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Comic Promos, Mighty Marvel Checklists

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 14

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SATURDAY 29th OCTOBER 1988

Neither The Transformers and Visionaries nor The Real Ghostbusters marked the spooky season in 1988. Well, the Ghostbusters no more than every other week. Martin Griffiths’ cover for the latter sees the introduction of that rare thing for that comic, a returning villain. While Stephen Baskerville’s cover to Transformers marks the arrival of a story often mocked by fans online, unfairly in my eyes.

Giant sentient robotic aliens from outer space that can transform into Earth vehicles and weaponry. And now, some could also wrap themselves up inside a monstrous outer shell for… disguise? Some fans saw a story where a Decepticon Pretender monster became a Hollywood star (taking the place of a special effect) as silly. Really? Have you read the premise of the comic and the Pretenders? Lighten up and stop taking things so seriously, it’s actually a fun story and I became somewhat fond of the lumbering Skullgrin.

Elsewhere in the issue Visionaries comes to an emotional (for me) end on a cliffhanger, which you can check out in the full review at the link at the bottom of this post. But topping that is the cliffhanger to Combat Colin: “Next week: Mrs. Frumpy vs. The Robot Penguin!!” Meanwhile in The Real Ghostbusters, that aforementioned villain is Ponquadragor, a being that’s been hunting Egon ever since he was a child. A demonic force who’d eventually become a semi-regular visitor and a pal of the team!

What else did comic fans have to choose from this week?

Not much apparently, with Dragon’s Claws #5 from week 11 making a reappearance on the checklist, although it was an important issue with a certain new comic set to be launched any time now. You can check out this fantastic issue in its own OiNK Blog review, link below. Then, the entry for the now-fortnightly Thundercats reminded us that the hyped merge between it and Galaxy Rangers was already over.

On to our adverts and Fred Flintstone et all were very happy about their new larger comic. In reality it had been printed on smaller paper up to this point and was now going to be the same size as the rest of Marvel UK’s output, probably to save on pricing costs rather than anything else. It was kind of like the comics version of “Better Recipe” on confectionary; better for the company’s bottom line.

I’ll admit I’ve never read Captain Britain. Growing up in Northern Ireland in the 80s and 90s, by the time I was a teenager and the target audience the UK’s flag had other connotations that some friends of mine saw as the opposite of heroic. They never said anything against Captain Britain, but my own mind seemed to want to stay away from it for that reason when I’d see his graphic novels advertised in the 90s.

As an adult though, reading this advert it sounds like a fun premise, and one that I clearly and unfairly got the wrong impression of all those decades ago. It’s certainly got a great creative team. On that note we come to the end of this week’s trip back in time with Marvel UK. It’s great to see so many of you enjoying these on socials, long may that continue (because the series is going to continue for a long time whether you like it or not).

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TRANSFORMERS 190 (Instagram)

TRANSFORMERS & ViSiONARiES: PART TWO

DRAGON’S CLAWS 5

WEEK 13 < > WEEK 15

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THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 13

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SATURDAY 22nd OCTOBER 1988

The Real Ghostbusters tied themselves in with the free drinks offer most Marvel UK comics ran this month in 1988, the cover drawn by Martin Griffiths and in The Transformers and Visionaries Jeff Anderson’s cover foretold of dark stories to come. Exciting times! Welcome to the next Mighty Marvel UK Checklist!

Inside this edition of The Real Ghostbusters is the only place (comics or cartoon) you’ll find any kind of official origin story for their pet ghost, Slimer as we find out who he was in life. As we approach spooky season Spengler’s Spirit Guide tries to explain the origins of Halloween and how it’s when the separation between dimensions is at its weakest. While it’s very funny it completely ignores the recurring villain from the cartoon, Samhain the Spirit of Halloween. Missed a trick (and treat) there!

In The Transformers the Winter Special Collected Comics 11 is mentioned in the editorial. It was the edition of the comic that would ultimately turn me into a fan and ignite my love of these characters. This is also the issue when Megatron kills the time-travelling Cyclonus 20 years before he’s created, setting in motion the events leading to the epic Time Wars. We even see the very fabric of space begin to tear right at the end of the story here. Oh, and no, you couldn’t win a box of Ready Brek, the prize was a clock radio.

Just the four comics this week, with the latest monthly edition of Action Force tying itself in with the newly released home video of Action Force: The Movie, which famously changed the death of a character to a deep coma after the reaction of kids to Optimus Prime being killed off in The Transformers: The Movie. Also, does the Flintstones and Friends comic have any actual comic content? Judging from the checklists it’s hard to tell.

Last week I mentioned how I might just have to add the Marvel Bumper Comic to the blog’s list of real time read throughs after I found out Count Duckula had joined its ranks. In this week’s comics he also stars in an advert for his own Winter Special. Even though Duckula was a British cartoon it was Marvel US’ imprint Star Comics that produced a strip instead. In his natural home there was no regular comic with original UK content, just imports of the American strips into specials and the Bumper Comic. Surely a missed opportunity, especially given how funny the UK writing team for the Ghostbusters could be.

This blog series really seems to have fired the ol’ memory cells of readers out there because there’s been a great reaction on social media. I post the checklists and adverts there to get the conversations going, but of course you can follow along here instead where you also have access to all of the previous entries in one place. (Just click on the link below to the menu screen.) I’ll be back in seven days with even more. There’s plenty to come!

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TRANSFORMERS 189 (Instagram)

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TRANSFORMERS & ViSiONARiES: PART TWO

WEEK 12 < > WEEK 14

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THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 12

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SATURDAY 15th OCTOBER 1988

Were you thirsty on the morning of Saturday 15th October 1988? You could’ve grabbed a free can of Tango with your copy of Marvel UK’s The Transformers and Visionaries #188! You could’ve used it to cool yourself off from Jeff Anderson’s hot cover, or after lumping the hefty 19th issue of the publisher’s The Real Ghostbusters all the way home.

There were no extra pages behind Brian Williamson and Dave Elliott’s cover but the whole issue was printed on matte paper that had a lovely look (giving the false impression of the paper really soaking up the solid black inks) and heavier feel to it. Inside, there was a musical strip starring The Ghostie Boys backed up with a look at spiritual musical instruments in Spengler’s Spirit Guide, such as the Nullify Flute which could cancel out all music but offered “no protection against Tiffany”.

Jeff’s cover depicted a scene from Firebug, a one-off story needed for scheduling reasons but which (like most such tales in Transformers) was great. It had an original and honest-to-gosh happy ending that raised a smile, accompanied by a reader on the letters page saying such UK strips were intelligent while the American ones were stupid! Dreadwind scolds him for being harsh, “After all, we do see fit to showcase their stories in our Transformers comic.” How kind. So, what else was up for grabs?

Thundercats (already minus the Galaxy Rangers) changed up a bit, with an emphasis on appealing to younger readers with the extras first, strip second, and the beginning of what seemed like endless frequency changes. So Count Duckula joined the Marvel Bumper Comic? Now that’s yet another reason to add it to the (long) list of potential real time read throughs on the OiNK Blog.

Having now started watching Doctor Who from the (very) beginning I can better appreciate the magazine’s focus on classic tales such as Keys of Marinus here, complete with its scuba gear-wearing ‘aliens’, although an interview with my first ever Doctor would’ve sealed the deal for me anyway. I never realised Alf’s monthly lasted even this long and below is the advert of his I mentioned last week that made us giggle while not actually featuring the titular star.

This was typical of a few of the adverts for his comic which told us nothing about it but did include a surreal joke showcasing the humour we could find inside (I assume). It may sound strange nowadays, but there was no regular Marvel UK comic starring the classic Super Heroes at the time. After Spider-Man and Zoids and before The Incredible Hulk Presents fans had to make do with specials and annuals, such as the one advertised here.

Next week a new addition to the Marvel fold mentioned above gets their own winter special, and I’m aghast I never picked it up! You can find out who I missed out on when their advert appears here in seven days alongside another checklist. Until then, why don’t you let me know if you remember reading any of the issues above by leaving a comment here or on the socials below? G’wan!

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TRANSFORMERS 188 (Instagram)

TRANSFORMERS & ViSiONARiES: PART TWO

WEEK 11 < > WEEK 13

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THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK 11

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SATURDAY 8th OCTOBER 1988

It feels like no time at all between each part of this series. The weeks are really flying in. It’s reminding me of how much I loved getting new comics every single week and this week 37 years ago was no exception, with The Real Ghostbusters #18 (cover by Brian Williamson and Dave Hine) waiting patiently at my newsagent’s. For my friends the 187th edition of The Transformers and Visionaries (cover by Andrew Wildman) provided all the entertainment they’d need that morning.

The Ghostbusters met Mother Nature this week in a nice ecological tale before three ghosts appeared in their fire station HQ to play cards with Peter. This strip included a memorable moment when the Grim Reaper said he’d go blind with this next hand… and proceeded to pick his eyes out of his sockets! Meanwhile the gigantic Metroplex made Godzilla look more like that rooster from the Kellogg’s advert as he went on a rampage after being woken up from beneath Autobot City.

There’s also a famous page in Transformers history where a conversation between Ultra Magnus and Soundwave is laid out on the page as a homage to a Batman/Joker scene from The Killing Joke. Batman fans can check it out at the link below. Also, the Visionaries began another excellent story that would be their final new comic strip, ever. An excellent week already for Marvel UK but what else was available? To begin with, Transformers fans would definitely have been making a return visit to the newsagent for what was surely an unmissable issue of Dragon’s Claws.

It was one of the very best of their run and because they were up against that Transformers comics creation, Death’s Head! The full review of that one is in both the Dragon’s Claws and Death’s Head real time read throughs on the blog. The Galaxy Rangers story sounds completely bizarre this week, even more bizarre than the millennia-spanning crossover in the pages of Flintstones and Friends, and was the content of the Alf Autumn Special originally intended as a hardback book?

In weeks four and five we saw one-page comic strip adverts for Marvel UK titles, an idea by editor Richard Starkings. The idea was that they could be reused over and over and act as a sample of the kind of strips and art prospective readers would find in their comics. While the Doctor Who Magazine advert below is enjoyable, Richard told me he felt it missed the point of the brief by producing a comical take instead of an example of the magazine’s art. Written by friend of the blog and DWM editor at the time , John Freeman and drawn by Nick Miller, it actually reminds me of a scene in OiNK’s time travel issue when Uncle Pigg comes up against the ‘Butcherleks’ as he introduces the comic to Earth’s inhabitants of the future!

The other advert was a one-off page created by the Transformers comic to promote not only the Cybertronians’ own superb annual but also those of the two cancelled comics that shared the back up strip space (not at the same time). Although, if readers had read the Visionaries comic as stated here they’d have been disappointed with the news the strip was a reprint, especially since it was only a handful of months since its original publication. Despite that, it’s still a favourite annual of mine and a jewel in my collection.

Next week that Alf special gets an advert that made us laugh even though it didn’t involve the titular alien and Thundercats would begin its confusing period of not knowing how often it wanted to appear! Do you remember any of these specific issues released this week way back in time? Did this issue of Dragon’s Claws introduce you to the freelance peace-keeping agent? Did anyone actually build Bedrock?

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TRANSFORMERS 187 (Instagram)

TRANSFORMERS & ViSiONARiES: PART TWO

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DOCTOR WHO MAGAZiNE POSTS #135 & #147

TRANSFORMERS ANNUAL #4 (Instagram)

ViSiONARiES ANNUAL

WEEK TEN < > WEEK TWELVE

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Oh, and just to be clear, I love that Kellogg’s advert.

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THE MiGHTY MARVEL UK CHECKLiST: WEEK TEN

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SATURDAY 1st OCTOBER 1988

Welcome back to the tenth week (already?) of The Mighty Marvel Checklist series here on the OiNK Blog. This week’s checklist is taken from The Real Ghostbusters, whose cover by Phil Elliott and Dave Hine doesn’t do justice to the stories inside, especially the strip drawn by Phil! Meanwhile, Andrew Wildman’s image for The Transformers and Visionaries hyped up the main story, only to have this moment reserved for the cliffhanger for next week.

Inside Ghostbusters, the first story isn’t even on the cover and that’s a shame because it’s brilliant. Remember that Looney Tunes cartoon where Daffy is at the mercy of the artist (who turns out to be Bugs)? In this story a ghost begins draining colour from the strip in a similar way in a wonderfully meta story. Then Hell Razor sees Peter chased around the firehouse by his electric razor in one of the comic’s funniest strips of its whole run.

The Transformers comic would’ve been sealed inside a plastic bag this week, what with another Panini sticker album being given away as a free gift. Just three weeks ago the ‘busting team gave theirs away and stickers for it have been popping up in various comics ever since. This time it’s the turn of the currently-MIA Action Force (G.I. Joe). It was definitely the season for playground swaps! What else did we have available to us this week?

Thomas the Tank Engine may have filled the gap of a fifth comic last week, but this time around we’ve just been given a little more information than usual about each title instead. Given how much I loved The Real Ghostbusters it’s a shame I was never a fan of Thundercats because their comic has a great creative team, it’s nearly identical in fact. If only I’d even picked up the issues with the Galaxy Rangers! Oh well.

There’s a smorgasbord of connect in the second Marvel Bumper Comic, yet more stickers and another new story for what many saw as the main stars of this apparently all-reprint title. Although, judging by the description here I think this appeared later in their own comic but was never billed as a reprint. Sneaky.

No new Marvel UK adverts this week but there’ll be two next time and a packed six-comic checklist (so glasses at the ready for a smaller font). In the meantime, as always I’d love to hear from you about your memories of the comics featured every week and if you remember any of these specific issues or stories. Join in the fun on the blog’s Instagram and Facebook and my own Bluesky anytime.

TRANSFORMERS 186 (Instagram)

TRANSFORMERS & ViSiONARiES: PART ONE

WEEK NiNE < > WEEK ELEVEN

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