Transformation 56: Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

7/6/2013

Fancy a smoke? You won't after Megatron gives his very careful public service announcement as to the dangers of lighting up.

Also this week: The first appearance of Rack'N'Ruin, Soundwave playing Jeremy Beadle and a comic that works on more layers than anything ever written by Mike Costa. All in my look at:

I, Robot-Master! Part 2

And I know I promised weeks ago to try and tidy up the main Transformation page as it's getting more than a bit full now, but I really will try to sort it into sub-pages by year over the coming week.

6 Comments

bouncelot

7/6/2013 04:28:41 pm

Stu, are you sure that the other BIG Marvel UK Licensed comic was Star Wars (well, at this point Return of the Jedi), rather than Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly/Magazine?

Anyway, I loved the scenes in the TV shop, but Megatron's reaction to having to keep Donny as a pet are the highlight of this issue.

Stuart

7/6/2013 04:50:53 pm

Though Who is certainly the one with legs (both in terms of its overall legacy and the fact its still going) I think Star Wars was, overall, the real Big licensed property (it'd be interesting to see how its best sales figures compared to Transformers best) for Marvel UK, and certainly the one that's most like the Transformers model of alternating with American reprints and so on.

Even though Star Wars was petering out around now (when did Return of the Jedi end?) it's also worth remembering this is within a couple of years of the point Marvel seriously considered letting their DWM licence drop (and it was only because Visual Imagination tried to buy the rights they kept it going, more not to give up something to a competitor than because the higher ups felt there was any special value in it). I don't think that it was ever an insanely huge seller for the company, just a steady reliable one that could always be depended upon even in the most uncertain of times.

I am really starting to love Budiansky Megatron as well. Whilst I'm generally in favour of IDW's attempts to add depth to their villains and shades of grey to the Autobots, it's also nice to have an unashamedly camp old bitch Megatron.

Tim Roll-Pickering link

8/6/2013 10:35:40 am

The Marvel UK Star Wars title was by this stage "Return of the Jedi" weekly - in a nice piece of confusion the first series changed titles and frequency over the first five years, presumably to match whichever movie was in the cinemas at the time (more convoluted than it seems with re-releases) but then renumbered in June 1983 and kept the RotJ title for the rest of the run. It lasted 155 issues so assuming it was weekly all the way (Wookiepedia has limited information) it would have ended just a couple of months after TF #56 (almost the same point when the US title ceased so this may have been a case of licenses expiring at the same time).

Stuart

8/6/2013 01:03:40 pm

You're research is, as always, second to none Sir.

Interesting that it would have ended as Transformers was really getting into its stride (and almost certainly starting to hit its really big sales period), almost a passing of the torch.

Felicity

3/8/2016 11:02:43 pm

The electronics store owner is selling an abandoned tape deck, not a stolen one. He does test it before selling it—you can see it in the panel you scanned. :-)

But you’re right—why did Soundwave bother infiltrating the shop in the first place? Oh well. I like that scene anyway. :-)

Felicity

3/8/2016 11:05:39 pm

Forgot to subscribe to comment thread. :-]

Transformation 56: Caution: Murder Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

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