“So here it is, Merry Christmas, Everybody’s having fun. Look to the future now, It’s only just begin.”
After the year it’s been for me personally James Whild Lea‘s and Neville John Holder‘s lyrics have resonated deeply with me this Christmas season, and so far it’s been one filled with peace and joy in the company of friends, of both the human and furry variety. I hope you’ve all been having very Happy Holidays too and that your Christmas Day is filled with too much food to eat (but you will anyway), fun gift giving (and receiving of course) and plenty of cheer (how much of that is literal and liquid is up to you).
As per usual I’ll be taking my annual couple of days away from social media, so I’m here to remind you tomorrow on The Big Day itself you’ll be able to see a new post featuring pig pals showing off their OiNK merchandise. The post won’t be up until late in the afternoon because one very generous pig pal has actually sent me a Christmas gift which I’ll be photographing for the post when I open it.
As a kid we received our presents from Santa in the morning, while everything under the tree was kept for the afternoon; a tradition I keep to this day. So when you’ve awoken from your post-Christmas dinner nap and are contemplating the turkey, ham and stuffing sandwiches you can check that post out for some holly jolly fun. I’ll be back on the 27th with some of the real 80s toys and games adverts from the pages of OiNK, so in the meantime all that remains is for me to wish you all…
Of all the comics I’d expect to give us a Christmassy cover Aliens wouldn’t even have crossed my mind, yet here we are with an alien and their offspring getting into the icy festive feels. Chris Halls’ incredible artwork is so very 90s and, along with that funny caption it brings an eerie, gothic horror vibe to the season. Christmas is a perfect time for some scary stories and this tongue-in-cheek cover sums that up perfectly.
The editorial page has a Predator in the background, such is the importance of that franchise in the comic and I see Hive has only six pages this time around (the Predator back-up has 14). There’s an interesting tidbit about John Bolton’s images that I assumed were US covers and news of the next Dark Horse International release coming in the new year. Hmm, that one sounds good… Anyway, on to the rest of Aliens #7.
We kick off with Newt’s Tale: Part Six, the credits for it and all of this issue’s contents you can see in the image above. This chapter takes us from the room where the aliens come through the ceiling, up to the point when Ripley and Newt make a run for the elevator after torching the alien nest right in front of the queen.
There are some obvious differences here between the original film and the Special Edition this is based on, as well as moments that were still on the cutting room floor after the release of the longer version. These mainly involve company man Carter Burke. In the finished film (both versions) we see him escape the room and lock everyone in behind him, then he turns around and an alien snaps its inner mouth at him. Clearly, he died. But this wasn’t originally the case.
Here, he simply backs out of the room and we see a pair of aliens standing behind him and that’s it. I assumed we just weren’t going to see his death but several pages later (this chapter runs to 18) we see him alive in the nest and impregnated. Ripley can’t help him, it’s too late, but she gives him a grenade to end his suffering which he’s too cowardly to use.
Apparently this was filmed but cut out by James Cameron because he realised Burke should still have a facehugger attached to him at this point, so his exit from the previous scene was reedited. (While they didn’t reshoot a death scene, the shot of the alien made it clear.) I hadn’t known about this before. Moments like this and parts of the earliest chapters are what I expected from this story instead of what has been more or less a straight adaptation.
Newt also sees her mum when she awakens in the nest and then everything suddenly speeds up. Yes, things will be changed when adapting stories for different mediums; what works on screen may not necessarily work on the page. But still, while I don’t personally know how they could’ve conveyed the stillness and terror of the scene above from the movie, having it reduced to just over a page feels underwhelming.
Maybe even more so because I just watched the film three days ago. As I’ve said described before, the first time I saw Aliens was on my birthday back when I was a teen, watching it with my mum. In memory of my mum and I really enjoying the movie together I decided to watch it again on the night of my 47th birthday. I think it’ll be a birthday/Christmas tradition from now on. So, everything is fresh in my head as I’ve read this issue. Talking about going back in time, what did the news pages of Christmas 1993 have for us?
That Aliens comic story sounds terrible but then again I’m saying that with the hindsight of the subsequent movies. But ‘Xeno-zip’? And another red species more deadly than the ones on film? I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed it. Below that I have to correct the myth of the chest burster scene in the first film. Yes, director Ridley Scott used a lot more blood than he’d told the actors to expect, but that’s it.
Having now finally watched the first two films I have to say the pages involving the Predators definitely hit differently
Of course they knew what was going to happen. It was in the script. John Hurt had his head popping up through a hole in the table with a fake torso. There were cables and puppeteers everywhere. The first few seconds of the reaction is in response to the amount of fake blood, but then cut was called and the rest of the scene then acted out as normal. I hate these myths of directors “fooling” actors when in reality they’re just good actors!
As for the competition, given the terms and conditions mention “doctored photographs” I was surprised to find out the statement was in fact true! What is also true is Predator: Cold War is still my favourite strip in the comic seven months in. How’s that for a tenuous link, eh? Having now finally watched the first two films I have to say the pages involving the Predators definitely hit differently.
Quite a lot happens in the larger background of Mark Verheiden’s story this time too. The US president wants the mission terminated because a Moscow politician is on the way, so the Americans can’t be found there. General Phillips receives the message to clear all personnel out and “stop hostilities with the aliens” so that they leave before the Soviets get a hold of their weaponry. The audacity of the Americans to think they’re in control of the Predator situation is typical in this and the Alien franchises.
The Russian government knows exactly what’s going on and are escorting our Sheriff friend from previous issues to the site so he can extract his own friend, Detective Schaefer. Speaking of him, he and Lt. Ligachev find an unusually warm area where the ice is melting and discover the Predators’ ship. Striping off so they can bare some flesh while they fight (it was the 90s), they sneak on board.
You can see it goes well. Finding parts of Ligachev’s outpost used as patchwork repairs on the ship, Schaefer theorises they must’ve crashed; all of those people lost their lives so that the aliens could scavenge for parts. Ligachev ain’t happy. They fight valiantly and Schaefer is able to stab the alien that attacks them, but the screams summon its friends!
I’ve loved this story so far. What started out as a bit clichéd on the US side of things and interesting on the Soviet side has developed into a brilliant tale, with good characterisation and a genuine building of tension. Now, with the American government worried that Schaefer destroying the ship on Russian land and the Soviets knowing an American has stopped them from using its weaponry could start World War III, all the plot points are converging on what should be an engaging climax.
According to the Comics Checklist further below the next issue will contain the final chapter, so even this slightly awkward cliffhanger with Ligachev mid-sentence can’t ruin the anticipation. To be fair, this was probably the best place to leave it for a month. I actually think I’ll go back and read the whole story again just before settling down to next month’s issue, something I most likely won’t do for the two Aliens stories.
The Alien³ videogame gets a two-page review this month and it’s basically the same as you’d expect from all other licenced games back then. The vast majority were all platformers or driving games (sometimes a mix of both) until Goldeneye came along. Alien³ throws loads of weaponry and aliens at the player, two things the movie didn’t have. But hey, when did silly things like the actual movie get in the way of a movie videogame licence all those years ago? Since then, the first-person Alien: Isolation has shown us that you only need one alien for a great game, and to scare the bejesus out of me… I mean, the player!
(I still can’t play it on my Switch for more than an hour at a time!)
The penultimate part of Jerry Prosser’s Hive is only six pages and they’ve escaped the nest and made it back to the dropship to await rescue. Their creepy android loses an arm and Julian continues the trend of humans never learning in an Alien story when she fires upon one at close range, badly burning her face in the process with its acid blood. That’s pretty much it. While they wait for the aliens to come a-knockin’ Dr. Mayakovsky makes a random reference to Ancient Rome being the key to escape before the story abruptly stops. Just as with Jurassic Park, each story is of varying lengths each issue but this feels ridiculously short.
Even shorter, at two pages, but with much more going on in a much more enjoyable story, is the next part of the Aliens Vs Predator II strip. Our protagonist is still learning from the Predators (I wish I’d read the previous story to understand who she is), most notably that a rebuke is painful and you don’t try to save everyone. Seeing the alien Queen led off and her troops hanging back is foreboding and I find myself becoming more intrigued with each monthly snippet.
It’s painfully slow though. It’s like reading one of those old three-panels-a-day newspaper adventure strips, only with much bigger gaps. However, it’s good! Actually, it probably benefits from being told this way as I find myself clamouring for each tiny little morsel. Would it be as captivating if I’d simply read it all at once? I doubt it. It’s definitely won me over.
Here’s the Comics Checklist I mentioned above and as you can see Newt’s Tale is also coming to a close, so the rest of the movie is going to fly by just as quickly as this month’s chapter. However, it’s another comic appearing here for the first time that catches my eye. It’s completely right when it describes Bram Stoker’s Dracula as “stunning” and it’s a regular watch every Hallowe’en for me. Hmm… that gives me an idea…
That’s a lie, because if I was only getting the idea now to do a real time read through of DHI’s Dracula comic I’d need to have started collecting it months ago. You see, I actually had the idea last year but by the time I collected all ten issues it was too late to start the read through in 2024. So watch out for a special introduction to Bram Stoker’s Dracula on the blog on Thursday 16th January 2025, with the premiere issue just three days later! Happy New Year, eh?
I’ll finish with the only other mention of the festive season in the whole issue, in a response to a funny reader on the Bug Hunt letters page, below. Well I hope the images from this comic (especially that creepy cover) don’t stop you from drifting into a deep sleep tonight before Santa Claus visits your area. The first issue for 2025 will be here on Tuesday 21st January and we’ve a full year’s worth of xenomorph terror to look forward to.
This is the first Buster Book I’ve ever read and it’s surprised me straight away, but not in the way you may think. The Buster Book series has been added to the blog because of OiNK star Tom Thug. He continued in the pages of Buster weekly all the way to its end over a decade after OiNK’s cancellation. I thought buying the remaining annuals in the series from the moment Tom appeared would be a fun addition to the blog every Christmas. New Tom Thug is always a treat after all!
Knowing Weedy Willy and Pete and his Pimple were also in this edition I was looking forward to large multi-page strips or special stories of some sort, the likes of which we’d have seen in the OiNK books or the Beano and Dandy annuals every year. Surprisingly however, apart from a few exceptions this book feels more like several editions of the weekly wrapped in a cardboard cover.
The first and last 14 pages are of a lovely and smooth, higher quality paper stock, with some of the strips in full colour, but the rest of the 112 pages in total are the same matt paper as the Big Comic Books, mostly in black and white with the occasional two-colour strip. Also, apart from 2-page Buster, Ricky Rainbow and Chalky stories in those outer pages, and a 4-page BeastEnders inside, all the strips are the same length as they would be in the weekly comic.
Once you hit those inner matt pages it just doesn’t feel as special anymore. So yes, I was surprised when I compared it to its contemporaries but the main reason we’re here is for the OiNK strips (and perhaps a couple of other little treats too). The first of our piggy publication’s characters we bump into is Weedy Willy, as ever written by Mark Rodgers and drawn by Mike Green.
This wouldn’t feel out of place in OiNK itself. The simplest of tasks were always an epic struggle for Willy and going to see a slushy movie was no different, complete with the obligatory snow for the Christmas annual, albeit five snowflakes. It still counts. Surprisingly, it’s Pete and his Pimple who gets the full colour treatment on the deluxe paper rather than our next star.
The yearly annuals are written and drawn so far in advance of publication (and publication is a few months before Christmas, although they were always Christmas presents), Lew Stringer’s strips for this particular book – released in 1989 – would’ve been created soon after OiNK’s cancellation in 1988. While both characters were fan favourites, Pete was probably the more popular of the two in OiNK and Buster’s editor may have thought that would be the same in Buster.
You see? More snow and ice. Of course these books were for Christmas! I’d loved to have seen the impact into that tree, though. Maybe we would have in his original comic, but it’s still a fun strip. As the months rolled on Tom’s popularity soared in Buster while Willy was quickly dropped and poor Pete went the same way a few months later. In the years that followed Tom became one of the comic’s standout stars, getting full colour pages to himself and he even appeared on the cover. But for now, a single black and white page must suffice.
Pete, on the other hand, is in glorious full colour (coloured by John Michael Burns – thanks to Lew for the info). Alas, this doesn’t mean readers could be made even more squeamish with some technicolour pimple bursting. As I’ve mentioned before when the comics merged, given the younger audience it was decided the pus had to remain put. But that doesn’t mean the fun is kept bottled up. Here, that old OiNK classic of dressing up the pimple is taken to a hilariously Christmassy conclusion.
Unlike a lot of the Buster regulars, these three only get one strip each this time around and I did hunt down their pages within the book first for obvious reasons. It’s going to be an agonising wait for next Christmas before I can read any more from them (most likely just Tom), so I made the most of my purchase on eBay and read through the rest of the book for more highlights to show you.
The first comes courtesy of Ricky Rainbow and he’s on the final two pages of the book. When Pete crossed over into an issue of Buster to promote the then-weekly OiNK back in March 1988, it hadn’t been too long since Nipper comic had merged into it, bringing Ricky along. I’d particularly liked that strip, even though he only turned see-through in it. Usually he could change colour on a whim or based on his mood and I said at the time I’d like to see more of him. It had the potential to be really funny.
Drawn by James Hansen, here we see him unwittingly change colour because of his temperature for the most part, and it’s really enjoyable. It’s also made something of a theme out of very funny letterbox moments this Christmas on the blog. (See Kids’ Court in the Big Comic Book 1989 review.) It’s madcap fun, bouncing between different predicaments for Ricky with Bruiser always on his tail. I know Nipper was a comic aimed at a younger audience than Buster but Ricky Rainbow fits in perfectly here. He’s one of the best parts in this whole book.
OiNK boasted of Pete Dredge winning the Provincial Cartoonist of the Year award from the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain
Finally, another OiNK artist pops up with his Young Arfur strip, namely Pete Dredge. Pete contributed to a handful of OiNKs randomly throughout its run including strips like spoof movie anthology The Golden Trough Awards, Master T and Dimbo, his take on Sly Stallone’s 80s action hero. OiNK also boasted of Pete winning the Provincial Cartoonist of the Year award from the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain in #49.
Young Arfur started out in School Fun comic before making the transition to Buster in 1984. (School Fun was actually conceived by OiNK writer Graham Exton.) Arfur is basically a young version of Arthur Daley from the hit TV show Minder, a minor con man who used the gift of the gab to earn money through various dodgy schemes. Young Arfur has that same gift but instead uses it to get him and his pals out of doing anything they don’t want to do.
As you can see his reputation precedes him. Not that this knowledge helped the teacher any. You could see him as a more charming (albeit that’s part of the con) and chatty, streetwise version of the Roger the Dodger strips in Beano at the time. He’s a fun character and must’ve been enjoyed by Buster readers as he was part of the comic until 1987, five times longer than School Fun’s whole run.
With that, we round off our look at the first Buster Book to co-star some of our old OiNK pals. I don’t need any will power to not look at the next volume because I haven’t bought it yet, but if you have these yourself (or can remember them) don’t tell me what’s to come, I look forward to finding out for myself each Christmas. One final surprise is on the back cover. Instead of a repeat of the front cover image by Tom Paterson, or a funny reverse cover like OiNK’s books, it’s an advert. But it’s one I’m sure anyone around my age will remember (fondly or otherwise) from a lot of our comics back then.
It’s strange to see an advert in an annual but the Big Comic Book also had it this year, as did the OiNK Winter Special released in November 1989. Anyway, that’s enough waffle from me. Pete may have been given top billing out of our three pig pals here, but it’s Tom Thug who has a few more Christmassy mishaps to come, so I look forward to our next festive feast of new OiNK-type material in twelve months!
As I sit down to write this review it strikes me I’ve only watched one Knight Rider this year, and that was my mum’s favourite episode (‘Ring of Fire‘) as a tribute to her memory during the spring. There’ll be one more time with MichaelKnight and K.I.T.T. in my yearly viewing of the show’s one Christmas episode (‘Silent Knight’) but first it’s time to get reacquainted with the duo on paper in the third Knight Rider Annual, published in 1985.
There’s a famous (and funny) episode of Babylon 5 in which Security Chief Michael Garibaldi spends a small sub-plot looking for someone to share his “Favourite Thing In The Universe” with, which ends up being an old Daffy Duck ‘Duck Dodgers’ cartoon. Every December I get to do the same and share a book all about my own Favourite Thing In The Universe with you lot. So now that this publication knows the pressure it’s under to deliver, does it?
The first thing I notice is that the legendary David Lloyd is no longer the artist. If this is the first Knight Rider Annual review you’re reading you need to check out the first two books (and the exclusive blog interview) to see his incredible painted work in those. The new artist for this year’s volume is Jim Eldridge (Roy of the Rovers, Bunty, TV Comic) who brings a more traditional comic style. His version of K.I.T.T.’s front end may be a lot more angular than the smooth, customised Trans-Am on the show but all the other little details are correct.
Speaking of which, the dashboard gives away just how far in advance these books were created. In America season four had started in the Autumn, just a month after this book would’ve went on sale over here, while on our UK TV screens season three was still being broadcast. However, the dashboard here is clearly that from seasons one and two, before K.I.T.T. had his big makeover. Clearly, Jim’s reference material wasn’t up-to-date.
The first story is called Crash Dive and while on a stakeout Michael and K.I.T.T. end up forced off a seaside cliff by the baddies, from where they catch sight of an underwater entry point to a secret compound and the answer to how a band of thieves’ were going undetected by police. It’s a distracting piece of fun, an excuse to get our heroes underwater and taking down a small submarine instead of yet another car. Not sure why K.I.T.T.’s scanner looks like monstrous teeth though. Maybe he was dressed as Christine for Halloween.
As ever, the prose stories have a bit more depth to their characterisations and a lot more humour between our two leads. Not too far removed from the previous book’s stories, Fire-Bug is another case of industrial espionage by an unknown arsonist. Well, I say unknown but the mystery isn’t very mysterious. But then again, the show dealt with industrial espionage via a company ‘insider’ on a few occasions too. At least here after the unsurprising reveal is made there’s one more piece of misdirection just when you think it’s all over.
The other text story is Rustlers, in which a cattle ranch owner is facing intimidation tactics from a wealthy landowner who wants her out. Again, if you’re a fan this might sound a lot like season one’s brilliant ‘Not A Drop To Drink‘ or season three’s iffy ‘The Rotten Apples‘, and you wouldn’t be wrong. I’d say inspiration has definitely been taken from the former. However, the story does go off on a tangent somewhat (dead cattle mysteriously found on the sides of mountains) and involves lots of stealthy teamwork from Michael and K.I.T.T..
It also ends with a climax I’d loved to have seen on the TV. On the show K.I.T.T. could often be found using his Microwave Jammer to stall a helicopter’s engines, forcing it to land. In Rustlers, he instead uses his grappling hook and the car’s sheer strength to physically pull one out of the sky. At ten pages this is the longest story in the book and with all of these good points it’s a shame the bad guy’s M.O. is essentially the same as the one in Fire-Bug.
While the banter between Michael and K.I.T.T. is funny, especially on the long stakeout where their personalities rub off on each other, their partnership doesn’t feel as developed as last year. Elsewhere in the book Michael and “Deven”’s (Devon’s name is still spelt incorrectly) relationship is quite confrontational, like it was at the beginning of season one when these two very different people were still getting to know each other.
Through certain stories these clashes softened and by the end of the season they were firm friends. This book’s writer seems to be working from earlier series notes compared to last year, leading me to believe it’s no longer Steve Moore from the first two books. Why would he take his characters backwards after all? K.I.T.T.’s abilities in the stories are also restricted to those from the earliest episodes. There are no credits in these annuals (other than Jim’s signature) so I can’t confirm anything but it must’ve been a complete change in editorial team and they haven’t considered these points. I probably wouldn’t cared as a child to be fair, I’d have been too excited about the book in the first place.
“Beneath the ramp is an air compressor. As I hit the ramp at speed, the air pushes the car upwards and provides much more lift than I’d normally be able to achieve.”
Jack Gill, Stunt Co-ordinator
The features this year include a few more interviews, this time with Stunt Coordinator Jack Gill, producer Gino Grimaldi and Patricia McPherson who had returned to her role as Bonnie Barstow in season three (which makes it all the more frustrating the stories don’t acknowledge the show was in its third year). Jack not only met his wife on Knight Rider, he also walked away with multiple injuries from making K.I.T.T. look so incredible on the screen.
Jack talks at one stage about lying on the floor with a hole in front of him so he could see where he was driving at high speeds. However, this was used only sparingly a few times (in one episode we clearly see him lying on the floor). For the vast majority of the high-speed stunts a hollowed out driver’s seat and a special stunt steering wheel were hidden from view. Famously, David Hasselhoff has talked about scenes where he’d have to jump into the self-driving K.I.T.T. and take over, he and “K.I.T.T.” often jokingly wrestling for control as they sped off!
Interestingly, Jack talks about how they made K.I.T.T. swim. In the show it’s a pretty (re: very) poor model but they actually did spend a lot of money on getting the real Trans Am on a floating platform and dragging it through the water. As you watch, when the camera is inside the car with David you can clearly see he’s actually on the water and there’s spray coming in through the open window. Apparently it never looked right, so they switched to models for the exteriors and wrote in April Curtis removing the ability from K.I.T.T. at the end of the episode.
Jack and his team were instrumental to the show’s success and in any interview I’ve read with him over the years he always comes across as a very likeable and modest chap. According to interviews with others that’s exactly the kind of person he was, despite the high stresses and dangers of his job. The interview with Gino is interesting too, covering everything from the writing and rewriting of scripts to how they scored the show and selected the perfect 80s pop songs for each scene.
Unfortunately the interview with Patricia is a very brief chat rather than the full interview Rebecca Holden had last year. In fact, it’s a bit of a fluff piece, which is a shame as it could’ve been a fantastic exclusive, not just given her role on the show and her much celebrated return, but also because of her activism and environmentalism in real life, something that wasn’t as prevalent in the 80s as it is now.
What would an 80s annual be without some pin ups to fill out the contents? I never knew of anyone who went to the bother of actually pinning up pages from any of our annuals, but publishers persisted. Other space fillers here aren’t as good as in previous books, in fact some of the puzzles seem to have been knocked together in minutes. For example, a simple maze page doesn’t even have any pictures of the characters, just a few lines of text asking the reader to help K.I.T.T. escape.
The book does have a second strip that’s fun though. Wise Guys sees Michael and K.I.T.T. stumble upon two bank-robbing rednecks in a souped-up car making light work of a police chase. There’s nothing original here, it could’ve been written straight after the pilot movie, but it’s light-hearted fun with K.I.T.T. at the centre of things saving the day. For the kids who could only see such things when the show was broadcast this would’ve been great fun and that’s who these book were for, after all.
Michael catches up with the bad guys in his car and one use of the oil slick later the men have careened off the road, their car damaged beyond repair. But they take a woman hostage in a nearby house and demand a clean getaway. Of course, they want the Pontiac Trans-Am that can outrun the police, and the rest writes itself. It’s the only colour strip and despite K.I.T.T.’s boxy configuration there’s a lovely retro Christmas Annual feel about the whole thing.
The following year, Marvel UK would release a special Transformers softcover book for Christmas which reprinted stories and features from the previous year’s annual and it appears Grandreams had the same idea. The year after this annual they’d strip it of the pin ups and the awful filler material and rerelease it as the Knight Rider Special, a 52-page softback with a glossy card cover (minus the annoying ‘Knight 2000’ branding superimposed on K.I.T.T.). Keeping all the best parts and getting rid of the rest it reads better than the annual itself, although it doesn’t have that hardback, childhood Christmassy feel to it.
Back to the book and with some tweaks this could’ve been the perfect third Knight Rider Annual. As it stands the stories are great fun, there’s some interesting behind-the-scenes nuggets and at a time when we couldn’t search the internet the photography from the show was always keenly perused over and over. It’s still a great nostalgia trip and, speaking of which, here’s an old photo I found last month from around the same time with a present from Santa that was my pride and joy!
Michael and K.I.T.T. (and me) will be back next year.
(Special thanks to my friend Vicki who gave me the Super Pursuit Mode K.I.T.T. featured in the book photos in my Christmas stocking last year!)
It doesn’t really jump off the cover that this is the first of Marvel UK’s Christmas issues of Transformers. Then again, the cover image isn’t even a cover image. It’s just a panel from the strip inside blown up to full size, something the comic did a few times in its first year. This is a shame because there are a small handful of gorgeous original covers among those first 26 issues.
Originally a 32-page fortnightly made up of colour and black-and-white pages with its contents spread sporadically through each issue, it’s a far cry from the weekly format it would become known for later. Launch editor Shiela Cranna adds a couple of captions to the cover and a Christmas message in the two-page editorial, which contained a mixture of Transformers news and random items they thought would appeal to readers.
I’m not sure about Shiela having “quite the fight to get the Christmas decorations up” with designer Theresa George, seeing as how it’s a random selection of clip art-like bits and bobs thrown together. As someone who originally came to the comic much later in the run and loved snowy logos, Christmas strips and festive features, it was a bit of a shock just how little of this children’s comic seemed to celebrate the season in 1984.
That’s not to say this isn’t a good issue. Let’s face it, bad issues of this comic could be counted on one hand. In this series I’ll be taking a yearly look at the Christmas editions of Transformers between 1984 and 1990 on their individual 40th anniversaries. I’ve read the whole series in real time on the blog’s Instagram (you can check it all out in a special blog post) but here I’ll have the chance to take a deeper dive into these particular issues. So after an editorial which includes a reader poem that won’t be worrying Stan Bush anytime soon, and a cringey reference to “boys’ toys” (the gift of hindsight), what strip action was to be had?
This is the big event of the issue, the introduction of the Dinobots
The main strip was still telling the origin story of the Transformers’ arrival on Earth, concluding in the next issue. The Last Stand: Part One was written by Jim Salicrup (editor on Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, Bram Stoker’s Dracula), pencilled by Frank Springer (Savage She-Hulk, Green Arrow, G.I. Joe), inked by Ian Akin and Brian Garvey (partnered on ROM, Iron Man, Firestorm) and lettered by John Workman (Jurassic Park, Incredible Hulk, Star Slammers), his work always recognisable with open balloons and captions along panel edges.
As you can see it’s in black and white, with only 5 of the 12 pages in the original colour provided by Nel Yomtov (every issue of the US Transformers, Amazing Spider-Man, Punisher Armory), with Bob Budiansky (Sleepwalker, Ghost Rider, Avengers) editing the story. Bob created many names of the characters and their abilities for Hasbro and would go on to write the comic for a few years.
In this chapter the Autobots find out Spike Witwicky has converted Earth fuel for the Decepticons and even the fact he was under duress doesn’t stop them from threatening him! They’re new to our planet and don’t trust us yet. Fear causes Spike to have a heart attack and during a Vietnam flashback we come to realise he’s poisoned the fuel he gave Megatron, which convinces the Autobots we’re on their side.
However, this is the big event of the issue, the introduction of the Dinobots! It’s a strange page to choose for colour given how it’s a flashback and in muted tones, but it was no less exciting for the young readers. Millions of years previous The Ark had detected more Transformer life and it relays how its surveillance drone had discovered Shockwave and created what it believed to be a disguise for five of the most powerful Autobots on board.
It’s a much better origin tale than the cartoon came up with and it’s even set in the Savage Land, a hidden prehistoric place in the Antarctic that featured prominently in X-Men comics and more recently in the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness movie. After Spider-Man had guest starred in the previous issue the comic’s ties to the wider Marvel Universe were a surprise for me. They’re a fun addition.
Speaking of other Marvel comics, here’s an advert for the monthly Captain Britain and below that the big Christmas movie was… Caravan of Courage? I’ll be honest, I’ve never heard of this Star Wars spin-off. This page interrupts the strip mid-flow. Much like the US comics these early editions break the strips up into several pieces with adverts and features seemingly randomly throw in here and there.
While in the American comic the adverts are more easily ignored (but no less irritating), having features to read in the middle of the stories results in the comic having a rather bitty feel. But one of those interruptions is the only real Christmas bonus so we’ll forgive it. While the readers’ drawings aren’t festive, Shiela decided to gather 14 of those sent in altogether as a special Christmas treat for those featured.
No ages are given but I think it’s safe to say the comic already had a wide audience, from the very young to at least the teen market if the high quality on display here is anything to go by. The ideas for original Transformers would even give some of the comic’s later attempts a run for their money.
From robotic aliens to a robotic man created here on Earth. Aaron Stack was the last in a line of futuristic robots, the difference being he was raised by his creator as if he was his own son. After his creator was killed in an accident Aaron went out into the world, both as a human and as a new kind of superhero, Machine Man. Unlike Superman with his glasses, Aaron was much more convincing as he disguised himself with a fake face, hands etc.
The character was originally created by Jack Kirby and this is the first page of the second chunk of Xanadu, written by Marv Wolfman (Tomb of Dracula, Spider-Woman, Batman) with art by Steve Ditko (Blue Beetle, Amazing Spider-Man, Secret City Saga) and is lettered by Ira Watanabe (Cyclops, Incredible Hulk, Sub-Mariner).
I really enjoyed Machine Man, even with Marvel UK’s cherry-picking of stories which meant we didn’t get to see his full character arc before the strip disappeared from the comic, replaced by the more contemporary Machine Man of 2020. Aaron was a great character. He felt fully formed, his wish to live a human life was endearing and he had a cracking sense of humour which often shone in the middle of spectacular fight scenes.
Thrown in midway through the strip, Robot Round-Up was the best extra feature from the first year of the comic. An always interesting look at where our technology was at the time and how they perceived it would develop, it’s fun to contrast the future according to the 80s with how things have turned out. Such a shame how writer Johnny Black comes across in that last story though. Unfortunately, sometimes these things happen when we read old 80s publications. Oh well, it’s a reminder of how much better and more enlightened we are today.
Also standing in stark contrast to today were Hasbro’s Transformers toy adverts. While later in the run they’d include actual photographs, originally fans only had illustrations to go on (albeit intricately drawn). Even in the 90s I remember Commodore 64 games being advertised in Commodore Format with nothing more than the box art to tempt us to buy them. So strange to look back on that now.
Thus ends our first Christmas with Transformers. As you can see it was a very different beast to what most people will remember. Next year’s will feel more familiar to you and not only that, there’ll also be the first of seven Transformers Annuals as well! It’s a long time to wait, I know, so don’t forget you can check out the entire Instagram real time read through of the series that took me over seven years to complete. You don’t need an account and there’s a guide on the blog so you can check out all 375(!) posts in whatever order you like.
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