The Gear Wars are a historical series of conflicts first mentioned in season 1, episode 11, "Ricksy Business," by Revolio Clockberg Junior, who Rick refers to as Gearhead (though the show later implies this is a racial epithet.) Part of a running gag on the show, the Gear Wars pastiche heavy-handed sci-fi exposition, as a character with lots to say about an ancient conflict is ignored instead of indulged. Of course, one of Rick and Morty's greatest tricks is getting fans invested in its lore even as it mocks them for caring.

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In Rick and Morty Presents: Jerryboree! #1, fans get to learn some of the details Revolio likely shared in those unseen moments where he actually managed to corner an unsuspecting audience. In the comic, the owner of the Jerryboree - an interdimensional daycare where Ricks can leave their Jerrys while off on perilous adventures - takes his Jerrys to the intergalactic arcade known as Blips and Chitz. There, one down on his luck Jerry encounters what he thinks will be a fun shooting game set in the Gear Wars, but which turns out to be a trivia machine that grows more and more frustrated as he gives the wrong answers.

Characteristically, the comic contradicts most of what fans thought they knew, as the first question asks how many wars are considered part of the Gear Wars, and Jerry discovers the answer is "one." It's also revealed that, taking place in the Gear System, and implied to involve gears both as a coveted resource and a weapon, the Gear Wars' deadliest weapon was considered to be propaganda, and the conflict was ended by a treaty written by Tom Stephenson. The machine also asserts that the Austro-Hungearian Empire entered the Gear Wars for the sheer love of war, and that the Gear Wars were fought over "the gears" rather than "economic crisis."

At this point, Jerry X-198's answers so enrage the machine that it refuses to let him play any longer, stamping his forehead with "GEAROPHOBE" and calling him a bigot. It's a scene that adds some surprising specificity to a conflict that has otherwise been deliberately obscured to fans of Rick and Morty, but creates contradictions that carry dark implications of their own. Revolio originally explains, "The thing people don't realize about the Gear Wars is that it was never really about the gears at all." Given how directly this contradicts the machine's final question, it's easy for fans to read a hidden intent in the machine's 'correct' answers, especially as it seems intent on revising which conflicts can be considered part of the Wars, and seemingly villifies the Austro-Hungearian Empire by claiming it ed the Gear Wars for "love of war" rather than due to a "gear shortage."

Not only is this typically chilling for a Rick and Morty throwaway gag, but it recharacterizes Revolio's reasoning for constantly wanting to talk about the Gear Wars. If one of the most popular establishments in the galaxy includes a machine designed to spread propaganda about the causes of the Gear Wars and which conflicts can even be included in that umbrella, it makes sense he'd want his friends to hear a different side of the story; one which acknowledges this conflict, still relevant to the Gear System after "about" 754 years, isn't as cut and dried as official sources seem to claim. It turns out the Gear Wars are yet another Rick and Morty reference that gets darker (albeit funnier) the more you know.

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