Earthforce

Earthforce is a group of Earth-stationed Autobots from the Marvel portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Grimlock puts his (dinosaur mode) foot down.

Earthforce is the name of a cell of Autobots commanded by Grimlock and stationed on Earth to counter the rising threats of Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, and Shockwave and their respective armies in 1990.^[1] Grimlock formed his group as a reaction to Optimus Prime's command regimen, which he interprets as weak and counterproductive to ending the Decepticon menace.

Earthforce's base of operations is in northern Canada. They get into lots of not-so-serious hijinks.

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

Ratchet, Sunstreaker
Way before Groundbreaker
There was Huffer and Mirage
And Bumblebee in Spike's garage
I still kick it old school
Don't tell me that I'm so uncool
Or that I'm too absorbed
With 19, 19, 1984.

After Galvatron revived Prowl, Ironhide, Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, and Silverbolt on the Ark, intent on mind-controlling them, they rebelled and sealed Galvatron away in the Ark's medbay. ...Perchance to Dream They woke into a dangerous situation: Unicron was nearing Cybertron, causing Optimus Prime began to focus less on Earth Break-Away!, while Decepticon leadership was in severe flux once more. Starting Over!

On March 24,^[2] Break-Away! Optimus dispatched Wheeljack and Prowl to the Arizona desert to investigate Decepticon activity. Musing about the simplicity of the old days, they stumbled across Megatron, the Constructicons, and the Stunticons, deep into a plan to detonate Earth's atmosphere and convert it into energon. Naturally, they jump it! Starting Over! Meanwhile, the Dinobots were ambushed by Shockwave, Starscream, Ravage, and the Battlechargers, demanding to know how Grimlock was able to revive them without using the Creation Matrix. In the middle of the Dinobots' retaliation, Optimus Prime interrupted them angrily, asking them to be mindful of the humans' civilization and to adhere to the Autobot Code. Grimlock was pissed off that Optimus was restricting them and believed him ignorant of the conditions in the field. Two Steps Back!

Fighting crime in a never time!

Back on the Ark, Grimlock publicly announced his dissatisfaction with Prime's leadership and threatened to take his Dinobots and leave the Autobots for good. Optimus Prime dismissed Grimlock's behavior as a tantrum, prompting a battle between the two that ended in stalemate. Conceding to Grimlock partially, Optimus Prime allowed Grimlock to be the Autobot Commander on Earth, so long as he played less rough than usual. A group of Autobots entered the room and announced that Prowl and Wheeljack had foiled Megatron's plan to detonate a deadly heat-trapping gas in Earth's atmosphere, but were in danger and needed backup. With Prime's blessing, these Autobots joined the Dinobots to form the Earthforce. Break-Away!

Before leading his troops to save Wheeljack and Prowl, Grimlock decided to prove a point by "reading" the Autobot Code (which he'd told Prime he'd acknowledge) as if it was a simplistic fairy story about how being nice would stop the Decepticons. He then literally threw it out and fired up his men by telling him they'd do things their own way. Once upon a Time...

Wheeljack was found but Prowl was left missing in action after personally jumping on the Decepticon satellite. Life in the Slow Lane While searching for him, Ironhide and Bumblebee found and destroyed a partially-constructed duplicate Devastator, under construction because the Constructicons had lost the ability to combine. Desert Island Risks! Jazz and Sunstreaker, meanwhile, found that Prowl had neutralized the gas days ago and was enjoying the relaxed pace of south Louisiana. They put their feet up and watched Megatron and Shockwave's rival teams get into a fight over the deactivated weapon. Life in the Slow Lane

Later, while Shockwave searched for the Earthforce base (and failed to find it), Snow Fun! Megatron gained access to a Flashback Doorway. The Autobots raided his base, only to find he'd already gone back in time. Prowl followed him back to the era of the Underbase Saga, to stop him from recruiting the Seacons to his cause. Flashback! A third Decepticon crisis happened when Mindwipe attempted to brainwash humanity into serving him via novelty lights (stop sniggering) but the Autobots handily stopped him. The Living Nightlights!

Simon Furman did serious, epic stories, not like those lame-os at Sunbow or Bob Budiansky!

In fact, the Earthforce had it quite easy! So easy that as they slowly reactivated the Aerialbots and tried to build an actual baseMystery!, they still had time to carry on with April Fools' Day japes and whacky misunderstandings! Snow Fun! Mystery! They'd have been really screwed if the splintered Decepticons had actually united, but several of the team managed to disrupt the Decepticons' Enclave, preventing this from happening. A bit of sneaky work managed to kickstart a Decepticon Civil War, no less! Party time! The Bad Guy's Ball!

Elsewhere on Earth, the very unwhacky renegade Decepticon Carnivac was making a solo attack on the Mayhem Attack Squad. Cry Wolf! His teammates in the Survivors (despite Springer's reluctance to deal with Grimlock) appealed to Earthforce for help. Prowl pointed out to Grimlock that this would give them five new members and this swung him on providing aid; the expanded Earthforce took the surviving Mayhems prisoner, welcomed Carnivac into their ranks, and felt really uncomfortable when he told them he wanted the Mayhems taking prisoner so they'd suffer more. Wolf in the Fold! Where Wolf?

The Decepticon Civil War continued, but Soundwave and Starscream both began working against their alleged commanders—Soundwave even had Megatron lured into an ambush for Shockwave, while Starscream (disgruntled at being less influential) plotted to usurp his own boss. Secrets Bugged! Starscream hit on a plan to unify the Decepticons and blackmailed Soundwave into helping him. They set up a clash between Megatron and Shockwave, then let the Autobots attack them while they took control of the Decepticon factions and united them into a single army under dual leadership (both plotting to backstab the other later). Internal Affairs!

Prowl decides who to pick next for his kickball team

The Autobots had finished and fortified their new Earthbase, though a flaw in their design caused them to temporarily switch the defences off, The House that Wheeljack Built! thus leaving them vulnerable to the first massed Decepticon assault on their HQ. Pinned down, the Autobots couldn't send anyone to stop Starscream's attacks elsewhere. Prowl had anticipated this though. The Survivors had been sent on patrol and were thus to confront Starscream. Outnumbered, he fled and called the entire attack off, and Soundwave took the opportunity to mention to the Decepticons "look how bad Starscream's plan was, clearly I should be in charge!". Divide and Conquer!

Optimus Prime came to Autobot Earthbase for an ill-timed inspection visit, just as Slag was driven to run wild by a cerebral circuit flaw, causing many hijinks as the other Dinobots struggled to keep his condition secret from the Autobot leader. The 4,000,000 Year Itch! Prime also inspected the base's "bodyshop", which was used to reanimate the long-inert Tracks (a resurrection Grimlock had been desperately trying to prevent). Makin' Tracks!

After Prime's visit, the imprisoned Mayhem Squaddies managed to escape, viciously injuring Inferno in the process. Shut Up! Shortly after, Jazz put an end to Octane's "games" with humans by tricking him into entering an army firing range while full of very-explodable fuel. (We never did see Octane again...) Manoeuvres!

The Decepticon Civil War flared up again when Megatron and Shockwave put out a contract on Starscream's head, knowing he'd blame Soundwave and go after him—and either they or their assassins could finish off whoever remained and take control of their armies again. The plan failed when the Autobots got involved: Snarl had fallen ill with Corrodia Gravis and with Starscream as the only compatible Transformer who could provide Snarl with the needed circuit-boost, Grimlock was required to order his troops to protect Starscream from his enemies. Assassins External Forces! The Lesser Evil!

When Bombshell implanted a cerebro-shell to send Superion on a rampage, the Autobots recruited a human reporter to get the shell out. Inside Story! They gladly gave him a tour of their base and full interviews in gratitude, but the Decepticons abducted him and planted another cerebro shell to ensure that the story he wrote painted the Autobots in a negative light. In injury to insult, this was after a number of Autobots had been injured in what they believed was a successful rescue mission. End of the Road!

"We were doing comedy stories just a few paragraphs ago, man."

With the Matrix still lost and a Decepticon alliance ruined beyond repair, Optimus decided to search for the original site of the Underbase - having discovered it was linked into the centre of Cybertron and thus to Primus, they intended to use the site to tap into Primus' energies and use it as a substitute for the Matrix against Unicron. Six of the Earthforce team were either called in or had already rejoined Prime's main force aboard the Ark, and were dispatched to the Acid Wastes to search. Unknown to either Prime or the sixth member, Silverbolt, most of the team had been here before as the "Magnificent Six" and had suffered brutal torture at the hands of the mad Decepticon known as Megadeath. As you'd expect in a Transformers story, Megadeath was still there and even madder. With Silverbolt's help, they faced up to personal demons, defeated him, and continued looking for the Underbase site. The Magnificent Six!

In 1992, Snarl's donated circuit-boost had failed and he had Corrodia Gravis again. The Dinobots theorized that the central control crystal from the shuttle which first brought them to Earth could help, storing Snarl's cerebral patterns until a new body could be constructed for him. However, the crystal was being used by a paleontologist named Professor Embrey to stop a wasting disease that was killing off the dinosaurs in the Savage Land. Swoop arranged a solution by using the crystal to transfer Snarl's mind into a living Stegosaurus, so he could remain in Embrey's care until a new body could be made for him. Destiny of the Dinobots!

Members

Initial team

Joining later

Continuity

Part of an attempt to help sell Europe's Classics line of reissues, the Earthforce stories, black and white backup material for the issue's "main" story, intentionally harken back to the simpler era of Transformers' early years. Although the stories were independent material, they often included tie-ins to the main story with references to such topics as Unicron approaching and Grimlock's attempts to revive his comrades. However, many of these tie-ins were referred to in advance of them actually occurring in the continuity proper. It appears to the reader that writer Simon Furman knew vaguely what was going to happen in the future of the comic, so he wrote these stories with references to these future events.

Simon Furman has since stated that a key part of the problem was that due to publishing deadlines, the altered format of the UK comic and the shorter US stories, he found that attempts to write UK strips tying into the concurrent US stories proved near impossible as the UK comic kept interrupting the US strips with reprints of old UK stories in order to widen the gap in publishing. This in turn meant that the UK stories often pre-empted upcoming surprises in the US strips. Consequently, he abandoned efforts to tie the two strips together.^[3] He has since stated that even he finds it hard to place the Earthforce stories.^[4] Largely this has been considered a pseudocanon revelation that the Earthforce Saga is irreconcilable with the main Marvel Comics continuity. Based on these quotes, the stories were obviously intended to fit into the continuity, but any approach to make this a reality has problems.

A 2015 Facebook entry of Ask Vector Prime did what we all have been doing for years and said this was an entirely separate timeline: universal stream designate Primax 290.03 Gamma.

But when does it diverge?

"I TRIED TO WORK OUT EARTHFORCE CONTINUITY AND IT DIDN'T DO ME ANY HARM!!"

Titan Books claimed that it was Galvatron II in "Perchance". If so, and considering the Dinobots have been brought back by Nucleon and Shockwave's got most of his "Surrender!" team together, you could make an argument for the divergence being around about there: instead of going after Cybertron, Galvatron gave Hook, Line, and Sinker the slip and flew to the Ark. This explains why the Ark is empty (the events of "Surrender!" did leave it empty in the main timeline) and ties into Optimus saying the chances of Decepticon alliance "wrecked beyond all hope of salvage" in "The Magnificent Six!", which implies an alternate "Surrender".

The main flaw (besides "why is Unicron taking so long") is that Megatron is still alive and well, unmerged with Ratchet and with no mind-link problems. While Autobots don't expect him to be on Earth in "Starting Over!", they're not too surprised he's alive and plotting. That would point to a divergence in "Skin Deep", though not one big enough to butterfly away "The Primal Scream".

Ask Vector Prime says this timeline was the result of a timestorm in Primax 984.20 Gamma, caused by Cyclonus dying before his birth in "Dry Run!". The universal stream number given is Primax 290.03 Gamma, taken from the date "Perchance" was first published. Perhaps it's not a clean divergence.

Legacy

There are several references and nods made in later stories back to Earthforce, and if the Earthforce (or similar) events happen in continuity then there are many lasting effects:

"Me Grimlock no see Tracks. We have a chance!"

• Several members of the Earthforce team are shown joining the battle with Unicron. Though the presence of most of them could be explained by the need to push their Action Master toys (and it seems to be the only reason Blaster is there, as he was not an Earthforce character), the appearances of Skids, Ironhide, Silverbolt, and especially Sunstreaker are conspicuous, considering the Earthforce stories. (Sunstreaker's only prominent use in the Marvel Comics was in Earthforce. He was offline for most of it otherwise.)
• Earthforce seems like a logical step in the development of Grimlock as a leader. Without the stories he skips straight from the megalomaniac from "Totaled!" to a fairly serious (though unorthodox) leader in "Still Life!". Spending time as a highly rebellious leader who is both stern and goofy makes it feel like his character goes through a higher level of development.
• Runabout and Runamuck showing up alive and established as working with Shockwave in "Surrender!" is consistent with Earthforce. Without Earthforce, there is no explanation, implicit or explicit, suggested for their return in the US comics. Of course, that doesn't prevent a mysterious return from a death in "Still Life!" for one later in "New Dawn".

And Furman's original plans for the American title post-#75 would have included Transformers on Earth, including Megatron, Starscream, and Shockwave, while Optimus chases down Bludgeon's army: a recycling of the Earthforce setup!^[5]

Notes

• According to the Transformers: Prey trade paperback collection, Earthforce is stationed in northern Canada because Simon Furman really likes polar bears. This is why there's one drawn in nearly every establishing shot.

References