The Greatest Gift of All!



Optimus grants a gift to the Earth.

=Marvel UK issue #250=

Script: Simon Furman Art: Staz Lettering: Helen Stone


 * Major characters (in order of appearance): Optimus Prime, Stakeout, Whisper
 * Originally published: December 24, 1989

Synopsis
It's Christmas Eve, 1989. Longtooth's piece of the Creation Matrix has reached Optimus - now he can grant life to one of the many deactivated Autobots. He considers First Aid, as they need a medic - Prowl, for his leadership - one of the Dinobots for their strength... Optimus is suddenly revolted at the idea of playing god, and briefly decides to choose a random person to revive - settling on Seaspray - but cannot go through with such an arbitrary way of deciding who lives.

His dilemma is interrupted by a report: Stakeout and the Rescue Patrol have cornered Whisper, who has an open-ended contract on all of Autobot High Command, and are closing in. As Optimus monitors the battle - ordering no harm comes to human or animal life - he briefly considers reviving Silverbolt, only to wonder if he'd resent being chosen when others weren't. His musing is interrupted when the Rescue Patrol comes under attack by Whisper's Air Strike Patrol buddies. The resulting battle trashes a forest, and in monitoring it Optimus gets a computer report on the environmental knock-on damage being caused.

Optimus suddenly realises how much damage their war has done to Earth without him realising. He calls the Rescue Patrol back to base and sends the Matrix fragment into Earth's atmosphere, causing rain that repairs the damage the battle has done to the environment. "He has a gift, the greatest gift of all... he gladly gives it to the Earth!"

Items of note

 * Seaspray has been taken offline at some point.
 * The Air Strike Patrol appear to have gone AWOL from the Decepticons after Skin Deep - they're targeting Autobot leaders for money, not under orders.
 * The Matrix can heal organic life if used right.