Whose Lifeforce Is It Anyway?

	; "Whoa. Shiny."
	"Whose Lifeforce Is It Anyway?"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	17th December 1989
Cover date	23rd December 1989
Writer	Simon Furman
Art	Staz
Letterer	Stuart Bartlett
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity (Marvel UK)
Chronology	1989 (Flashbacks pre-Arklaunch)

Can Longtooth finally do the right thing?

Synopsis

Cybertron—to the annoyance of Doubleheader and Pincher, Longtooth is doing another death-defying charge on the Decepticons! The "fearless Longtooth" is beginning to grate on them, with Pincher stating he thinks Longtooth doesn't care if he's hit.

After the mission, they're called back to Autobase by Xaaron to be briefed on a mission involving the Creation Matrix. Longtooth is suddenly terrified, as he's not brave at all, but is secretly a selfish coward. Long ago, before the Ark launch, he was left alone after a battle that saw thousands die. He desperately tried to keep a comrade alive solely because he was too scared to be on his own, but Optimus Prime saw this and believed Longtooth was being altruistic. With considerable effort, Prime broke off a fragment of Matrix energy and gave it to Longtooth so he could save his friend.

Instead, Longtooth gave in to temptation and kept the fragment, ensuring he would always have an "extra life" in case he was badly injured. His comrade survived purely by luck. Longtooth has since constantly thrown himself into battle out of guilt and with an in-built "out".

He barely listens to the mission briefing—to search for the lost Matrix—and on the way out, he sees a group of Autobots, fresh from battle and mourning the death of their comrade, who had sacrificed himself. Unable to live with his actions anymore, he sends the Matrix fragment to Earth, where it can help the many deactivated there. "I can never undo what's been done—that shame is mine to bear..." but now he has a chance to start over.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots
Doubleheader (1) Pincher (2) Longtooth (3) Longtooth's comrade (4) Optimus Prime (5) Emirate Xaaron (6)

Quotes

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

Continuity errors

Longtooth has a Pretender shell four million years ago, despite organic life being a shocking new concept in the first Transformers issues. This is one of several stories that includes this contradiction, including "The Magnificent Six!".

Continuity notes

This is Longtooth's debut, and he's presented as a selfish, cowardly loser—quite an odd thing for a character debut, but it's certainly more striking and memorable than his later hunting-a-whale.
The heavy number of deactivated on Earth follows on from "Dark Star" as well as "Time Wars" and "Totaled!".
Although this was written as a tie-in to "Matrix Quest", the storyline itself wouldn't actually kick off for another thirteen issues. "Bird of Prey!" glosses over this by having Xaaron imply he'd been allocating resources to questing for the Matrix since even before "The Primal Scream", and that You Know Who had only brought the matter to the forefront.

Real-life references

The issue title seems to be a nod to the British telefilm and play Whose Life Is It Anyway? (Another possibility is the British-then-American improv series Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but this is remote as it had only been on television for a year when the issue was released, and the title more closely mimics the telefilm.)

Other trivia

Longtooth's friend was not named in the story, but decades later the Facebook edition of Ask Vector Prime would retcon him to be Clockwise, an Autobot mentioned in Transformers Comic-Magazin #19.

Back-up material

Additional Transformers story: "Skin Deep"
Other strips: G.I. Joe the Action Force - "The Lower Depths" and Combat Colin
AtoZ: Razorclaw and Red Alert
With this issue the cover logo changes from Action Force to G.I. Joe the Action Force. This had been explained as a merger between the European and American groups in a mini-comic given away with issue #245 and reflected a change in the toyline packaging.

Foreign Localization

Swedish

Title: "Vems Livsgnista är det egentligen?" (Whose Lifespark is it Really?")

Cover

Issue #249 cover: Longtooth looks at his fragment of Matrix energy, by Mario Capaldi.

Issue #249

Generics

As with most stories set on Cybertron (particularly those featuring flashbacks) this issue features some notable generics, not least Longtooth's unnamed friend.

Longtooth attends to his injured friend amidst a slew of dead generics.
A squad of generic Autobots mourn their fallen comrade.

Reprints

Transformers: Way of the Warrior: Carnivac and Springer stand victorious over a Limbo nightmare creature, by Simon Coleby.
Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Vol 19: Perchance to Dream: Megatron (from early IDW promo art), by Guido Guidi above a retro scene of the Battlechargers (from Marvel UK #255 cover) by Stephen Baskerville.

Way of the Warrior
(Titan Books, 2005)
The Definitive G1 Collection Vol. 19 (Hachette Partworks, Ltd., 2017)

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Whose Lifeforce Is It Anyway?

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