That's not how you use a phone, Johnny.
"Have the Decepticons defeated us once and for all?" was the third toy pack-in flyer from which other Transformers could be ordered. All of the toys available (who made up the cast of the story, minus Johnny) were either being discontinued from the main line or had never been available outside of mail-order.
- Preceded by: Earthlings: The S.T.A.R.S. Need Your Help Now!
- Followed by: Can One Boy, Alone, Hold Back the Evil Decepticons?
- Release date: 1985
- Characters (in order of appearance): Johnny, Thundercracker, Sunstreaker, Ratchet, Downshift, Camshaft, Wheeljack, Mirage, Overdrive
Synopsis[]
He's cutting through space-time, right into the next page!
Note: A portion of this flyer is written in the second person, recruiting the reader into S.T.A.R.S. While the story proper is presented in traditional omniscient-narrator third-person, the style of the other S.T.A.R.S.-related material suggests that this entire flyer is propaganda which exists within its own fiction.
While Overdrive's message seemed to be aimed at G.I. Joe members, this one was meant to recruit the young. It began with a tale about a boy named Johnny who was watching TV when suddenly all the power went out. While the others in the house called out for him, he rushed to the roof and scanned the skies with his telescope until he found the source of the disturbance: Thundercracker, hovering above the town and absorbing its energy with a bright white beam. Johnny knew what to do: get to his S.T.A.R.S. Control Center (which was somehow still powered-up) and alert the Autobots. In response, a team of seven Autobots arrived one-by-one and met up with Johnny.
Doomed! Doomed! You're all DOOOOMED!
The story ended there, and the reader was invited to join S.T.A.R.S. The membership kit was the same as before, but with briefer descriptions. In addition to that, a recruit could also order two videocassettes detailing Transformer strategy. At the top of the order form, the reader was urged to "use this interplanetary transmission report to thwart Thundercracker's evil aims."
Notes[]
- This continues a loose story that runs through a few years' worth of toy pack-in flyers. The micro-continuity conforms to no particular major continuity, but it's also vague enough that it doesn't contradict anything too blatantly.
- This mailaway was also released in Australia in 1989. Instead of the videocassettes, the Time Warrior was also included. Stocks of the Omnibots and Time Warrior ran out early on during the promotion and these were substituted by Hasbro Australia for the Rescue Patrol and either Hun-Grr or Scattorshot respectively.