It’s been a long time coming but finally it’s time for the next instalment of Transformers at Christmas, my yearly look at the Yuletide issues of Marvel UK’s epic G1 comic on their 40th anniversaries. Well, it’s almost time. There are still seven days to go but first let’s take a look at how 1985’s special issue was promoted in the previous issue. In fact, this issue includes its own holiday highlights on the editorial page too.
Jeff Anderson’s exciting cover leads to a bit of a damp squib inside, the build up over the weeks to this confrontation led to an anti-climactic one-page fight where Optimus Prime simply tosses Shockwave into a deep swamp. There’s a neat double meaning on the cover though; for a few weeks Shockwave had had Prime’s head separated from his body, so the headline made me chuckle. The Christmas fun kicks off with an early celebratory Robo-Capers by Lew Stringer and a quick Hasbro Q&A for the kids before Santa brought them their latest (or first) Robots in Disguise.
There’s nothing else marking the season until we get to the final pages and that all-important Next Issue Promo with a very jolly-looking, fully costumed Optimus promoting the very first Transformers Christmas strip. Plus the return of Circuit Breaker! PLUS the Iron Man of 2020! Then there’s Prime dressed up as Santa Claus! What’s not to look forward to?
When I read this as part of the blog’s real time read through over on Instagram this promo really had me hyped as it took me right back to discovering the comic myself as a kid via this story, albeit a few years later in a Winter Special reprint. Even Prime’s choice of costume, while seemingly silly to begin with, adds a surprising amount of depth to the character. I’ll explain all next week.
But that’s not all this year. There’s something else coming this Christmas as part of these special anniversary reviews, namely the first Transformers Annual. Not appearing until the comic’s second festive season, the exciting arrival of the comic’s first annual was met with zero advertisements and only one mention in #37’s editorial at the end of November.
Soundwave was the letter answerer at the time and he’d written the announcement for the book, sounding suitably unimpressed. For fans though, the introduction of the Insecticons and just the news of the book existing would’ve been more than enough! Although I’m sure they’d have known about it long before then. With the way our newsagents would’ve had tables or shelves crammed with annuals every year, the lack of promos wouldn’t have had much of an impact on such a hit property. You can actually check out the adverts for all of the Transformers annuals in a special post from earlier this holiday season.
That’s us ready for Christmas 1985 in the world of The Transformers. So #41 will be right here in just seven days on Sunday 21st December 2025, my 48th birthday! (It originally went on sale on my 8th. Eek!) Then just four days later on Christmas Day itself the first in-depth review of a classic Transformers Annual. Don’t miss either. They’re both fantastic!
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 VisionariesJeff 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, Samhainthe 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!
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!
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.
With an increase of 5p on the cover price, Death’s Head #7 hit stores today back in 1989 with this Bryan Hitch and Mark Farmer cover, while inside I’m excited to see inking duties on Bryan’s pencils are actually by Jeff Anderson, whose work I loved so much in Marvel UK’s top-selling Transformers and this combination is just superb throughout. The comic is also still offering subscriptions for 12 months so clearly there was no sign yet that even those earliest of subscribers wouldn’t be getting all of their issues delivered. (Only three more to go after this one.)
A new colourist has joined the fray, namely Stuart Place who also coloured for the company’s The Real Ghostbusters, Action Force (G.I. Joe) and Transformers, most notably the fan-favourite Dinobot Hunt story in the early days of the comic. Steve White has also taken over as editor after Richard Starkings resigned. Poor Steve, we’ve already seen his name on the blog when he edited Visionaries but it didn’t last long because the subject matter flopped, he took over Havoc just before it got unceremoniously canned and the same is about to happen here. None were his fault obviously, and he is a simply incredible artist! Check out his Instagram and make sure you see his gorgeous colouring on Xenozoic Tales in Dark Horse’s Jurassic Park!
Shot by Both Sides (as ever written by Simon Furman with Annie Halfacree lettering) is a brilliant strip, one of my favourites of the run so far. The comedy comes thick and fast in the early pages. A robotic tour guide is telling passengers on a bus what they can see to their right and left when a crashing ship narrowly averts disaster but rips off the roof of the vehicle in the process. In response, the robot simply moves on with, “Um, well… above you, you can see…”.
It’s at this point we see the panel above and the ship in question is Death’s Head‘s, who seems to be having problems with the autopilot. I remember a friend of mine in school who was a particularly big fan and he’d often quote the “No, yes?” line when asked a question. The plot this time combines two previous cliffhangers from #4 and #6 and sees bounty hunter Big Shot and explosives expert Short Fuse both attempting to take out the Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent for their bosses.
These bosses are the previously featured Undertaker and new gangster Dead Cert, a cigar-chomping man with a horse’s head who unironically runs the city’s illegal sports gambling rings, including horse racing. In the first scene (the crashing ship one) we find out Big Shot had fired a high-powered missile at Death’s Head ship which had initiated the crash. But Short Fuse had also planted an explosion in the cargo hold. When it went off it lightened the craft enough for it to be successfully pulled up before it crashed into that bus.
Death’s Head puts both down to “cowboy builders” and doesn’t realise he was actually under attack. This forms the backbone of this month’s tale. Big Shot’s aim is to kill our anti-hero and double-cross Undertaker by taking over Death’s Head’s business, while Short Fuse just wants to do a good job for the person/horse who hired him. However, they keep attempting to take out their target at the same time. While completely unaware of each other, each attempt is undone by the other’s, cancelling each other out in an increasingly funny series of events.
There’s a main bad guy mixed in here that acts as Death’s Head’s target for a job he and Spratt (good to see him back in the strip) have been hired to carry out. Called Photofit, he has a hi-tech suit which enables him to mimic anyone he comes in contact with. Think the T-1000 from Terminator 2, albeit a few years before that film was released. While the chase makes for an entertaining plot it’s really just a vehicle for the assassination attempts.
Eventually our lead clicks that something is going on as you can see below. I love the panel when he realises, his expression and the rain bouncing off his metallic face is all just perfectly realised. In the middle panel you can see how Short Fuse’s mistimed bomb blows Death’s Head backwards and away from Big Shot firing his bazooka-like weapon. He’d been in his sights but the explosion pushed the target out of the way and you can see the bazooka shell zooming harmlessly past.
Somehow this doesn’t get stale either, mainly thanks to the imagination on show in how these attempts fail and Death’s Head’s reactions. All the while the Photofit story continues and he disguises himself as a contestant on a game show where the prize is a trip out of the country, all paid for and through legitimate channels, the ultimate getaway right in plain sight.
Spratt accidentally ends up on the show itself and faces off against the disguised Photofit while Death’s Head tries to search the rest of the building for someone who could be anyone. All the while he’s getting attacked by unknown enemies. Unknown until Big Shot finally decides to change that. Sick of having his chances squandered he blasts Death’s Head through a wall, then stands over him, gun pointed at his head, ready to take the final shot… when another explosion knocks him off his feet and into waiting fists.
I had to laugh at that first panel! Well, our main character isn’t a bounty hunter after all, yes? Short Fuse is getting frustrated too. For once it was Big Shot who got in his way, so he resorts to desperate measures but his own incompetence results in nothing more than an explosion in mid-air that shoves the fighting duo through a wall and into the television studio.
Just before this, Photofit makes himself known to Spratt because our unwitting contestant is actually winning the game. A gun held in the small of his back, he’s saved by the sudden arrival of our fighting duo and Photofit realises he’s defeated and must escape. He sees the perfect disguise right in front of him. Or it would be, if that disguise didn’t immediately place him in the sights of an assassin.
So the magnetic bomb obviously doesn’t stick to the very human imposter and in a shocking move it not only blows him up but Short Fuse as well! Okay, yes, he’s been trying to blow up Death’s Head but the very violent slapstick comedy he’s brought to the issue has been hilarious and I’m genuinely sorry to see him killed off. Despite being a hired killer there was something loveable about the little man. However, even in death he manages to thwart Big Shot one final time and save the mechanoid they’d both been hired to kill.
As the story ends Spratt and Death’s Head converse over how it was strange that things kept exploding around them, reminding the readers that the duo never even knew of Short Fuse’s existence, never mind his influence on events (and their lives). They don’t seem to care why those explosions kept happening and instead only hope there’s enough left of their target so that they can prove they’ve earned their money!
It’s a suitably funny conclusion for these two, playing down the events and simply moving on. In their position it’s probably the healthiest way to be but that’s not the point. The point is that they’re very funny together and obviously the perfect match, something even Death’s Head seems to have finally acknowledged. These two are so well written, their actions and dialogue so natural that you have to step back to remember how far-fetched the whole scenario of the comic is.
I’ve really enjoyed Simon’s writing in Transformers and Dragon’s Claws but there’s something about this particular comic that stands out. It feels like it’s more of a personal project for Simon, it’s so one-of-a-kind and has such a unique sense of humour I get the feeling the writing is closer to Simon’s own personality than anything else I’ve read. We’ll see that insight hopefully develop even more over the remaining months, the next instalment in five weeks on Monday 3rd June 2024.
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