wounded out of here," Optimus shouted, running towards Prowl, Wheeljack and Thunderclash as Godmaster Ultra Magnus hurled himself upon the self-styled Prince of Darkness.
___

The car crossed the newly constructed bridge and brought its two passengers frighteningly close to rearguard of the Red Mutant Zoid army busily besieging Iacon. Within the Great Dome, Brunt, Bruticus, Devastator and Slugfest stood shoulder to shoulder with Six-Gun and the Powerdashers as the overtaxed force-field began to fail. In the city's control room, Grotusque, Overdrive, Trailbreaker, Trypticon, Pounce and Wingspan debated depressing tactical projections, each of them wondering privately whether today was the day that his species died.

As the nearest Zoids turned to face the new arrivals, Uncle Jimmy opened the car door and got out, shouted, "Pretender!" and phased into the robot form of the Autobot Metalhawk, while Nightbeat transformed, encasing the small child protectively within his vacant head module.

"Don't be scared, Minnie!" called out Metalhawk, taking up a defensive stance with his titanium sabre. "Now, remember that mess you made on Snarkworld?"

"Y-yes..."

"Well, you need to do that again, right now. Only this time no-one will scold you, I promise."

"All right, if you think I can..." Looking out from behind Nightbeat's visage, she balled her little fists and bit her lower lip in concentration.

And the five-year-old half-Titan Minerva Witwicky sent out a pulse of Creation Matrix nanobots into the army of non-sentient Zoids that made them disassemble into their component parts.

Every last one of them.
___

On Earth, Ultra Magnus pinned Krark helplessly to the ground, swung Godbomber's shoulder cannon to point at the giant robot pterosaur's head, and fired.
___

On Cybertron, Minerva decided it would be fun to build a fairy princess castle out of all the Zoid parts.
___

The next day, Optimus Prime's cab module met for the first time the original Optimus Prime's trailer, and they linked up and went for a drive together. It was an uncomfortable meeting - two sentient beings, both possessing Optimus's pre-1987 memories, but one of them also possessing memories of the early life of the Nebulan HiQ and battles with Scorponok, Thunderwing, Unicron, Bludgeon, the Dire Wraiths and the Liege Maximo, while the other possessed memories of a life in Ethan Zachary's garage, various research facilities in North America and the basement of Avengers Tower, defending the Internet from Decepticon incursions and helping to protect and raise an infant Matrix-bearer.

Cybertron was in good hands with Thunderclash Prime and Prowl. Ginrai and Godbomber had merged smoothly with Ultra Magnus to form Earth's improvised defender in the battle with Krark, and Minerva Witwicky could now be allowed out. So what next for two incomplete Autobots named Optimus Prime?

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE: SIT-DOWN

Why am I making a career change from private investigations to live comedy? I'd like to call it a mid-life crisis, mid-life being the operative term - I'm in my sixties, and I want to live to see one-twenty! On Earth they have a form of comedy called stand-up. I'm calling my version sit-down, because my back's gone. If anyone knows where it is, please return it! No, seriously, never mess with your back, it's too important. You can do all sorts of weird things with your other bones, though. My legs, for example. Look, I can touch my chest with my feet without bending my knees! Crazy, huh? I'd like to say I invented sit-down comedy. I didn't. However, I bet the little guy on Earth who pioneered it couldn't do this! But I digress.

Mid-life crisis. Do you think being in your sixties is too old to undergo a sex-change? You'd think you'd have established your gender identity by that point, wouldn't you? My partner's older than I am, but he informed me the other day that he's met someone else and wants to be referred to as a woman from now on. No, dear, let me explain! Sorry, my wife's in the audience and this comes as a shock to her. I'm talking about my business partner, dear! You know, the big guy who lost his head over you.

Yes, my partner Nightbeat is having a sex-change. Or is he? How can you change your sex if you don't have one in the first place? I dunno. But anyway, it looks like he's going to become the first female Transformer. Crazy, huh? A species that's existed for over four million years suddenly wakes up one morning and realises it's missing something, namely women. Gods, it must have been hell up until now. No wonder the Decepticons had so much pent-up aggression. Still, they should have tried going for long walks in the fresh air and thinking about prismaball rather than declaring war on the Galaxy.

Robots, eh? In Cybertronian they have a single animate pronoun, which they assure me is unpronouncible in our tongue, but here tonight, folks, I'm going to give it a try. Ready?

FZZZZCRCRCRBEEPBEEPBEEPOWWWWW...

They're right, you know. It is unpronouncible in our tongue.

Who decided they were all men? Buster and Sparkplug Witwicky, that's who. And Gort, and Galen Kord, and Duros, and Arcana, and Zarak, may they all rest in peace. They taught the Autobots and Decepticons to refer to themselves by male pronouns, and adopt male-sounding voices, and the poor dears didn't know any better.

It keeps things simple, you might argue. Transformers have no natural concept of gender, so best to refer to them all the same way, right? Maybe, but picking one gender pronoun suggests they have something in common with men that they don't have in common with women, and I can't think what that something might be, well, apart from the propensity to start senseless wars.

And does it really keep things simple, or is it a recipe for disaster? I was amused to learn that the Autobot Tracks originally had a dummy driver to help him blend in on Earth, which looked like a woman. Buster suggested it when he realised how preoccupied Tracks was with his personal appearance. Boy, did his girlfriend make him pay for that when she found out!



Anyway, the disguise didn't work, because the dummy drivers in the other Autobot cars kept referring to Tracks as 'he', and Tracks continued to speak with a deep male voice even when the voice came out of the dummy, and his cover was completely blown. This was nearly forty Earth-years ago. They're a little more open-minded about cross-dressing now.

And then we have Pretender shells. These were giant thirty-foot human costumes. They just about work as disguises on planets inhabited by thirty-foot people, but on Earth and Nebulos, not so much. And they were all men. All white men in their thirties. The colour of the skin is quite an issue on Earth, which is more racially diverse than Nebulos. (Though we're improving on that score, thanks to our friends from Earth!) Don't the Pretender shells suggest that the Autobots are male? Yes, but they were designed by white human men.

Don't get me wrong, I was glad that Nightbeat was referred to as a 'he' when I was his head, and I'd like to think part of him will always remain a bloke, as he will always retain the thoughts and memories that we shared. But he's leaving me, or rather he's convinced me to leave him, on account of my back going. And now he's hooked up with a girl, and reckons that it's only fair to her to be referred to by the female pronoun when she's inside his head. Hence the sex-change. And the tabloid headlines. Ironically, the girl he's hooked up with is the grand-daughter of the human who made the Transformers all male in the first place. And because she's inherited the Creation Matrix, when Nightbeat binary-bonds to her, he gains the ability to produce baby Transformers. But that's a sheer coincidence. Her uncle can also do that.

I've been Muzzle. I'm new at this. If I haven't made you laugh, I hope I've made you think. Goodnight!

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE: AMNESTY

"How did we allow this to happen?"

"It wasn't our decision to make, Prowl."

"But... the Decepticons have regained a foothold on Earth! Isn't it the job of Jetfire and his forces to prevent this from happening?"

"No, it's their job to prevent the Decepticons from returning to Earth against the wishes of the humans. It's not our planet. We don't make the rules."

"And the humans have invited the Decepticon army to just come on over the Space Bridge, all sins forgiven?"

"Not at all. They have granted amnesty to six Decepticons only, namely the Constructicons. By Decepticon standards, they are minor league offenders - you once told them so to their faces, as I recall. And they were created on Earth, just like Jetfire and his Special Teams. They want to go home!"

"All right, so it's not quite the invasion I feared when I read the subject of your urgent meeting request..."

"I thought the wording would get your attention."

"Yes, very clever, Hopper. Don't ever do it again. So why have the humans relented after all this time? Are the Combaticons getting amnesty too?"

"No. The humans are letting the Constructicons come back to Earth provided they agree to help them build a super-weapon."

"WHAT?!"

"Blame Ultra Magnus! He blabbed to the humans about the Unicron-buster gun that Galvatron had the Constructicons build for him back in 1986."

"Oh... that."

"I've been reading all about it, but I just don't get it. This Galvatron arrived in 1986 from the year 2006 and gave the Constructicons instructions for a one-of-a-kind weapon that would be buried for twenty years before firing and taking out Unicron as he passed through Earth's solar system on the way to Cybertron. Except three future Autobots blew up the weapon as soon as it had been built, and for some reason Galvatron went sour on the plan and never tried to repeat it."

"Yep, that's pretty much what happened."

"But if the Constructicons knew how to build a gun like that, don't you think it might have saved us all a lot of trouble if we'd got them to build one for us on Cybertron before Unicron's attack in 1991?"

"No good. The weapon was solar-powered and required years to charge up before it could be ready to fire. Cybertron has no sun. Well, we're gradually nudging it back into orbit around one now, but it certainly lacked one back in 1991."

"Oh, okay. Anyway, apparently they still remember how to build it, and no-one else knows how it's done, because Megatron died in 1991 and never became Galvatron... and we have no idea where Galvatron acquired such technological know-how in his timeline."

"Correct. And you say the humans want the Constructicons to recreate this weapon for them."

"Several of them, actually, dotted around the globe. For defence against any big nasties that come their way in future. They argue that the weapons would pose no threat to other star systems, as their range is strictly limited to their own system. And because they're on the ground, pointing up, they can't be used by one country against another."

"Unless a madman took control of one and fired it at his own Moon."

"Good point. I wonder if they've thought of that."

"Well. Are you aware of anything we can do to prevent this, short of killing the Constructicons?"

"Even if we could stop them, would we want to? What if we talked the humans out of it, and then Galactus showed up a few years later and they had no defence against him?"

"I don't like it. Where will it end? Should we build guns like that on Cybertron once we have solar power on tap again? Will Cameron want them? And Lithone, and Halfworld, and Nebulos, and Planet Beast? Would they make the Galaxy safer or more dangerous?"

"Seems pretty dangerous to me already, Prowl. There's one consolation, though."

"What's that?"

"Once built, the gun takes several years to build up a charge for a single shot."

"Does it actually work?"

"No-one's ever seen it work. The Constructicons never had time to test it."

"Maybe it's all a sham. Maybe it does nothing, and they're just using it to obtain Earth citizenship. I mean, how could Galvatron learn how to build a gun capable of destroying Unicron with a single shot? It's just not credible... like that device he planned to use to harness the power of a volcano and turn himself into a god..."

"It might all be a hoax. Do you really think so?"

"I just don't know."

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE: OVER THE RAINBOW

What's in names?

The name translated into human speech as 'Autobot' (a portmanteau of the Greek 'auto', meaning 'self', as in 'autonomous', self-governing, or 'automobile', a self-propelling vehicle, and 'robot', a programmable machine, from Eastern European words meaning 'work') originally referred to the civilians who populated of the planet Cybertron before the rise of Megatron. They were not Transformers.

Megatron's breakaway warrior faction referred to themselves by a name that is approximated in human speech by 'Decepticon' (from the French 'deception' and the Latin adverb 'contra', meaning 'contrary' or 'against'). They pioneered the technology that enabled Cybertronians to become Transformers - robots in disguise. The Decepticons disowned the name Autobot, while those freedom-loving Cybertronians who stood against the Decepticons as warriors embraced it as their own, and also became Transformers.

Where did that leave the majority of pacifist Cybertronians, who joined neither army in the conflict and did not gain the ability to transform? Their former species name, Autobot, had been rejected by one sub-group of that species and redefined by another, leaving the neutrals... nameless - though it was of course the least of their worries at the time.

I was an Autobot before the rise of Megatron, but I ceased to be an Autobot when it changed from being the name of my species to being the name of the army of heroic warriors who fought to stop Megatron imposing his will on the rest of us and turning Cybertron itself into a cosmic dreadnought. I was and remained a Cybertronian civilian, neither heroic nor evil. I retained, and still do, my chosen function in life, namely science.

In the Earth-year 1986, my luck ran out, as the Decepticons hunted me down and conscripted me into their army. They forced me to become both a Decepticon and a Transformer, and used my work to make me their first and greatest interdimensional Space Bridge. I served in this capacity for three years, transporting troops, energy and even a giant dam-boring drill back and forth between Earth and Cybertron. But in 1989 Soundwave, the beacon who provided my spatial anchor on Earth, was rendered inoperative by his fellow Decepticon, Starscream, and his loss rendered me no longer capable of bridging the light-years between our two worlds. Rather than fix me, I was left to rust as the Autobots and Decepticons turned to smaller, less impressive forms of interstellar transport.

Then in 1991, in the aftermath of the Transformers' battle with Unicron, Cybertron appeared to be on the verge of collapse, and there was a sudden urgent need to evacuate thousands of surviving neutral, non-transforming Cybertronian civilians. The peaceful robot world of Lithone, whose people originally came from Cybertron, offered to give refuge to non-combatant Cybertronians, and the Autobots enlisted me to connect with a beacon established on Lithone and transport my fellow neutrals to safety. When my task was complete, I did something I had never done before - transported my entire self off Cybertron.

The Last Autobot - named for the species, not the faction - emerged to stabilise and recreate our homeworld, but he could not repopulate it. I agreed to help return the civilians from Lithone to Cybertron, though most of the planet remained empty, to be claimed by various space-faring races from across the Galaxy. The surviving Autobots and Decepticons established safe havens for native Cybertronians, and unsurprisingly the majority of neutral Cybertronians opted for the protection of Autobot City, Iacon. The name Autobot ceased to refer to a warring faction, and I consented to pledge my allegiance to the Autobot peace programme, connecting Iacon first with Jetfire's Autobots on Earth, then with Chromedome on Nebulos and Skater on Lithone, and more recently with the Multiforce on Cameron and Red Phoenix the Blazing Eagle on Planet Beast. Six allied worlds. Alas, I cannot reach Junk, due to its erratic movements. Nor can I connect to Halfworld, on account of the Galacian Wall that shields the Keystone Quadrant from such interdimensional incursions.

I sometimes have to work with Shrapnel and the other Insecticons. I'm thankful that they've never insulted me by pretending that they're sorry. I figure they are as incapable of remorse for what they did during their time serving Straxus and his hungry god, the Smelting Pool, as I was of standing up for right and opposing his reign of evil.

My ambition is to form a network exceeding that of the Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge, which connects Asgard to the Ten Realms. My ally in this is my fellow Autobot scientist, Time Warrior. My diminutive partner is a specialist in time-travel, just as I am a specialist in spanning the void of space. Imagine what they two of us might do together...

THE END

[Grand Moff Muffin]

THE BRIDGE TO SOMEWHERE: BLASTER'S REVENGE

Emirate Xaaron, now Thunderclash Prime, is too pragmatic and diplomatic to be plagued by such petty motivations as revenge. He tried and failed to kill the Insecticons in Operation: Volcano. The Insecticons fought alongside the Autobots against Unicron. The Insecticons have abided by the terms of the post-Unicron ceasefire, unlike Bludgeon's Decepticon faction who broke them by sabotaging the Autobots' ships and invading Klo. The Insecticons fought alongside the Autobots again against the Predators in 2018, and have since traded favours for mutual benefit with the Autobots' human allies. Under the terms of the 1991 truce, the Insecticons are immune from any form of prosecution for war crimes committed on Cybertron prior to 1991. Unless the Autobots themselves go mad and unilaterally declare the truce null and void, effectively ending the 33-year ceasefire, the Insecticons are safe.

I am too much of a pacifist to be plagued by such petty motivations as revenge. I didn't enjoy Shrapnel turning me into a Space Bridge at the time, nor the things the Decepticons had me do, but I've done a lot of good since then, and I wouldn't want to change who I am now. I've moved on.

Blaster is different from me and Xaaron. He broods. He bears grudges. He doesn't forgive and forget.

Blaster was incapable of accepting the amnesty afforded to certain Decepticons, foremost among them Shrapnel. It was Shrapnel who captured his friend Scrounge, which resulted in Scrounge's death in the Smelting Pool. He knows Shrapnel feels no remorse for his actions.

The Insecticons vanished in 1991 and only reappeared in 2018 to help Xaaron defeat Skyquake. It was then that Blaster began plotting his revenge. He kept his cards, and his feelings, close to his chest, but he occasionally confided in me, seeing me as a kindred spirit, and I filled in the gaps easily enough.

Blaster wasn't so irresponsible as to act in such a way as to bring repercussions down upon his fellow Autobots. He didn't want to give Trypticon and the rest an excuse to escalate matters. No, he wanted to take full responsibility for what he was about to do - and be seen to pay the price for it. His life for that of the Insecticons - a fair trade.

He bided his time for six long years, during which interval he dropped enough clues to enable me to make my own plans and preparations without his knowledge. I tracked the known movements of the Insecticons, and of Blaster himself, who played his part well as the dutiful Chief of Communications for the Action Master Armoured Convoy. I knew what he knew, and predicted when he would make his move.

This year, in 2024, shortly after brief, decisive Zoid War, the Insecticons were grouped together, well away from anyone else, in a makeshift shelter some distance outside Iacon's city limits. Blaster slipped away from his fellow Action Masters, strapped on his Flight Pack, and launched himself into the stratosphere. On the edge of space he turned around and engaged his thrusters at full power, turning himself into a Nucleon-laden missile shooting straight down at the planet's surface. Nothing could now save the Insecticons from his just revenge.

Almost nothing.

I materialised half of myself directly in Blaster's path, and he could do nothing to avoid passing across the interdimensional bridge between worlds. Instead of rocketing downwards out of a black sky towards a metal planet, he found himself rocketing upwards into a blue sky, away from an equally blue ocean. He screamed in fury as his Flight Pack ran out of fuel. I ignored his words. My voice was louder.

"Your anger isn't at me," I told him. "Nor is it against the Insecticons. Shrapnel happened to be the one to capture Scrounge, but it could have been any Decepticon. Your anger is with yourself, for failing to save him. But consider this. Scrounge is remembered as the Autobot who uncovered Straxus's plans and prevented a full-scale Decepticon invasion of Earth in 1986. If you completed your plan today, then Scrounge would be remembered only as the Autobot whose death drove Blaster to go mad, end 33 years of peace and kill himself. Would that be any way to honour your friend?"

And with that I transported myself back to Cybertron, leaving Blaster to fall into the sea. He would eventually work out which world I'd dropped him onto and figure out how to get back home. But it would take considerable time.

THE END

STORIES LISTED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

MISCELLANEOUS
The year 1984: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Prisoner of War
The year 1987: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: The Death of Counterpunch Part 1
The year 1987: Bumblebee 1987
The year 1987: Battlechargers Forever / Transformers #23 and 32
The year 1987: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Gold Standard
The year 1988: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Attack of the Clones
The year 1988: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Blot on the Landscape
The year 1988: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Ink Blot Test
The year 1988: Terrorcons, Combine!
June 1988: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Wrecking Havoc
Beginning from September 1988: Tales from the Cosmic Carnival / Transformers #44
January 1989: A Stopped Clock / Transformers UK #199-205, 223-227 and 251-254
January 1989: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Blot on the Record
August 1989: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship / Transformers #55
The year 1989: A Stopped Clock: Chimes at Midnight / Transformers #60-61

THE LAST DAYS OF THE TRANSFORMERS WAR
The year 1990: Transformers UK #229, 237-239 and 255-289
The year 1990: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Life in the Slow Lane
The year 1990: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Manoeuvres
The year 1990: The Magnificent Six (Transformers UK Annual 1991)
The year 1990: Transformers #67-70
The year 1990: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Xaaron / Transformers #71-73
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Unicron / Transformers #74-75
The year 1991: The Last Days of the Transformers War: Nucleon / Escort Duty / Breaking Bonds / Transformers #76-80
November 1991: Top Secret
December 1991: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battletrap's Beasts - They Battle for Fun
December 1991: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Flywheels's Friends - They Too Battle for Fun
December 1991: Another Time and Place (Transformers UK Annual 1992)
December 1991: The Reckoning
December 1991: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: The Death of Counterpunch Part 2

WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS
The year 1992: Destiny of the Dinobots (Transformers UK Annual 1990)
The year 1992: Stylor's Sequel
The year 1992: Stylor's Statement
The year 1992: Stylor's Speech
The year 1993: The Last Minispy (time of narration)
The year 1993: The Last Minispy: Jaws of Steel
The year 1993: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Unfoldings/Realignments
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
The year 1993: Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Minefield

INTERIM
1991-2018: Great Battle Beast Duels of History
1991-2018: Sky Lynx May Be a Rubbish Toy, But...!
1994-1995: G.I. Joe: Street Fighter II
1994-2018: Marvel Superheroes Meet the Transformers
The year 2008: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Third Generation
The year 2008: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: The Big Broadcast of 1987
The year 2009: G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Rhythms of Darkness
The year 2009: Pretender Monsters: Dinoforce Works

TWENTY YEARS LATER
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later
The year 2014: Twenty Years Later: Kup's Story Retold
August 2017: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: One-Robot Army
September 2017 to July 2018: Prelude to the Predator War
August 2018: Where Were You During the Predator War?
August 2018: Life and Freedom
August 2018: Cameron Space Marines
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire
September 2018: Titanium Shott Blaster for Hire: Death's Head vs Grimlock
September 2018: Game Over
September 2018: Game Over: Walkthrough
October 2018: The Mad Marvel UK Mash-Up / G.I. Joe vs Transformers: Destiny of the Dreadnoks
October 2018: The Mad Marvel UK Mash-Up: Deadlier Games
November-December 2018: War of the Skull
December 2018: The Legacy of Rodimus Prime
December 2018: The Legacy of Galvatron
December 2018: The Legacy of Primus
January 2019: Remembrance
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Prologue
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Adventure
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Destiny
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Strategy
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Fate
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Ending
The year 2019: Choose Your Own Epilogue
May 2019: The Return of Optimus Prime
Ending in June 2019: Stories from Grand Central Space Station
Ending in June 2019: The Singular Adventures of Slugfest and Overkill
Ending in June 2019: Irwin Spoon Goes to Cybertron
July 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Concerning Monsterbots
August 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Technobots vs Terrakors
September 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battle Beasts Fight!
October 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battle Beasts Roll!
November 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Fortress Scorponok
December 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Battle Beasts Strike!
December 2019: Characters from the 1987 Toy Range: Stylor's Staff
The year 2020: Battle Beasts Universe
The year 2020: The Search for Mr J
The year 2020: Battle Beasts Universe continued
The year 2020: Interlude

ENDGAME
October 2020: Battle Beast Legends
October 2020: Broken Bad Guys
October 2020: Rock Lords vs Battle Beasts
November 2020: Aspects of Evil: Ratbat
November 2020: Aspects of Evil: Devil-Z
November 2020: Aspects of Evil: Magmar
December 2020: Tales of Earth
December 2020: Tales of Cybertron
December 2020: Tales of Asgard

THE FUTURE
The year 2021: Target: 2036
The year 2021: Target: 2036 Aftermath
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Sit-Down
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Amnesty
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Over the Rainbow
The year 2024: The Bridge to Somewhere: Blaster's Revenge