So far there have been five Transformers titles released in the UK
since the early 80s. The original Marvel UK comic that lasted 332 issues
from 1994-1992. This was a much beloved and high quality comic that
gave fame to writer Simon Furman along with artists Geoff Senior and
Andrew Wildman. As well as reprinting the American comic strips it also
had original UK material that was of a higher quality, eventually
leading to the UK creative team moving on the the US title. After the
Marvel UK comic ended there was a short lived Generation 2 comic
published by Fleetway that lasted a mere 5 issues in 1994/95. Almost a
decade later Panini comics released a Transformers Armada comic that
managed to last 9 issues in 2003. Though Simon Furman had returned, the
stories felt simplistic and far too ‘kiddie’ as well as the art work
being poor.
In 2007 to tie in with the first live action movie a fourth
Transformers comic was printed by Titan comics UK. This lasted 75 issues
in total and spanned 7 years from 2007-2014. After the first 25 issues
the title was re-branded as volume 2, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
to once again tie in with the currant movie at the time. Vol 2 lasted
21 issues before becoming volume 3 and re-titled Transformers: Dark of
the Moon. Volume 3 was short lived as after just four issues it then
became Volume 4, Transformers Prime. It stayed this way for 20 issues,
limping along with low sales and longer gaps of time between each issues
release until Transformers Age of Extinction came out. In one last
ditch effort to stay afloat the title became volume 5 and tied in to the
new movie. 5 issues later the comic was finally cancelled.
It had started off strong with original UK material set in the movie
universe as well as reprints of various US titles such as Beast Wars and
All Hail Megatron. However the US reprints were dropped and the UK
strips became more simplistic and lacking in much continuity as well as
suffering with poor artwork.
During the Titan UK comic run, a spin off comic entitled Transformers
Animated was released. This was the first time two Transformers titles
had ran concurrently in the UK. (Not including the Collected Comics
which were just reprints of the main Marvel UK title). Animated was
swiftly cancelled after three issues.
In October 2015 a 6th UK Transformers comic came out from Signature
Publishing. Based on the Robots in Disguise cartoon and toy line, it
reprints the American IDW strips, thought the first issue did feature a
UK original story.
No comments:
Post a Comment