Marvel UK Transformers Intro & Format

The Marvel UK Transformers comic series spanned 332 issues over about an eight year publishing run, which was about a full year longer than its US counterpart. The final issue sported a January 1992 cover date and featured the second half of the story that had also concluded the US Marvel Transformers Comics (US issue #80). This was the typical format for the series, smaller installments (typically 11 pages), so that issues from the American run were broken up over two issues when reprinted the UK Transformers magazine. Such was the case with the first issue of the Marvel US Transformers run, which made up the first 2 issues of the Marvel UK run. In fact the first 8 issues of the Marvel UK series were devoted to reprinting the first 4 issues of the American series. So with issues 9-12 of the Marvel UK Transformers series, we got the first of many original Transformers story published by the Marvel UK office. This "Man of Iron" story arc would later be imported over to the US and make up issues 33 & 34 of the US Marvel Transformers run. This was just the beginning, the series sold like gangbusters, and the Marvel UK Transformers series quickly took on a life of its own, spawning many amazing Transformers epics that created much of the rich tapestry of Transformers mythos that are still explored today. Some of these epics include Target 2006, Legacy of Unicron, Fallen Angel, and Time Wars, which to me personally are four of the best Transformers story arcs ever written.

US material that was reprinted in the UK included 78 US Marvel Comics (the Marvel run was 80 issues, but as previously mentioned, 2 of those issues were devoted to reprinting the Man of Iron story that originated in the Marvel UK Run), the Headmasters 4 issue mini-series, and the Transformers vs. GI JOE. The 3 issue adaption of the 1986 Transformers movie was also reprinted, but instead of being released as a reprint broken up over 6 issues, it was released in one large volume under the Collected Comics banner. Like its US counterpart, material was reprinted or repackaged in a number of ways to get the older content back on the stands and in the hands of newer readers.
Most of these reprint options will be covered in future posts.

During most of its life, the Marvel UK Transformers series saw weekly publication, but in its first and final year of publication, the book was published every 2 weeks. And so
issues #1-26 were released on this once every 14 days publishing schedule (fortnightly), as were issues #309-332. So the 282 issues in between saw a weekly publishing schedule. Typically the monthly US issue would be split up into 2 UK issues, so assuming 12 Transformers issues a year published by Marvel in the United States, reprints of US material accounted for roughly 24 of the 52 issues put out a year in the UK. So the Marvel UK office was responsible for churning out even more original content then their US counterparts in the peak of the Transformers boom.

In addition to weekly or fortnightly publishing of the Transformers comic, there were also the Hardcover Transformers Annuals. These hardback comic and activity collections were a pretty standard offering for UK comic series, almost every ongoing superhero comic title that got imported from the US and repackaged in the UK would get these Hardcover annuals, so there were the norm for British readers. But they sure seem like special treasures to me and other US readers. These Hardcover annuals typically featured a combination of comic stories and prose stories, as well as Transformer themed games and puzzles, like word finds, crosswords, mazes, etc. Some of these activities and games also so light in the US and Canada via the many Transformers activity and coloring books. There were 7 of these Annuals during the G1 comic run, the first 5 of these Annuals featured new comic story content, while the last 2 annuals contained just reprint material from previous weekly comic features, but with the hardcover format and additional activities, it still feels like a premium format for some great material.

In short, the Marvel UK comics took on a separate life of their own, fleshing out the Transformers back story and mythos beyond what was done by its US counterpart, and the end result is some amazing reading material, that for many American based Transformers fans, hasn't even been explored or made widely available until recent years. It makes for an untapped gold mine of material to discover for G1 fans, and so it will be a primary focus of this blog to cover the Marvel
Transformers series (both UK & US runs) chronologically as they were released, following the UK publishing timeline as a our guide, meaning that we'll cover the Man of Iron story issues immediately after covering the first 4 issues of the US series, not waiting until we hit issues 33 and 34 of the US run where it was reprinted.

If you'd like to follow along, the easiest way is to grab the IDW reprints of the US & UK material, starting with Transformers Classics Vol 1 and Transformers Classics UK Vol 1.

For more information on the Marvel UK series, immerse yourself in the wealth of content on the subject at the TF Wiki.