Transformers UK Annuals

1986-1994. These annuals would comprise of reprinted material mixed with a new comic strip and text stories. 1986-1992 were published by Marvel UK. The 1994 Generation 2 annual was produced by Grandreams and was of far lesser quality with it’s stories and art work. After this there was a ten year gap between Transformer annuals released in the UK.

2004-2015. In 2004 and 05 Pedigree books released Transformers annuals in the UK for the first time in ten years. Both contained straight up reprints of the Dreamwave Armada and Energon comics that were current at the time in America. Three years later to coincide with the release of the live action movie, Harper Collins released the first of five annuals based on the movies and one on Transformers Animated. These ‘annuals’ tended to be nothing more than simple puzzle books. Long gone are the days of Marvel UK and their high quality of comic book content. The Harper Collins annuals came to an end in 2012. Pedigree then regained the rights to make Transformer annuals and released one for 2015 centering around the Age of Extinction movie. Unfortunately this was once again another puzzle book for the most part though it did contain some text based stories though these were just simple adaptations of the movies.

Transformers Comics UK

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.