The Greatest Gift of All!

It's Christmas Day, 1989. Longtooth's piece of the Creation Matrix has reached Optimus Prime. 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 Prime 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 Prime 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!"

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Optimus Prime (1) Seaspray (2) Stakeout (3) Seawatch (4) Fixit (5) Red Hot (6) Silverbolt (8)	Whisper (7) Tailwind (9) Nightflight (10) Storm Cloud (11)

Quotes

"When asked how he chose which Autobot to give life to, the Autobot's leader replied 'I flipped a coin.' No, I don't think so..."

— Optimus Prime decides against random selection.

"We've got him cornered, Prime. With his wings clipped, there's nowhere left to go!"

— Stakeout enjoying his work.

"He has a Christmas gift...the greatest gift of all...he gives it gladly to the Earth!"

— Closing narration

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

Continuity errors

Continuity notes

This is the last UK strip that ties into the US strip—after this comes a four-part (and last) post-movie strip, and then Earthforce.
It's also the last Marvel UK Christmas story in strip form! *sob* British fans would have to put up with "Dreadwind's Xmas!" the following year and then wait until 2010 for another one.
Seaspray has been taken offline at some point since we saw him in issue #212.
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 properly.
The scores of Autobot wounded are primarily from "Dark Star", when the Underbase-powered Starscream decimated their ranks.
This takes place after Ratchet was presumed dead ("Skin Deep"), which is why Optimus needs a medic. However, Fixit, who is seen among the Earth Autobots in this story, has taken over the role by "Eye of the Storm".
The Rescue Patrol arrived on Earth in "The Primal Scream".

Real-life references

Other trivia

On the cover, Bumblebee is playing with a toy of himself. This would not be the last time a Bumblebee would do such a thing.

Back-up material

Additional Transformers story: "Skin Deep"
Other strips: Combat Colin
AtoZ: Rewind and Rumble
Combat Colin is in a full-colour strip that references the Transformers' party depicted on the cover.
This issue also featured a competition where readers could win one of 30 Micro-master pocket bases[sic] by identifying which six Transformers had been mixed up in the matter transmitter — they were Jetfire, Optimus Prime, Mirage, Onslaught, Megatron and Headstrong.