Destiny of the Dinobots!

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"Destiny of the Dinobots!"
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First published	1st August 1989
Cover date	1990
Plot	Steve White
Plot/Script	Steve Alan
Art	Andy Wildman
Colour	Steve White
Letters	Glib
Dinosaur consultant	Steve White
Continuity	Marvel Comics continuity (Marvel UK)
Chronology	Post-Time Wars future (1992) OR Earthforce

The Dinobots return to the Savage Land.

Synopsis

In the hidden valley of Antarctica known as the Savage Land, the Dinobots are confronted by a stampede of real dinosaurs. They fend off the rampaging beasts while protecting the reason for their mission: Snarl, who has been infected with the wasting disease known as Corrodia Gravis. They had returned to the Savage Land to find the shuttle pod they used to first reach there from the Ark four million years ago, as it contained a unique control crystal which could salvage and contain Snarl's mind until a new body could be made for him. Unfortunately, the crystal is missing. While tracking the crystal, the Dinobots are assaulted by some salvaged weaponry from the shuttle. As Grimlock crashes through it, he runs into the human controlling the weapon, a paleontologist named Professor Embrey. It seems the professor had been using the control crystal as the basis for a healing machine that was keeping the dinosaurs alive and free of a "saurian disease" driving them to madness and death. Instead, Swoop comes up with the idea to transfer Snarl's mind out of his dying body and into that of a real stegosaurus as a temporary measure until a new body can be found for him. The Dinobots then prepare to leave, with the Snarl-osaurus left in Embrey's care.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

I've an idea so sneaky you could pin a purple pin on it and call it Decepticon.

—Swoop channels his inner Blackadder

Notes

Artwork and technical errors

• TBD

Continuity errors

• TBD

Continuity notes

"Bring out your dead!"

• This story is set in 1992, after the original run of the comic would end.
• The fact that Snarl is being written out of the Dinobots here suggests the story might have been intended to explain his near-total absence from the team in The Transformers: The Movie.
• Snarl's wasting disease was later mentioned in "Assassins", a story that chronologically takes place first. The Earthforce run hadn't started yet and Snarl appeared to be saved there in "The Lesser Evil!"; either this story and those stories aren't in continuity with each other, or the donated parts didn't take and Snarl got sick again as can happen with organ donations. With Earthforce continuity, it could be either! What Furman's plan with Corrodia Gravis was (was he just pinching an idea he thought was neat or did he intend a tie-in?) is unknown.
• The control crystal was supposed to be aboard the shuttlecraft which first brought the Dinobots to the Savage Land, as seen in the flashback of US #4.
• The control crystal and the mechanism that housed it was first used in "Rock and Roll-Out!" to transfer the minds of Grapple, Skids, Smokescreen, Tracks, and Hoist into new bodies.
• Considering Snarl is well known for hating his dino-mode, this is kind of a fate-worse-than-death situation, isn't it..?

Real-life references

• TBD

Other trivia

• TBD

Reprints

• Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection: Volume 23: Destiny

• 

  Definitive G1 Collection: Chapter 23; art by Don Figueroa (Blaster) and retro art by Guido Guidi and Stephen Baskerville.