Underworld!

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

=Marvel UK issue #245=

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


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


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

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

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

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

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

Items of note

 * This is the first appearance of Tailgate (bar a one panel cameo in "Resurrection!") and Pipes.
 * It's not at all clear when the story is set. All three Mini-Autobots are cadets at the academy, but in his previous appearances Outback was a regular soldier. It's possible this story is set some years in the past.

Reprints

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