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SATURDAY 12th AUGUST 1989

You’ll have the beginning of a certain classic Surfaris song stuck in your head with that caption on John Marshall’s and Dave Harwood’s cover to The Real Ghostbusters. Meanwhile, a favourite storyline makes the cover of Transformers and Action Force again, courtesy of Lee Sullivan.

The ghost busting team seemed to be having a time of it in the summer of 1989. After their sojourn in England last week, now they were living it up in the sun of LA and once again the strips and prose stories were all linked by the theme. Even Ecto-1 could be seen with huge sand tyres thanks to the art of Anthony Larcombe inside. As usual when the comic ran a theme like this it wasn’t just the main stories either, features such as Spengler’s Spirit Guide, Dead True and humour strip Blimey It’s Slimer were all LA-centric, making it another special one.

The main event of my week back then was the second part of The Big Shutdown with the introduction of the new Big Bad, Thunderwing and the infectiously enthusiastic Nightbeat. It’d be a while before they’d appear in the US strips so we were being treated to a superb prelude and it really added a level of fear to the former before his main arc. Between the last issue and this one it’s been a particular delight rereading these, the first glimpses of what would eventually become the epic Matrix Quest and all of the storylines that came off the back of that, all the way to that fateful final #332 almost two-and-a-half years later. It was a truly phenomenal time to be a reader.

We make up for the lack of adverts with a bumper checklist. It didn’t take up any more space but it was chock full of Marvel UK goodness. The best story of the week barely got a mention in Transformers’ bit of the list and I always wondered if anyone who didn’t read The Real Ghostbusters actually believed the checklists when they described the stories this way (instead of realising they were comedy strips)? The final issue of Death’s Head kept that bit quiet, which is a shame since that would’ve made it an unmissable candidate for the ‘Don’t Miss…’ box. Not that there is one this week. Cheekily, and possibly to get people to buy it, the summary doesn’t mention which Iron Man he’s battling.

The Punisher’s new weekly saw the end of its first back up strip, the full movie adaptation of RoboCop done in only three issues. The next back up (The ‘Nam) would stay for the rest of its run, making it feel like ol’ Murphy was only there to help push the new comic out of the starting block. Finally, Doctor Who Magazine makes a welcome return to these posts and I’d love to read that feature about the early stunts, back when imaginations had to outdo the measly budget. Although, the competition prizes don’t seem as “fabulous” as they were made out to be. Two adverts next week, including (at long last) another in the form of a comic strip. Wonderful! See you in seven.

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SATURDAY 5th AUGUST 1989

John Marshall’s and Dave Harwood’s front page to The Real Ghostbusters doesn’t stand a chance this week, not when it’s alongside Nightbeat as a private eye on Andrew Wildman’s Transformers and Action Force cover!

Last time I said if this was the cover this week I’d be so excited I might read the issue again, despite having done so countless times before. Well, I did! The Big Shutdown was a superb two-part story that saw Autobot Headmaster Nightbeat investigating a disappearance, and with its classic detective movie clichés it’s a brilliant tale (and Nightbeat a fantastic character!). Alongside the terrifying new Decepticon Thunderwing, this was the beginning of writer Simon Furman introducing important new characters from his American strips to UK readers first. Our exclusive stories foreshadowed the US ones, added depth to proceedings and gave us a rich, memorably epic feel to the whole final couple of years of the comic. A genius move and a brilliant story in its own right.

Talking of stories coming across the Atlantic, the Ghostbusters were in England on holiday so all of this week’s tales were set there. Even the Dead True feature about local urban myths focused on the Tower of London. While The Real Ghostbusters comic’s stories were rarely longer than four or five pages, they would often find other ways of making them special such as these themed issues, or linking them together with an overall arc. Not that anything was made of this special issue on the cover, strangely enough. At least the “jolly spiffing” nature of it is plugged as such on the checklist.

Again, the need to tell us the titles and credits of every story reduces the brilliant Transformers contents to quick sentences that wouldn’t really entice new readers. The second issue of The Sleeze Brothers still didn’t get to be the big comic, despite their premiere issue holding the record for the number of weeks in the top spot. Nope, once again The Punisher weekly gets that honour. It was being given a big push so we can’t really blame them for giving it to him again; if it had been a new monthly we’d have expected it.

This week’s advert is actually for one of our mainstays. Even after 230 issues there’s no harm in plugging Marvel UK’s top-selling comic of the 1980s. In fact, I’d say it was about time. Both it and The Real Ghostbusters were rarely advertised post-launch, the excellent strip adverts notwithstanding (which you can see in weeks four and 21, although that was part of a publisher-wide push). I suppose when they’re already a hit there’s not much need. However, as fun as it was seeing one favourite comic pop up in the other, the advert feels somewhat phoned-in.

Like most of the publisher’s adverts there’s very little in the way of information and it relies solely on a few choice images. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever, the main purpose was to alert the younger readers of its existence and give a general feel of what to expect. On that level it does the job, but even when I was 11-years-old I couldn’t help thinking the image of Optimus Prime just looked wrong. That big gap above him where a speech balloon must’ve been made an otherwise powerful ad feel a bit slapped together. It’s not like the comic was short of images of him that would’ve fitted properly!

No adverts next week. In fact, for the rest of the year we seem to get a few weeks of a drought at a time and then suddenly we’ll be inundated. On this occasion we’ve only to wait two weeks until we get some more memory-firing images. In the meantime, next week there’s a bumper checklist to look forward to with our regulars, a special issue of a semi-regular and the final ever issue of a fan favourite. You can check it out next Wednesday to see what they are.

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SATURDAY 29th JULY 1989

At the time of this post we’re one day away from the year anniversary of these posts and it’s a particularly brilliant checklist this week! First though, check out John Marshall and Dave Harwood’s cover for The Real Ghostbusters which reminded me of the lacklustre second movie, and Geoff Senior’s exciting Dinobot cover to Transformers and Action Force.

Not mentioned in the editorial of the former is a multi-issue competition to win a bunch of toys. Readers had to design a new monster for the team to fight. I designed a version of their HQ building that had been taken over by Gozer but I never sent it in. Guess what someone else across the water in England completely randomly also designed and ultimately won the competition with? Damn it. On the letters page a reader has gone to the trouble of writing in to ask why Winston had a moustache in the film but not the cartoon, only for Peter to reply explaining what razors are.

In Transformers, the UK black and white story was drawn by Simon Coleby and it suited his style perfectly! The lack of colour also brought a darker tone to some of the storytelling and settings. For example, this tale was set somewhere called Slaughter City, a place full of dead, partly decapitated Decepticons strung up everywhere as a warning. Glorious stuff that was exclusive to us this side of The Pond. Wonderful! There was also news of the next week’s story and I just might read that issue again next time, as it’s one of my absolute favourites!

The Sleeze Brothers got a funny description in this week’s checklist and it really was a belter of a story, but then again every single one of their issues was a classic. With just the one, long story their comic gets a lot more detail than Transformers or The Real Ghostbusters, because those two had so much content to list off. However, a new weekly comic was about to give the monthlies a run for their money in terms of story length.

I bought the first issue of The Punisher but can’t remember if I owned any more. Having such a huge comic as a weekly was awesome. Even though the following issues would be half the size they were still thicker than the usual Marvel UK weeklies. I remember putting the badge on my schoolbag and I loved the RoboCop movie adaptation back up which was fun to read. While I don’t usually like movie adaptations I’d only seen the film once and, due to its contents, it wasn’t something I was going to get a chance to watch again at home for a while!

No new adverts this week, not even for the release of a brand new comic. Frank Castle would have to wait a month to get a bit of solo promotion. Then again, the checklists did that for them, a handful of comics at a time. These lists told us a lot more than most of the adverts anyway. See you in seven.

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SATURDAY 22nd JULY 1989

I hope you’re all feeling better than Ray does on John Marshall and Dave Hardwood’s The Real Ghostbusters cover. Although, unlike on this cover, weather of the opposite sort has a lot us feeling a bit bleh right now. More upbeat is Doubledealer on the cover to Transformers and Action Force by Jeff Anderson.

Inside the first of our two top Marvel UK comics this week the main strip was one of those tales where the ghost busting team didn’t bust the ghost, instead setting it free once they’d found out why it was haunting a particular place. In this case a private art gallery where the ghost’s signature had been removed by a fraudster from the paintings he’d created when alive. I liked this about the comic because having every story – no matter how varied – end with a blast from a proton gun could’ve gotten repetitive and boring.

The UK strip in Transformers this week was truly excellent! Doubledealer was a great laugh. He had no allegiance and instead played both sides in the war off against each other for profit. The strip was also chock full of Micromasters (the teeny tiny Transformers toys) that I was a huge fan of and one of my favourite toys of all, an Autobot Pretender Beast call Chainclaw, was the star. I told you last week I’d be raving about this comic more and more this year! Oh, and in Lew Stringer’s Combat Colin humour strip there’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him cameo from none other than OiNK’s Tom Thug! You can check that out elsewhere on the blog already.

The checklist was absent from The Real Ghostbusters this week, so it’s been taken from the middle pages of Transformers, hence why it’s in black and white.

For all of the excellence inside this week’s Transformers the checklist listed the wrong UK strip, instead detailing one from month’s ago! D’oh. Thundercats made a return to the top spot with what it calls a ”bumper strip issue” even though one of those was a reprint. Cliffhanging text stories when there’s a full month to wait between issues? Ouch. Then we get to Action Force Monthly and it was more important than the checklist made out.

It’s the same issue as we saw in the previous checklist, but in this week’s Transformers the editorial revealed the exciting news that with #17 the comic was to be renamed Action Force Fortnightly and would be presented in a new format. Did this mean it was no longer going to be exported to the States as G.I. Joe The European Missions and would return to a larger UK-only format? Who knows, because the issue in the checklist above would actually be the last, with no indication of such in the comic itself. Instead, readers would only realise when #16 never appeared.

The latest advert was for another Holiday Special, this time starring Fred et all in a comic dedicated to The Flintstones, clearly the most popular characters from Marvel’s fortnightly Cartoon Time. The advert took a leaf out of the previous Tom & Jerry one and used a random image from inside to make a strained attempt at a play on words to market the comic. 

Marvel UK’s comics adverts definitely fell into two distinct categories which I’d label the creative and the lazy. Thankfully, there are more of the former to come. Keep your eyes peeled for them on Wednesdays over the next few months, and I’ll see you next week.

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SATURDAY 15th JULY 1989

Geoff Senior’s Transformers and Action Force cover somewhat overshadows John Marshall’s and Dave Harwood’s one for The Real Ghostbusters. That’s obviously not a criticism of the latter. How can you compete with Geoff drawing Unicron?

With a reprint of a superb Death’s Head story I’d never read before and the return of the God of Chaos from Transformers: The Movie, young me was absolutely thrilled with this issue! This was when I really fell in love with the black and white art thanks to the opening splash page, which got across the size and power of Unicron much more effectively than most of the colour movie adaptation did. Drawn by Simon Coleby and Cam Smith (what a team!), check it out at the link at the bottom of this post.

The Real Ghostbusters’ front page to #58 would be reprinted as the cover for the final issue, #192. Its first outing was for a fun story inside which was basically a retread of (or should we say ”inspired by”) Eddie Murphy movie, The Golden Child. Thankfully, the story concentrated on monsters from Eastern Mythology rather than making a joke out of a people’s history. After last issue’s abomination that’s a blessed relief!

Action Force Monthly nabbed the top spot this week 37 years ago. With the gift of hindsight (as well as just living in the modern world) it seems the good guys may have been on the wrong side of things in their latest issue, and in Transformers their story wasn’t exactly hyped compared to the other strips, was it? At least there was an interesting-sounding Snake Eyes story to back things up.

The Sleeze Brothers took a week off from grabbing all the checklist glory and Death’s Head’s penultimate issue hung around a bit too, but still doesn’t make it to ‘unmissable’ level. With no new comics adverts and a rather basic update to the checklist you’d be mistaken for thinking it was a quiet week on UK comics shelves for Marvel UK, but that Transformers issue does a lot of heavy lifting. I may be biased but it really should’ve got the yellow box!

In fact, Transformers would go from strength-to-strength from here on (not that it wasn’t already superb, of course), so expect a lot of excited text from me over the remainder of the year. There’ll be more of that next week, in fact. See you then.

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SATURDAY 1st JULY 1989

I just love Jeff Anderson’s cover to Transformers and Action Force #225. Shockwave was the most sinister of Decepticons and always looked terrifying on covers. By contrast, John Marshall and Dave Harwood’s piece for The Real Ghostbusters is as daft as ever. 

Inside Transformers, the reprints continued with more Death’s Head tales and the editorial finally came clean about the (gorgeously drawn) black and white pages. That Shockwave strip is actually a rather lighthearted affair, with the young and impudent Hot Rod’s anarchic style in battle raising a few genuine laughs. Aspects of Evil continued to be all the proof needed that the new story format could work a treat. Oh, and it’s all backed up with an Action Force story drawn by Todd (Spawn) McFarlane.

The main strip in The Real Ghostbusters proved extra funny to me this week thanks to who drew it. A story about haunted cars that transform into cuddly bears that come alive? The comedy from this spoof of Marvel UK’s other main comic is heightened thanks to incredible Transformers artist Andrew Wildman being the one to bring it all to life! This reminds me of John Geering drawing spoofs of Whizzer and Chips for OiNK! Two top issues as always. It’s just as well, because according to the checklist they’re the only new ones this week.

The Sleeze Brothers deserves all the glory of the Don’t Miss… spot every single week for the next six months as far as I’m concerned. I don’t remember knowing as a kid that it was a limited series and I’m not sure if that would’ve made me more eager to collect the set, or put off by the fact it wouldn’t run for long. In the end it wouldn’t matter, my attention span went on to the next thing by August 1989.

The advert this week is our first black and white entry. With so much to pack into each week of the new-look Transformers, a small half-page is all Action Force Monthly gets to promote itself. Although truth be told it does a damn fine job. As I said last time there’s more packed into this tiny little advert than most of the full-page ads recently combined! Images from various issues by various artists give us a flavour of what to expect inside. The only thing missing really is Snake Eyes!

It’s the summer, and just like real life things do seem to slow down at Marvel UK HQ over the next while, with the new Sleeze Brothers comic doing a fair amount of the heavy lifting for the checklists. But I do have very fond memories of Transformers and Action Force around this time. Despite how it seems to be generally perceived online, the reality was that it was going from strength-to-strength for me. From this point right here up to the end with #332 is probably my favourite time in the comic’s run, so it’s great fun to revisit it again through these posts.

Watch out for news about Transformers on the OiNK Blog towards the end of the summer, too. That’s all I’ll say for now. Oooh, I’m such a tease!

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