The Transformers #70
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThe Transformers #70, titled 'The Price of Life!', marks the debut of the full creative team — writer Simon Furman, penciler Andrew Wildman, inker Stephen Baskerville, colorist Nel Yomtov, and editor Rob Tokar — that would carry the Marvel US series through to its final issue (#80), giving the book the most cohesive artistic identity of its entire run. The issue also serves as the narrative hinge on which Furman's endgame swings: it formally resolves the horrific Ratchet/Megatron molecular-fusion cliffhanger (itself a deliberate homage to the 1986 film The Fly) while simultaneously launching the Nucleon subplot through Grimlock's self-sacrifice on Hydrus Four, a thread that would ripple through every remaining issue. Together, these twin plotlines — one forcing Optimus Prime to choose between mercy and security, the other establishing Nucleon as the mechanism for the Dinobots' transformation into Action Masters — structurally set up the series' compressed final act and the eventual resurrection of Optimus Prime. For fans of the Generation One Marvel continuity, this issue functions as the true opening chapter of the endgame, and its Wildman cover of the agonized Ratchet/Megatron fusion became one of the most memorable images of the copper-age Transformers run.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 11 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
CGC 9.8 ▾ $400–$570 3 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $25.35–$39.99 6 listings
More listings for this title
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
Simon Furman had taken over the Marvel US Transformers title from Bob Budiansky starting with issue #56; Andrew Wildman and Stephen Baskerville, who had already worked with Furman on the British sister title, crossed over to the US book beginning with issue #69, meaning #70 was only their second American interior assignment together. Rob Tokar came aboard as the new series editor with this issue, rounding out the team under editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco. Furman has acknowledged that the Ratchet/Megatron fusion scenario was consciously shaped by the teleportation-accident horror of The Fly and its 1986 remake — an influence the Transformers Wiki notes extends even to the specific scene in which the fused creature holds a gun to its own head, mirroring that film's finale. The issue also contains a two-page Optimus Prime character profile written by outgoing writer Bob Budiansky, a small editorial gesture bridging the old regime and the new.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'The Price of Life!' — issue #70 of the 80-issue Marvel US run, cover-dated September 1990, on sale July 24, 1990.
- Full creative team: writer Simon Furman, penciler Andrew Wildman, inker Stephen Baskerville, colorist Nel Yomtov, letterer Rick Parker, editor Rob Tokar — this lineup (minus one fill-in issue at #75) would remain intact through the series' final issue, #80.
- Andrew Wildman simultaneously penciled the cover and interiors; his distinctive 'people in costumes' approach to robot anatomy — emphasizing expressiveness and emotional body language — debuted on the US title one issue prior (#69) and this issue consolidated it.
- The central plot resolves the Ratchet/Megatron molecular-fusion crisis introduced in the previous issue: Optimus Prime orders Micromaster medic Fixit to separate the two enemies even though doing so saves Megatron's life alongside Ratchet's — a morally loaded choice that defines Prime's character for the rest of the run.
- The Ratchet/Megatron fusion storyline was deliberately modeled on the horror-film premise of The Fly (specifically the 1986 remake), including a scene where the composite creature holds Prime's ion blaster to its own head — a direct visual callback to that film's climax.
- The parallel B-plot sends Grimlock to the planet Hydrus Four in search of the energized fluid called Nucleon; after witnessing the catastrophic side-effects it produces in native mechanoids, Grimlock tests it on himself first before reviving his comatose Dinobot crew — establishing Nucleon's unpredictable, transformative danger as a major plot device for the series' final arc.
- The issue includes a two-page Optimus Prime character profile credited to original series writer Bob Budiansky, running alongside the main Furman story.
- The story has been reprinted multiple times: in the UK weekly Transformers #309–310 (split across two issues), in Titan Books' 'All Fall Down' collected edition (2001), in IDW's Classic Transformers Vol. 5 (2009), in Hachette Partworks' Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection Vol. 18 ('Edge of Extinction', 2017), and in IDW's Transformers: Best of Megatron (2022), as well as the Skybound/Image Transformers Compendium #2 (scheduled October 2025).
Cast · 14 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Transformers #1/1991 (1991), Transformers #[13] (2001), Transformers: The Definitive G1 Collection #18 (2017), Transformers Compendium #2 (2025)
Key issues in The Transformers
Variants (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.