Well this week is a turn up for the (comic) books! For the first time we’re not choosing between a Mighty Marvel Checklist and a classic comic advert because this week we have both. In fact we’ve more than that, we’ve got two adverts. All taken from the pages of these two comics, on sale Saturday 27th August back in 1988.
Lee Sullivan’s cover for The Transformers and Action Force #181 refers to the second part of the story I mentioned last time and, despite the lengths Marvel UK went to in order to explain away the American story, their editorial still contains a plea asking people not to write in complaining! Unfortunately nothing is made of the issue number for The Real Ghostbusters (cover by Martin Griffiths and Dave Hine) which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Inside, the comic teamed up with Sport Aid and had the characters taking part in a sponsored fun run in which Ray comes across a little sprite called The Spirit of Competition.
In the checklist the publisher may have stopped short of the usual “Great News For All Readers” blurb used when our comics merged (and which never convinced us to be happy about it) but it’s obvious what #9 of Galaxy Rangers would mean for its readers. They’d be off to join forces with the Thundercats soon enough, who seem to be welcoming what sounds like a trio of deodorant scents to their ranks.
The Action Force comic here was the later monthly title rather than the original weekly. This smaller format comic was an attempt to sell the British strips back to the US where it was renamed G.I. Joe The European Missions. The addition of the Transformers crossover reprint (originally in the weekly) may have been exciting to American readers but it just meant a third of the comic was reprint for UK fans. Given the talent involved I’m sure the rest made up for it though.
Inside The Real Ghostbusters we have the second of the strip adverts we’ll see during this series, this time for Dragon’s Claws. Written by Simon Furman and drawn by Geoff Senior, this was the final version after a few edits had to be made after a last-minute name change. You can find out more about that in the link at the bottom of this post. There’s also a small cameo for a character who’ll pop up in the checklists soon enough. Or at least, his arm makes a cameo anyway.
It may only be the end of August but it was already the start of the Marvel Annuals hype season on the back cover of Transformers. Strangely, while the annual would be mentioned a couple of times on the editorial and letters pages (and given away in a competition closer to Christmas) this was the only time this advert appeared in the pages of Transformers! It did appear several times in The Real Ghostbusters though. The countdown to the best time of the year had begun!
Okay, so next week there’s no checklist again but that’ll be the last time for a while because Peter, Winston, Egon and Ray would soon be returning every seven days instead of every 14, so between the two comics the checklists will be more consistent. Next week, Transformers announces the good news, so I’ll catch you then.
Well that’s one competition I wouldn’t have been entering. Anyway, Irish artist Killian Plunkett returns with this great cover for #15 of Dark Horse Intertnational’s Aliens as well as the first strip. One of the headlines on the cover notes the similarities in subject matter for two of the tales, something I’d noticed previously. The cover is printed on lovely glossy paper once more, which is highlighted by editor Cefn Ridout in the editorial, shown below to include all of the credits in the review.
He also mentions extra pages but in reality the comic has returned to its original page count. Perhaps in light of the cancellation of both Star Wars and Dracula there were a few extra pence in the pagination budget? Cefn welcomes Killian to the Aliens fold for the first time even though he’d previously drawn the even better cover to #8 (and Dracula #7) and I do like his answer to the question of whether the Colonial Marines will ever learn. He’s right, you know.
Proof comes in the form of part one of Backsplash, an American story written by Jim Woodring (The Book of Jim, Frank, Star Wars) with Killian as artist that was originally printed in Dark Horse Comics over there. It follows a team of marines as they try out a new eco-suit weapon in an alien hive, something they believe is so good the aliens will no longer be a threat. Of course, such talk is always going to jinx us humans in the Alien universe! The leader’s name is Gibbs, so maybe he can slap the marine who said that across the back of the head.
That’s basically it for the plot and things go wrong even more quickly than I anticipated, as the aliens swarm the two marines sent out in the suits. To begin with the particle-plasma projectors see off the xenomorphs easily, exploding their bodies at a safe distance. But then the aliens gang up and such a large amount of them exploding at once produces a wave of acid that instantly starts to eat through the suits. Even worse, it covers the transport holding the rest of the team, dissolving its armour and filling the interior with deadly fumes.
As they try to escape the surviving aliens attack, the extra weight leading the cliff edge they were parked on (because of course they were) to crumble, taking everyone with it. A prequel to a strip called Labyrinth, don’t expect to get to know any of the characters in this short story but it’s a fun little tale nonetheless that once again shows the universe humbling humanity. Great art on the part of Killian too, it feels like stills from an ace Aliens cartoon.
Part 3 of Michael Cook’sCrusade is reduced to 9 pages but it continues its positive ascent through the ranks of the stories after a rather dodgy beginning. The Minecorp mercenaries are imprisoned by the tribe’s leader, who accuses them of kidnapping those taken last time, despite the fact the mercenaries are still there. Go figure. But tribeswoman Rani isn’t convinced. She can see in the stones they aren’t the monsters of her visions and wants to go with them to find their lost people.
More world building is included when Britain is simply called ‘an unnamed mining island off the coast of Europe’. (I could make a dig about Brexit here but you’ve probably beaten me to it.) We also briefly see the Archbishop either tearing chunks out of the dead Beresford or stitching him up as the Alien Queen watches on, it’s unclear what he’s doing as the art remains too messy for me personally.
However his followers, who live in the abbey and never venture outside, are beginning to question his King-like leadership. They’ve heard tales of kidnappings, are suspicious of Bereford’s death and want to know what’s really in the tower. The Archbishop simply says doubts are the devil’s work and walks off. That won’t come back to haunt him, I’m sure. Back at the camp a rather basic escape plan is put in motion as Rani smuggles an electrical cutter inside the prisoners’ food like some clichéd cartoon.
Once free some of the mercs are all too ready to kill their captors, setting up some tense character dynamics within the group. However, the strip now suffers from that 90s action flick syndrome of a lack of clothing. As the tribes took the troopers’ clothes and they themselves wear only basic coverings, what Rani brings as their disguises is little more than an excuse for some tits and ass. A shame, there’s real depth within the story so it doesn’t need to do this.
I was looking forward to this month’s Technical Readout and the next part in the Sulaco series but instead it’s about the drop ship that took the marines down to the planet in the film. Actually, it’s not even about that, it’s a rather bland two pages about the individual missiles it could fire. Much more exciting was the realisation Chris Warner’sColonial Marines strip had doubled in size to 16 pages. We were told it’d be a few more months until this happened so it’s a nice surprise.
This moment perfectly captures their panic, the claustrophobia and the ensuing tension.
This strip has been gagging to breathe a bit more in each issue. Each chunk has been really enjoyable but they’ve been over so quickly, partly because of the amount of pages but also because of the speed of the action, so the plot hasn’t really had a chance to shine. This changes somewhat here so I hope this is an ongoing change.
However, first up is this comic’s constant problem of giving things away in the round up of the story so far, with the writer of that page stating certain things have happened already when they haven’t. The reveal of the new alien species actually being a hybrid between humans and xenomorphs is spoiled before I even get to the strip.
How the characters can tell they’re hybrids is unknown, it certainly wasn’t clear to me. The man they found Newt-like in the air ducts tells them the hostiles are men “but bugged out”. Meanwhile, corporation man Beliveau is screaming at the huge synth that he’s built for alien encounters, only to be told by the synth they’ll have to wait for the team to re-establish contact because he costs too much to risk going in.
Beliveau’s inner thoughts betray him to the reader. He thinks he knows who’s responsible and in the hive the “Father” figure tells his men, “The Judas is here”, so there’s more to the company man. The main highlight of not only this strip but the whole issue is their escape up a zero-g well to an air lock. This moment, portrayed over the two spreads I’ve photographed, perfectly captures their panic, the claustrophobia and the ensuing tension.
Having one panel with all the captions displayed vertically is a nice touch too, highlighting the disorientation of being in zero-gravity. They manage to take one of the hybrids prisoner but all he does is lecture them about humanity polluting space and how The Father believes the aliens are cleansing it for the greater good. There’s an environmental message in there somewhere that I’m sure James Cameron would be proud of.
“The alien behind Point struck, its extended tongue tearing effortlessly through the helmet’s metal to taste the soft grey yolk that lay under the bone.”
Tribes, Steve Bissette
The new Q&Aliens feature takes individual questions asked in letters and gives them prominence in a double-page spread. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking in any of the questions asked, although we do get to see these two interesting early designs for the original movie’s poster, complete with different fonts. Both were created by David Pelsue.
The questions may be of the usual sort but one answer stood out. A clearly frustrated reader wanted to know “Where the **~!” the facehuggers came from at the beginning of Alien³. I always thought it was obvious, the Queen had been hiding out on the drop ship so she planted them. Interestingly, the answer states the sound of an alien egg schlopping open could be heard at the very end of the credits to Aliens, director James Cameron indicating an egg was on board the EEV with the survivors (or perhaps just to freak out the audience a bit). I had to go and give it a listen and yep, it’s there! I’d never heard it before!
Tribes’ penultimate chapter (written by Steve Bissette) somehow escalates the heart-pumping excitement even more than it already had. Things are certainly shaping up for a heart-stopping climax next issue. My favourite character Rat may not be as prominent but it hardly matters because everything else happening around her has been dialled up. The shrunken images by Dave Dorman should still give you an idea of the action taking place here.
While we’re used to things going wrong in an Alien story, the fact absolutely everything (including things you’d never think could go wrong) goes wrong makes this a shocking read. Quite the feat. There are a lot of surprising deaths, Shitkicker goes on a rampage and the more things go wrong the more his metal shell injects drugs into him to combat the escalating situation, which of course just makes things worse. As the marines now fight their own amongst the aliens I was almost breathless by the end of the four pages. What a thrill ride!
What an issue. Aliens is back on top of its game! All four stories were a thrill to read this month. Backsplash is incredibly fun hokem, Crusade continues to develop something very interesting, Colonial Marines was just superb and Tribes… wow! There’s even mention on the letters page of a possible Technical Readout book, which I searched for and I found it. That’ll be a future purchase for the blog, no doubt. With two finales next month there’s every possibility #16 could (somehow) be even better than this issue. We’ll find out on Tuesday 23rd September 2025.
Anyone who follows the OiNK Blog’s socials will know I was recently admitted to hospital with a very bad infection and work on the website was temporarily paused as a result. Add to this the fact a dear friend also became very ill recently (unrelated) and it’s been a hell of a few weeks. We’re both on the mend now, although I’m going to take a few more days to fully come around as I’m still exhausted pretty much all of the time. I’m home though and resting up.
I’ll hopefully start getting caught up on the blog’s posts next week. In the meantime, thank you all for your messages and a huge thank you as well to the wonderful NHS Belfast Royal Hospital and the Celerion medical research staff who got me through this. In particular, while the infection had nothing to do with the Celerion trial I was on, I just wanted to make sure I thanked the doctors and nurses there who really went above and beyond with me, whose aftercare has been so good, and who really helped me get to the bottom of it all.
The Real Ghostbusters were taking another break this week before their last fortnightly issue but out in deep space Marvel UK’s The Transformers and Action Force had to get around a problem with their next imported US strip.
I remember receiving a Transformers video for Christmas back then with a particularly dodgy episode on it called The Big Broadcast of 2006. In the UK comic we had stories set after The Transformers: The Movie (which was set in the then-future of 2005/6) and those characters travelled back in time and interacted with the Cybertronians in present day tales skilfully interwoven with the imported strips from across the pond by writer Simon Furman.
But Marvel US had decided to adapt said dodgy cartoon episode into comic form and it completely contradicted a whole bunch of lengthy British story arcs. The solution? Lee Sullivan’s cover should tell you everything you need to know. One page was added at the beginning and end (next week) of the strip, giving the comic its own Dallas-type moment of “it was all a fairytale”, read out by TV-loving Wreck-Gar. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The UK bits, anyway.
More importantly though, we’re Checklist-less this time (don’t worry, very soon they’ll be here every single week) but that doesn’t mean I can’t uphold my promise from the beginning of this series. So I’ve borrowed an advert from another Marvel UK comic this week to plug the gap.
Around this time Marvel editor Richard Starkings knew from launching The Real Ghostbusters that it was possible to tell a story in one page so he commissioned strip adverts for a load of their comics, meaning they could be rerun instead of new ones having to created all the time for individual issues. Mostly these were all created in the style of the comic they were advertising and I particularly liked this one written by Simon, drawn by Lee and lettered by Richard.
Speaking of ads, alongside next week’s Mighty Marvel Checklist there’ll be two more adverts, one in keeping with the style above. Then, when The Real Ghostbusters goes weekly from #14 we’ll have an unbroken run of checklists for at least a couple of months. So I hope you’re enjoying these weekly trips down memory lane to the 80s so far. If so, please let me know on socials over at Bluesky (personal), Instagram (OiNK) and Facebook (OiNK).
So much for the Vampirella cover. We were told last month there’d be one and I assumed it would be a classic reprint, what with the comic’s cancellation at #10 decided but there being a need for an extra cover this month, the second half of an American strip taking the lead position inside (and they probably didn’t want to pay out for a new cover for a cancelled comic). But instead, #9 of Dark Horse International’s Dracula has this very basic (it feels rushed) cover by Woodrow Pheonix, letterer on Crusade in Aliens.
Lying to people about “sovereignty” and “losing control” in order to gain power… that wouldn’t happen today, surely?
On the editorial page we’re told the next issue will include a “feature-length” chapter of Vlad the Impaler to finish off this real-life prequel strip. With hindsight we know this was because it would be the final issue. At least they knew ahead of time so they had the chance to properly finish off the imported Topps Comics strip. First up, this penultimate issue contains the next 16 pages of chapter two, as ever written by Roy Thomas, drawn by Esteban Maroto, coloured by Paul Mounts and lettered by John Costanza.
The mass murdering Vlad has allied himself with Christianity while his enemy Mehmed the Conqueror allies himself with none other than Radu, Vlad’s younger brother. The plan is to annex Wallachia and install Radu as the Prince. Radu promises the people sovereignty of their country but only if they back him. Lying to people about “sovereignty” and “losing control” in order to gain power… that wouldn’t happen today, surely?
After losing a series of battles, Vlad pleas with other countries to come to his aid but to no avail. However, this doesn’t stop his Religious Crusade as he slices across Europe killing thousands in the name of the Christian god, the people suffering as a result. “My poor peasants moaned at their loss,” a caption upon an image of the slaughtered poor says. “But commoners cannot appreciate the measures a besieged Prince must take on their behalf.” Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, as they say.
Instead of helping diseased peasants he uses them, sending them into other countries and military troop gatherings to infect and weaken them. His callousness and self-interest drive the story and I must say it’s compulsive reading, even if everything about him disgusts me. His tactics look like they could be working until a mis-timed attack fails and only serves to rouse Mehmed from his complacency, putting Vlad on the back foot and leading to a desperate, horrifying action.
Originally intending to take Wallachia by force, The Forest of the Impaled shocks Mehmed into retreating for the first time, leaving Radu behind to become Prince on his own. Elsewhere, we find out the woman Vlad captured and forced to be his “love” is now named ‘Transylvania’. He describes her as being, “Near at hand, yet some part of her forever unattainable, uncontrollable”. This is very different to Mina. This woman is a slave, forced into a physical relationship with the Prince. An arrow does bring a message that ends with her suicide but as you can see it’s not a message from an enemy lying about the death of her one true love.
Instead, the thought of her horrible existence becoming even worse is the reason she takes her own life. This tears Vlad apart and he leads his pitiful army to Hungary and an ally, but the Hungarian leader has no stomach for war. Instead, through a convoluted pretence he separates Vlad from his troops and imprisons him, albeit in a palace! Forged letters are sent to all of his allies and enemies telling them he’s back on the side of the Sultan. With this news and his lonely existence he slowly goes crazy.
The cliffhanger is dreadfully forced. We know where this particular retelling of history will end up and I think it would’ve been more suspenseful to just finish it with him in his crazed state. The battles are also beginning to become much of a muchness but Vlad’s overall arc and the elements that (sadly) mirror politics in our modern world are fascinating. The final chapter should be interesting.
The Bloodlines news pages are light on much of interest, however Sound Bites does quote the legendary Christopher Lee who of course played Dracula earlier in his career (although to me he’ll always be Scaramanga). Such a shame his quote shows up the fact that he either hadn’t seen the film or wasn’t paying attention, as he attributes Anthony Hopkins to the title role. Whoops.
The second and final part of Vampirella: Death’s Dark Angel is shorter than last time but packs a lot in. With no blood substitute she knows she’ll not be able to control her urges and she’ll end up feeding on Wade. But this is just what he wants, so she continues to fight against it. Adam and Conrad Van Helsing are also in the cell and she finds herself opening up to the younger of the two (Conrad was knocked unconscious by Wade). However, having been shot, Adam collapses and the blood from his wound forces some primal instinct inside Vampirella. She breaks free of her chains but as she’s about to feast on her new ally she sees his face and with all her strength pushes back against the urge.
Of course this is when Conrad awakens and for the umpteenth time he gets the wrong idea and tries to kill her, but ends up killing the corrupt cop as he enters their cell and Adam and Vampirella let him believe he’s staked her instead. I like Adam and I understand part of his likability comes from the predicament he’s found himself in between his dad and a good vampire, but Conrad is just an annoying caricature by this point. Even Von Goosewing wasn’t this inept in Count Duckula! And why can he no longer sense her like he did before?
The demon, Skaar attacks the Helsings then suddenly just disappears. This is because Wade has finally forced the starving vampire to bite him! But as Skaar explains, Vampirella isn’t from Earth; she’s an alien, and her race can’t transform people, only kill them. It turns out Skaar was originally a human, namely Wade’s father! Having spent many years as a demon serving penance for his own life, he wasn’t serving Wade. Rather, he was merely waiting for his son’s death because only a soul blacker than his own could take his place and finally release him from his demonic prison.
This was a surprise ending! It’s solemn and moving before becoming horrifying on the final page, although Wade deserves everything he gets. However, does this mean Vampirella did kill the man on the plane? I assumed before the serum she could take what she needed without killing. A question for another time. I hope we get one final outing for her in the final issue. (UPDATE: We do not.) Given how she’s dressed I’ve been surprised at how maturely written and interesting the stories have been, eradicating my initial misgivings.
This month’s author interview is with Kim Newman so that promised series of female authors is disappointingly dead in the water. I remember Newman as a film reviewer on TV back in the 90s and I never liked him. To me, he was the kind of clichéd reviewer who thought they were right and everyone else was wrong and this plays out in this interview with the comic’s Dave Hughes.
Kim’s novel, Anno Dracula is a sequel to the original book set in an alternate world where Dracula wasn’t killed by Van Helsing, instead wooing Queen Victoria and carrying out his dastardly plan to turn England into a kingdom of vampires. He wooed Victoria? What about Mina? Kim admits he mainly used other authors’ fictional characters (Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Jekyll etc.) in the book, yet at the same time criticises other Dracula sequels for copying moments from the original book! That’s a bit rich. He also calls everyone who didn’t like his book “fat anoraks”. So yep, he’s definitely the person I remember.
Much more interesting is a look at the Mega-CD game of the film. We were promised last month (and on the contents page of this issue) a review of the game but instead it’s very much a reworded press release compiled by Amiya Lopez, complete with a guide to what a Mega-CD actually was for the uninitiated. The last sentence of the main article kind of gives it away that they hadn’t actually played it.
I’ve very fond memories of that time, of reading those first years of Edge magazine and getting excited at the sudden leaps in videogame technology. While I personally invested in a Panasonic 3DO (and loved it), I have a fondness for most of the tech from that time and the constant add-ons for the Sega Mega Drive always fascinated me. They’re very much of their time and I enjoyed this little look at a game I’d never seen before, even if it was apparently terrible.
To round up, despite hindsight telling us the editorial writer knew cancellation was on the way, the letters page still asks readers to write in with suggests of how they’d like the comic to evolve over the coming months. They were in for a shock four weeks later, and not of the good kind. We’ll see how things are (hopefully) wrapped up on Sunday 14th September 2025.
The Mighty Marvel Checklist is back after a week’s rest (that first outing must’ve exhausted the poor thing) and there’s a lot more squeezed into its half-page entry inside The Real Ghostbusters (cover by Brian Williamson and Dave Elliott) from this day way back in 1988.
There was no checklist in #179 of The Transformers and Action Force but this will happen with either comic at different points over the course of the checklist’s run, and since I’ll be showing adverts from both along the way I’m just going to show both covers every week anyway. It also doesn’t hurt that Jerry Paris provided this Transforms cover, with the new and improved Optimus Prime taking on the role of quippy 80s action hero rather well.
The checklist doesn’t do the ‘busters justice this week, because not only do they meet the ghost of King Arthur of Camelot in the story briefly mentioned below, but in another strip the Containment Unit malfunctions and lots of fan-favourite ghosts and monsters from previous issues make cameo appearances and Slimer enters the unit to make the fix for Egon. Two very memorable strips for me.
Our two comics may get short-changed a bit but at least Huckleberry Hound gets his promotion promoted, the Galaxy Rangers edge closer to their final issue and in Thundercats did they really have to rescue those two? Interesting that the Doctor Who Magazine entry focuses solely on the comic strip when it’s only one part of the publication. Then again, it had a lot less pages back then so the strip was a bigger part of the whole.
Finally, Dragon and his Claws got their first inkling of the true nature of their missions for the National Union of Retired Sports Experts (N.U.R.S.E) in the dystopian future of 8162, the start of an arc that would become the main thread of the final issues the following year. I read the whole series for the first time only two years ago and it was a phenomenal comic, one that deserved to run and run but would ultimately be cut short just ten issues in.
As we go through this weekly series any issues of the comics featured on the checklist (or adverts) that have been covered on the blog (or on Instagram in the case of Transformers) will be linked to at the bottom of each post, alongside any titles that have received a more general round up in the Retrospectives section. You never know, there might be more of these Marvel UK comics to add to these links on the blog as time goes on.
Don’t forget, if you remember reading any of these issues let us know on the socials (links in the menu).
Okay, so as I said on the menu page for this series there were eight weeks in total out of a whopping 74 that The Real Ghostbusters (still fortnightly so no issue this week) and Transformers didn’t print a Mighty Marvel Checklist. However, I did promise I’d also be showing you all of the comics adverts published alongside the checklists as we go, and that they’d help us plug those annoying gaps.
First up though, what’s with that circus-based Stephen Baskerville cover? The Cosmic Carnival is a story I’ve seen derided in the usual negativity-filled corners of the fandom but when I read it for the first time a handful of years back I found it to be a silly but fun story. Taking prisoner the brilliant Sky Lynx and the human children he’s protecting, a space station-based circus puts them to work in small display cages and in the ring for daring feats. It’s actually a clever script that highlighted the problem with zoos of the day, as well as introducing a wider universe of alien species to the comic.
It’s also important to remember we’re talking about a comic starring sentient robots from outer space that can transform into various forms of human transport so sometimes it’s best not to take things too seriously. So, on to that advert and it’s one that brings back memories. Back in 1988 I read the comic advertised this week, the very first edition of The Marvel Bumper Comic. Fleetway had been enjoying great success with their Big Comic Books and had just released their new fortnightly comic version in mid-June. Repackaging reprints had the potential of great returns with little outgoings.
The Marvel Bumper Comic would soon become a fortnightly (then weekly) comic itself but this was the only one I bought as a kid. I remember enjoying it but wishing the strips weren’t so short. Obviously quantity was key here to reinforce the “Bumper” part of the title. Plus it didn’t hurt trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. It’s a curious glimpse at the Marvel UK of the day in one purchase if you can find it on eBay. Perhaps one to join the blog at a later date? Perhaps.
Did you buy the Holiday Special edition of the Bumper Comic? Have you any particularly fond memories of it or any of its contents? What did you think of publishers repackaging old strips to coax more pocket money out of our… erm, pockets? Let us know on the socials at Bluesky, Instagram or Facebook, why don’t you? More comics to check off the list next week.
Last month’s competition caused a little bit of Havoc, with quite a few wild stabs in the dark to the question I set: What TV duo did I liken the pairing of human Michael Collins and the Deathlok computer to? Thankfully some of you had actually read the posts (or went looking instead of guessing) where I mentioned the simply unforgettable Michael Knight and K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider. Congratulations Joseph Redmond of Cardiff, I hope you enjoy the first two issues of Havoc!
Up next are two doubles of a fan favourite comic, one that was a hit with blog readers when I read it (for the first time ever) a couple of years ago. Marvel UK’s Dragon’s Claws was created by Simon Furman and Geoff Senior of Transformers fame and it was simply incredible. What we have here are #4 in which the Claws find themselves facing off against two French armies after being sent to arrest a supposed terrorist group, and in the penultimate issue #9 Dragon et all are pitched against their nemeses The Evil Dead in the HQ of N.U.R.S.E.!
Just like the last handful of competitions you have 14 days to scour the blog for the answer to the following question:
Q – What was the name of the Claws’ pooch?
When you’ve got the answer (it’s on the blog, you just have to find it) you can either email it to me at oink.blog@icloud.com(all emails will be deleted after the winner has been selected, I don’t have a newsletter or anything like that), or use the contact form you can find on the right-hand side of your desktop screen or under this post on mobile. Your entry must be with me by midnight on Thursday 14th August 2025.
After this date I’ll contact the winner to ask for their postal address. Unfortunately, due to rising postage costs the competitions are only open to UK and Ireland readers. If you win I’ll ask if you could take a photo of you with your prize for inclusion in next month’s competition post. You don’t have to, but you do get to show off if you do.
Just for transparency, #4 has a bit of colouring-in on the cover and a small spine tear, and #9’s cover has come away from the spine a little.
There’s now a page on the site for you to see the previous competitions and winners if you’re interested on seeing what you’ve missed out on. As you can tell from the image at the top of that page I’ve a pile of doubles from various comics titles covered on the blog, so make sure you check back on the 1st of each month to see what’s next and good luck if you’re entering this time.
Welcome to this new weekly series! Off we go! The very first Mighty Marvel Checklist appeared in one of the earliest editions of The Real Ghostbusters when it was still a fortnightly comic, a week which also saw some fella return to The Transformers and Action Force that was kind of a big deal.
Yes, Optimus Prime had been resurrected as a Headmaster (cover by Jeff Anderson). The Autobot leader now had a humanoid companion who could transform into his head(!), combining to form an insanely powerful version of the character. I wasn’t yet collecting the comic at the time (that would come later in the same year), however when I read them all for the blog’s real time read through on Instagram this issue was a real thrill because this was the version of the toy I had as a kid.
Unlike Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters (cover by Phil Elliott) was made up of a handful of shorter stories, all much more comedy focussed (re: bad puns), the best often being the prose series Winston’s Diary which was told from the perspective of my favourite character. Also unmissable was the text-based Spengler’s Spirit Guide, the hilarious manual on all things supernatural which appeared in every issue, expertly crafted by Dan Abnett. And of course there was also the Lew Stringer-drawn humour strip Blimey It’s Slimer, however this issue was the last time Lew would be responsible before it was permanently taken over by Bambos Georgiou.
That’s the quick introduction of the comics I’m using out of the way, so what else was on sale that very same week in the summer of ’88? The first Mighty Marvel Checklist takes me back to watching The Adventures of The Galaxy Rangers on the telly every morning. I don’t remember much about them other than I enjoyed the cartoon but apparently not enough to buy their comic, a title that would only make it to #9 before being cancelled.
I never got on with Thundercats but its comic was a huge success, amassing over 100 issues in total, although I remember from the checklists that it seemed to go through a lot of changes and different frequencies towards the end. Fred Flintstone et all round things up at a time when comics such as Dragon’s Claws and Death’s Head weren’t on the list yet. I also liked the way The Real Ghostbusters is coloured differently just so they could show off the “Real” part in read. Imagine doing that every time it’s mentioned, eh?
As this series continues I’d love to find out if you remember any of the specific issues mentioned in any of the checklists, so mosey on over to the socials on Bluesky, Instagram or Facebook and let’s get the conversation started, shall we? Next week we’ll see our first classic comic advert.
Well, this bold Derek Yaniger cover for #11 of Marvel US’ Transformers: Generation 2 would certainly have stood out on the shelves. And at least Starscream’s teeth are suitably horrifying instead of comically human-like for once. Simon Furman’sDark Shadows (pencilled by Manny Galan, inked by Jim Amash, coloured by Sarra Mossoff, lettered by Richard Starkings) begins with the traitorous Decepticon in a seemingly unstoppable position on the Warworld ship.
In fact, as the story develops we (and he) find out that he’s no longer simply on the ship, he is the ship! The Matrix has afforded him the power to meld with it, morphing corridors and walls and trapping the newly aligned Optimus Prime and Megatron is his grasp. Does he instantly kill them? Of course not, he has to boast and gloat first.
One of Jhiaxus’ troops by the name of Rook is concerned about his commander’s obsession with tracking down the Autobots and Decepticons. He’s seen this side of him before, back when he was the tyrant that Jhiaxus himself lamented ever being back in #3. Rook worries that Jhiaxus is somehow regressing evolutionarily and so decides he must speak with Leige Maximo. Finally! Well, next month it’ll be “finally”, as this is the only mention of the unknown character this issue.
Prime explains to Megatron how the Matrix has become corrupted by evil once more, much like it did with Thunderwing back in the Matrix Quest epic in the G1 comic. Between this and the ongoing similarity between the Starscreem here and the Starscream during writer Bob Budiansky’sUnderbase Saga several years prior, this usually highly original comic feels like it’s slipping back into familiar territory. But then this happened…
I’ll readily admit that if I hadn’t been holding this comic with both hands as I read it I’d have punched the air triumphantly upon seeing Megatron save Optimus Prime! Both were being flooded down a large vent, at the end of which is a huge fall into the plasma core of the ship. Megatron is able to stop himself and I fully expected him to let Prime fall, not out of hatred but because he’d be too busy saving himself. The fact he puts his own life at risk to save him and calls out to Prime to trust him reminds me very much of Transformers One.
The fact this comic was decades before that film just adds to the excitement and this must’ve been a huge moment for readers at the time. He can’t hold him for long though, so they agree he’ll swing him off to the side where Prime can grab hold of some dangling cables. But their plan doesn’t work. At least not as they intended. Prime misses the cables but then they move by themselves into a new position! The comic tries to play this out as a mystery, I guessed it was the Matrix. Was I right?
Ol’ Megs continues to get some of the best lines, like when he transforms into his tank mode to get himself free of the previous predicament and comes out with a perfect 90s action movie line, below. Optimus’ inner thoughts show an admiration for what he sees as Megatron’s instinctive and unselfish tactics, and he wishes this could be more than a mere alliance of convenience. This is a real revelation, to see these two characters in such a fresh way even all these decades later.
Prime then discovers the ship’s walls, corridors and doors are morphing as if to lead him somewhere, with his sneaking about possible because Starscream isn’t really the god-like creator he believes himself to be. Unable to concentrate on more than one thing at once and with Jhiaxus’ army attacking, Starscream must leave these two to their own devices. The ship itself appears to lead Prime right to where he needs to be.
The final page of the main strip ends with Prime trying his best to reason with Jhiaxus and explain what they’ve discovered about the Swarm, but it takes place over a communications signal that frustratingly keeps breaking up. Not that this really matters. Jhiaxus is too far gone and the cliffhanger (before the back up strip) sees him giving the order to pick out random targets on Earth’s surface and blow the planet apart.
This feels like the perfect time to shift to legendary Transformers artist Geoff Senior for part eight of Tales of Earth.
Wait a minute. Wasn’t it previously established that all of Earth’s cities were devastated by Skullgrin’s Decepticons and the Warworld? Even if San Francisco escaped, this paints a picture of a city without a care in the world. Oh well, discrepancy aside this raises the bar in terms of the threat Earth faces! This opening spread is very reminiscent of Judgement Day from Terminator 2, which had been released in the UK less than two years previous and was very much still in the public consciousness after its home release.
Being familiar with the film doesn’t detract from this opening scene. In fact, it adds to the feeling of the end of everything! Even Grimlock and Predacon leader Razorclaw concur, stating, “It over now. For us all. They did it… they dropped The Big One”. On board the Warworld Prime is devastated, heartbroken. He screams into the void but Jhiaxus orders another attack on another highly populated city, despite the fact his troops are all over the planet. But then, Earth’s salvation comes from an unlikely source: Starscream!
As the Warworld attacks Jhiaxus’ ship with all of its Matrix-powered might, it appears the Autobot trinket is tainting the Deception rather than the other way around, which means those scenes reminiscent of the Matrix/Thunderwing G1 story were a nice bit of misdirection. Starscream doesn’t care about us of course but he has an uncontrollable urge to save us. Doing so is even more important to him than the very thing he previously thought was the most important thing in the universe: himself!
I did laugh as Starscream yells out how he doesn’t want to be good. Prime realises it was him that was subconsciously helping all along within the ship, and he sees hope in the very essence of the thing he’s carried in his chest for millennia. However, suddenly, with only one page to go, the Swarm is here. The previous scene just suddenly stops to give us this cliffhanger.
This felt like a very sudden, very unnatural jump in the story, like the pages were running out and we needed a cliffhanger and, more importably, the Swarm needed to be in place for the final issue. I’m not saying that’s the case, after all we’ve learned how terrifyingly quick it is and how it’s impossible to see it coming. That’s the whole point of it after all. But I can’t help feeling a bit unsatisfied with how this absolutely superb chapter ended.
A necessary evil perhaps with only one issue left. It’s a bumper-sized one next month, with the promise of 36 pages of strip action. Given how things have escalated in the last couple of months, and how amazing this issue was, I have every faith Simon will pull off a satisfying conclusion for a comic cancelled way too early in its run. How he’ll do that I have no idea! We’ll find out together in five weeks on Sunday 31st August 2025.
