The Transformers (Marvel Comics)

The original fiction to feature the Transformers was a series by Marvel. While originally starting in the US, nearly all of the Marvel US stories were later published in Marvel UK, the latter of which went on for about a year longer than its American counterpart and had about twice as many stories.

Marvel US

Started life as a four-issue bimonthly limited series, but proved so popular that it continued publication as an ongoing monthly, making it to 80 issues and spinning off several other titles.

Marvel UK

Marvel UK produced a G1 comic which ran for 332 issues, published fortnightly from #1 to #26, and weekly from #27 onwards. These issues used a larger, magazine-sized format, compared to the traditional size for modern US comic books. They contained 23 pages, numbered inclusive of advertising (unlike the US comic). Typically, 11 pages would be devoted to a US or UK Transformers story, while the remaining pages were divided between a back-up strip, a letters page, small humorous comic strips (most notably Robo-Capers and Combat Colin), and advertisements. From issue 213 onwards, the central section of the comic was printed in black and white, and contained a shorter UK story. The US strip remained in color but was divided between four issues. This was the format for the majority of the issues published between #215 and #289. Issue #289 was the last to contain new UK Transformers stories.

UK children's comics typically have a weekly or fortnightly publication schedule, and monthly publication is the preserve of more substantial magazines aimed at older readers. The decision to publish fortnightly necessitated the division of the US storylines between two or more UK comics, since otherwise the UK comic would run out of material. The back-up strip then bulked out the issue to an acceptable size. When the comic began to be published weekly, this required still more Transformers material, which led to longer runs of original UK stories.

Almost all of the stories published in the Marvel US comic were reprinted in the UK version, although often with small editing changes, and the ongoing US storyline was used as the basis for UK stories. Occasionally the UK comic would diverge from the US comic in a fairly major way. For example, due to the fact that the Marvel GI Joe crossover, which featured Bumblebee's destruction and subsequent restoration as Goldbug, was not reprinted in the UK comic for several years, UK continuity accounted for the reformatting by showing Bumblebee destroyed by Death's Head and rebuilt by Wreck-Gar. Also, the UK comic continued to feature Megatron and Shockwave after their apparent deaths in the US comic. While Megatron's appearance was eventually reconciled with the US continuity, Shockwave's was not. The 'Perchance to Dream' story in UK #255-260 heralded a nigh-irreconcilable division between US and UK storylines.

Most UK-specific stories were written by Simon Furman, who was later assigned to write for the US comic as well. Curiously, it was from this point that the divergences became more pronounced.

Marvel UK Annuals

Marvel UK Annuals were published every year just before Christmas for the life of the comic. Each annual was made up of a combination of comic strip, text stories and editorial content. Some annuals also contained crossover stories with the main weekly comic in an attempt to boost sales. Due to falling sales later annuals mainly contained reprinted stories from the comic (reprinted stories are not listed below). These reprints are still of interest as they present formerly black and white works in full colour.

Marvel UK Annual 1990:
The Magnificent Six!

Marvel UK Annual 1991:
Another Time and Place

Trivia

• The inside cover infobox in Marvel UK #330 revealed that there were plans in the works for the UK Transformers comic to continue after #332, albeit with a format change. The book was supposed to have become a monthly with issue #333, and would have featured ten pages of recolored Transformers reprints, ten pages of G.I. Joe, and a new five-page story per issue. However, by the publication of issue #332, these plans were dropped.

• According to the third issue of All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z's entries on Death's Head, the events of the Marvel UK Generation 1 comics take place on Marvel Earth-120185.