Transformation 326: In the Blood.

9/8/2018

This week, it your last chance to get excited by Action Masters. Plus, Autobot security is a bit rubbish, the Neo Knights realise they're shit and Galvatron meets an old friend.

All this and the death of Combat Colin in my look at EXODUS PART 2!

8 Comments

Mr. Shhhhh

10/8/2018 10:52:06 pm

Promoting the X-Men at this point was a pretty sensible move for Marvel UK - this period marked the peak of the X-books' popularity stateside, indeed X-Men #1 (the one with the four covers) broke all records by selling 8.1 million copies. Not sure if they'd have known about the upcoming launch of the animated series too but, of all the properties they'd have had access to, the X-Men would likely have seemed a pretty safe bet for their next big earner.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

13/8/2018 12:48:59 pm

There was also an X-Men toyline launched in 1991 in the states which I recall had made it over here by the end of 1992 so it wouldn't have hurt to build up some interest here. But as this is the US issue it may well be a case of Marvel US looking to drum up sales further in overseas markets (and, depending on stock, possibly even trying to clear some of the absurd over-orders by putting some out on the international newsstand with a promotional drive).

I suspect Marvel UK would have pushed the X-Men earlier had they still been doing much superhero stuff in the preceding four and a half years. They were announced in the Incredible Hulk Presents #12 as coming to the series in New Year 1990 (the evidence would suggest they would have displaced the Doctor Who strip from #14) but that title folded before it could happen. I think 1991 was also the year the X-Men got an annual after quite a while (there's details of a "1992" annual on the internet with all the problems of determining the year) - has there been an advert for the annuals in the comic yet?

Charles RB

12/8/2018 09:10:22 pm

This is a fun comparison to the IDW work - a post-war period where the Autobots and Decepticons are too mutually pissy to want to work together is basically the IDW status quo since 2012, but in the old-school it could only be done for two issues post-Unicron so toys could still be flogged. (And yet when G2 comes back, it's back to uneasy-peace by #8!) You can see the change in how comics were made and what the readership is.

(Also, boy, does the Unicron plot done for 90s kids and teenagers work better than the one made for adults)

John D. link

14/8/2018 07:36:03 am

I bought some x-men comics around this time but I cant remember if they were UK. I'm sure andy wildman drew some or all of them though. And they introduced some fairly basic concepts and seemed to (unusually I believe) lean on Gambit and not Wolverine.

I have read MTMTE and Lost Light vol1 so far but I agree IDW's Unicron seems pretty hard to understand! Feels very "RiD" which I did try but couldn't get into the Bumblebee as pacifist Winston Churchill vibe

bouncelot

15/8/2018 01:51:49 am

Wiki says that Andy became the regular artist on X-Men Adventures (the comic strip adaptation of the animated series), which was a US comic. So you most likely picked up some Gambit-focused issues of that, and simply remember having them a bit earlier than they were actually published.

Lee

14/8/2018 02:45:18 pm

https://telos.co.uk/shop/cult-tv/transform-and-roll-out/ This book looks interesting. I see Transformers Classics UK Vol. 6 has now been put back to 28th of November (my 43rd birthday).

Stuart

14/8/2018 04:02:35 pm

That book's by regular commentator on this site Ryan Frost, so it should be good.

Ah, Classics UK6...

Felicity

31/12/2019 09:22:08 pm

Bludgeon needs some whitening toothpaste!

Thunderpunch thinks the Neo-Knights almost singlehandedly saved the planet? They definitely contributed, but they certainly weren’t the only ones.

It’s sad that Prowl, the Autobot strategist, the tactician who can track 800 moving objects simultaneously and instantly compute a countermove, didn’t plan for the Decepticons’ betrayal, just so that Grimlock can continue to be made to look good.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if Grimlock and Prowl hadn’t been set up as enemies, and if Grimlock weren’t written as being such as an asshole; then the way it could have gone is that Prowl wasn’t foolish, he just wanted peace so much that he let himself believe it was possible. And Grimlock could have said that he sympathises and he wished it was for real too, but just in case, he wants Prowl to make a contingency plan…then Grimlock can be the one to have the Autobot leader wisdom to know that the peace is temporary, Prowl can be the one to have come up with the plan, and everyone’s still friends.

Whenever I see Galvatron and Megatron standing there together I try to see if there’s any facial resemblance between the two. I still can’t decide.

What cannibalistic nutter did Bob Budiansky create? Master Mouth?

Here we go, the “multiple covers” era begins. I guess it really started with the multiple covers to Todd McFarlane’s “Spider-Man” #1, which sold millions of copies. There’s no right answer. Completists will always buy the complete set, and the comic company isn’t going to stop doing what makes them more money…the government would have to pass a law to fix this.

Transformation 326: In the Blood.

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