Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: creator: lee sullivan

Showing posts with label creator: lee sullivan. Show all posts

03 November 2026

Marvel's The Transformers Year Four, Part II: Legion of the Lost! (US #40 / UK #160-73)

What... a run of stories from the Til All Are One Compendium that I read in the order they were presented with no alterations? Has this ever happened!? If so, not for a long time.

Salvage! / "Pretender to the Throne!" / City of Fear! / Legion of the Lost! / Meltdown! / Deadly Games! / Wrecking Havoc, from The Transformers US #40 (May 1988) / The Transformers UK #160-73 (9 Apr.–9 July 1988), reprinted in The Transformers: Til All Are One Compendium Two (2025)

scripts by Simon Furman and Bob Budiansky; pencil art by Lee Sullivan, José Delbo, Dan Reed, Jeff Anderson, Robin Smith, and Bryan Hitch; ink art by Lee Sullivan, Dave Hunt, Dan Reed, Dave Elliott, Robin Smith, and Bryan Hitch; letters by Tom Frame, Glib, Bill Oakley, Annie Halfacree, Glop, and Steve Parkhouse; colour by Euan Peters and Nel Yomtov

from The Transformers UK #160

Back in the early days of Transformers UK, the UK stories would weave very carefully in and out of the US ones. As the series went one, Simon Furman largely moved away from this approach; once he gained access to his own cast of future characters in Target: 2006 (see #7 and 8 in the list below), UK stories would tend to be about revisiting what the future characters were up to, rather than trying to slot in between what Bob Budianksy was doing with the present-day cast. But Salvage! in UK issues #160-61 is a rare example of the old approach, slotting in between two issues of the US series (#39 and 40), picking up with the ramifications of Shockwave launching the Decepticons' tropical island base into space. (Furman throws in a little shade from Galvatron's perspective in his recap: "For someone who's usually so logical, few of his recent actions make any sense!") I think in the US stories, Shockwave would be treated as dead from now, on, but Furman establishes he returned to the Decepticons' original base on Earth, bringing some followers with him.

Salvage!, though, does something interesting in how integrates the US and UK storylines, showing how what has happened in the US stories has ramifications for Furman's ongoing plots in the UK ones, specifically Shockwave's fear of Galvatron. Here, Shockwave recovers the body of Megatron from the Thames (where he ended up after the events of Ancient Relics!, see #13 below), so he can use him as a weapon against his own future self in Galvatron. Ultra Magnus is revived, setting up for a rematch with Galvatron. It's not a great story, it's definitely a tale that is primarily there to setup the future, but I found it an interesting example of an approach Furman had largely moved away from.

from The Transformers US #40

We then go into the only US story in this run of seven stories, "Pretender to the Throne!" Unfortunately, this story shows just how awful the US comic has become, though in ways that are not really Bob Budiansky's fault. This issue has to introduce the Pretenders, who are surely one of dumbest Transformers concepts ever conceived—Transformers who disguise themselves... as giant monsters!? Like, why would the "robots in disguise" disguise themselves as something like this? In this issue, the humans have to be like, "whoa i thought i was being attacked by giant monsters but actually im being attacked by giant robots im so surprised!" You can tell, I think, how uninterested Bob Budiansky is in this concept because the issue speedruns through it, giving us a whole mess of Decepticon and Autobot Pretenders as fast as possible so that he won't have to deal with the idea any more in future issues. And the story has to set up the return of Optimus Prime, because having killed him off last year, now Hasbro is releasing a new toy of him. I appreciate his instinct there, but it is surely the worst issue of this series thus far.

from The Transformers UK #166

After this, we get a good long stretch of UK-original stories, one of the longest in a while, I think... and unusually for Furman, all set in the present. Ultra Magnus returns to Cybertron* with the Sparkler Minibots to meet up with the Wreckers, but they are missing—and Cybertron is overrun by zombies! City of Fear!, Legion of the Lost!, and Meltdown! all have separate titles, but really make up one big story. It's not great art, but it's fun enough, though I am starting to realize Furman has no way to characterize Autobot leader characters than giving them crippling self-doubt; Springer's problem here is the same one we see in his takes on Ultra Magnus, Rodimus, and Optimus. But aside from that, I enjoyed this with all its weird twists and turns.

from The Transformers UK #173

Then we get two final one-off stories. In Deadly Games!, Ultra Magnus breaks up an alien syndicate forcing Autobots and Decepticons to fight each other. Ultra Magnus keeps quoting intergalactic law to the aliens; I wonder if this was the spark of inspiration for when Furman reinvented Magnus as duly-appointed enforcer of the Tyrest Accord in the IDW continuity. The other, Wrecking Havoc, shows what the Wreckers are doing at the same time, as they follow Galvatron to Earth without Magnus, only to battle him when Cyclonus and Scourge have also caught up to Galvatron. Even though the events of Headmasters forced Furman to relocate Cyclonus and Scourge from 2008 to 1988 (see #15 below), he cleverly is able to keep them going as characters, something I had not remembered at all. I enjoyed this story a lot. Fun twists and turns, good use of lots of the UK characters.

This is the sixteenth in a series of posts about Marvel's The Transformers. The next covers US issues #41-44 and UK issues #174-87. Previous installments are listed below:

US #1-3 & 33-34 / UK #1-6 & 9-17 (1984-85)
US #4-8 / UK #7-8 & 18-30 (1984-85)
US #9-12 / UK #31-41 (1985-86)
US #13-14 / UK #42-54 (1985-86)
US #15-16 / UK #54-63 (1985-86)
US #17-20 / UK #64-74 (1986)
UK #75-84 (1986-87)

Budianskian vs. Furmanist

US #21-22 / UK #85-92 (1986-87)
US #23 / UK #93-104 (1986-87)
US #24-25 / UK #105-08 & 265-76 (1987)
US #26-27 / UK #109-18 & 277-81 (1987)
US #28-30 / UK #119-27 & 130-33 (1987)
US #31 / UK #128-29 & 132-38 (1987)
US #32 & 35-36 / UK #138-50 (1987-88)
US #37-39 / UK #130-31, 142-45, & 151-59 (1987-88)

* The Transformers' homeworld.

25 March 2024

Liberation of the Daleks (From Stockbridge to Beyond Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 51)

Liberation of the Daleks: Collected Comic Strips from the Pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Alan Barnes and Lee Sullivan

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 2022-23
Acquired: November 2023
Read: December 2023

I did briefly think that I should maintain the chronology of this project; that is to say, I thought about saving Liberation of the Daleks until The White Dragon (and a hypothetical second volume of thirteenth Doctor comics) was out... but I was won over by the idea of reading Liberation while the fourteenth Doctor was still the current Doctor, and indeed, I was able to finish it the morning of the same Saturday that The Giggle debuted on Disney Plus. I doubt I will ever again read a Doctor's entire comics run while they are the current screen Doctor.

Liberation of the Daleks, from Doctor Who Magazine #584-97 (Dec. 2022–Dec. 2023)
story by Alan Barnes, art by Lee Sullivan, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

It's DWM's longest story! By issue count, at least; I think The Glorious Dead still has it beat out by approximately ten pages. Picking up from the end of The Power of the Doctor, this leads right into Destination: Skaro... though I am unconvinced that its events really could squeeze into the sixty minutes the Doctor states have passed between the two stories in Destination: Skaro. I am pretty sure it took me longer than sixty minutes to read it!

It's a bit bonkers, and it's not very deep, but it is fun. One of Alan Barnes's strengths as a writer has always been rearranging pop culture iconography in interesting ways: here the Daleks attack the World Cup Final in 1966, only it turns out that it's all a simulation from the future, an amusement park where people go to experience Dalek wars... and the park enslaves real Daleks to make it all work. When the Doctor escapes from the simulation, he brings real Daleks with him.

from Doctor Who Magazine #590
It's not very deep, but it is deep enough; the story does some fun stuff with the disjunction between how we perceive Daleks as viewers (fun, goofy) and how they function in the narrative of Doctor Who (purveyors of genocide); probably the best of the many strong cliffhangers is the one where a bunch of tourists began chanting "EXTERMINATE," hoping to be exterminated! As you would, of course. It casts a lens on Doctor Who's own story, but also reflects the way that, say, Nazis come across in real pop culture. Alan Barnes amps it up as the story proceeds by even bringing in the TV Century 21 Daleks, contrasting their even more goofy iconography with the brutality of the "actual" Daleks.

It does give a feeling of being made up as it went along. Mostly I don't mind this (so does, say, the original Star Beast) but it does seem like the whole story could have ended with part eight but keeps going with a whole new subplot.

Lee Sullivan does a great job with Daleks of course, but all throughout; he captures new series Daleks, classic series Daleks, TV21 Daleks, all of them. James Offredi matches him on coloring with some good work, especially on the TV21 stuff.

If you thought this would be a deep plunge into the mysteries of the fourteenth Doctor (and I can see why you might have, though the story itself discards this pretty quickly), this isn't it. But it is a solid piece of DWM fun.

from Doctor Who Magazine #593

Other Notes:

For those of us who keep track of such things, these fourteen strips tie Alan Barnes for the twelfth-longest run as writer of the DWM strip with Steve Parkhouse (#86-99), and tie Lee Sullivan for seventh as artist with David A Roach (#451-64). For total written, it moves Barnes from fifth to third (at 41 strips, a bit below Steve Parkhouse's total of 46), and Lee Sullivan from eighth to seventh (at 44 strips). But I believe there's more to come after this for both, so their numbers will move even further up.
This is Barnes's first contribution to the main strip since #380, a gap of 204 strips! This would place him in second for largest gap (if we discount the returns for issue #500), behind John Tomlinson's record of 210... except that Lee Sullivan makes his first contribution since #317, setting a new record of 267!
I'm given to understand that the conceit of TV Century 21 was that it was a news magazine from one century after its time of publication. Because of that, the humorless pedants of the Tardis wiki have counted all sorts of weird stuff as "valid" because it was printed in TV21 alongside the Dalek strips. Like, they'll count Thunderbirds... but (up until recently) not Scream of the Shalka or Death Comes to Time!? Anyway, if they are paying attention to Liberation, they need to take all that stuff back out, because Barnes establishes the TV21 comic strips are an in-universe 21st-century children's fiction.

This post is the fifty-first in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The White Dragon. Previous installments are listed below:

Transformers UK #215–18, 223–27, 235–54: Aspects of Evil! and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 48)

I had thought that I would intersperse my Titan reprints of Marvel UK's Transformers comics among my Doctor Who Magazine graphic novels. I knew I wouldn't read them at quite the same rate... but I did not anticipate just how long it would take me to read them all, because I did not realize how difficult they would be to track down!

It took me almost six months to my hands on a copy of Aspects of Evil! First, I almost ordered the wrong book, because the Transformers wiki gives the wrong ISBN for Aspects of Evil!; I actually bought and paid for a copy of Fallen Star, but (thankfully, I guess) the Amazon seller was a scammer who didn't actually have the book (and did refund me when confronted). But then when I put the correct ISBN into Bookfinder... I couldn't find it anywhere! It wasn't that the book was going for insanely high prices, it was that it just wasn't being sold anywhere at all on the whole Internet.

After a few months, my saved search on eBay finally paid off, but I was outbid at the last moment. I began considering other options, like posting a desperate plea on the Transformers trading subreddit or actually paying the insane prices to import the Hachette collections of the relevant issues, when finally Aspects of Evil! was posted on eBay again, this time as a pair with Fallen Star, which I actually did need. I think this helped me win, as I was willing to pay a decent price with the knowledge that I would end up with two different books; someone tried to snipe me at the last minute, but didn't beat the maximum bid I had set.

from Transformers #216

So, after a huge delay, I was finally able to finish off Marvel UK's original Transformers comics. These all come from the era when the strip had moved into shorter, black-and-white strips, but I was able to supplement a bit with some recent collections from IDW that took a couple of these strips and colorize them. This post covers the first half of that black-and-white run, though it jumps around a bit and overlaps with my previous post on it (see #28 in the long list at the bottom of this post).

Race with the Devil, from Transformers #215-18 (29 Apr.–20 May 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Glib and Hel

This story is okay. A group of Autobots called the Triggerbots is assigned to shadow some Decepticon mercenaries, Darwking and Dreadwind; it turns out that the mercenaries are trying to recover Starscream's corpse, since it contains the Underbase, the collected knowledge of the Transformer race. (This is all due to the Underbase saga, from the US book.) Starscream kind of becomes a zombie and the Triggerbots stop him and save some humans. I guess if I ever could remember who the Triggerbots were, I might have cared about this more.

from Transformers #223

Aspects of Evil!, from Transformers #223-27 (24 June–22 July 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; pencils by Jeff Anderson, Art Wetherell, Andy Wildman, Lee Sullivan, and Simon Coleby; inks by Jeff Anderson, Simon Coleby, Andy Wildman, Lee Sullivan, and Cam Smith; letters by Helen Stone and Glib

We're back in the future timeline of Transformers, but in a different way. This five-part story is a set of five vignettes, framed by a dying Rodimus Prime in the year 2356 telling stories of various evils he has encountered to a student eager to learn of Unicron, but on the way, Rodimus tells him of Scorponok in 1991, Galvatron in 2009, Shockwave in 2004, and Megatron in 1990. Thus, we get glimpses all up an down the future timeline (which itself has been rewritten, thanks to the Time Wars) with tales set both before and after the 1986 film (set in 2006).

I found this fairly effective. Up until this point, the short black-and-white stories had clearly been scripted for the original longer format and then had their installments cut in half. Here, writer Simon Furman is figuring out the format that drive the book from here on out, telling small but sharp stories. I liked how Scorponock manipulated Rodimus's morality to his advantage during a Decepticon civil war; I liked the brutality of Megatron dealing with a traitor. The only one that didn't work was the last one... you can't cram Unicron into a five-page tale and convince me that he is the ultimate evil!

from Transformers #235

Deathbringer, from Transformers #235-36 (16-23 Sept. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Best of the Rarities #1 (IDW, Aug. 2022)

script by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior and Staz, letters by Glib, colors by John-Paul Bove

Another okay story, one that doesn't use the format as well as Aspects of Evil! Basically, the Autobots encounter a mechanoid animated by a fragment of the Matrix (which was lost in space back when Optimus died), and Optimus angsts about it. I never care much for angsty Optimus, and this story is no exception.

from Transformers #238

"Way of the Warrior" / "Survival Run" / "A Savage Place!", from Transformers #237-39 (30 Sept.–15 Oct. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Simon Coleby, Lee Sullivan, and Geoff Senior; letters by Glib and Helen Stone

This follows up on the Survivors, the group of Autobots, along with the Decepticons Catilla and Carnivac, who struck out on their own when cut off from Autobot High Command. The Mayhem Attack Squad is trying to hunt down and punish the two Deception traitors; the story mostly focuses on Carnivac, who refuses to recognize Autobot authority but also begrudgingly finds himself doing the right thing and in a desperate stand for his own survival. Decepticon-turned-"good" is one of my favorite Transformers tropes, and this is a good example of it. The middle installment illustrated by Lee Sullivan, with Carnivac crawling through the desert, is particularly effective.

from Transformers #240

"Out to Lunch!", from Transformers #240 (21 Oct. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Annie Halfacree

This is a good example of the vignette-focused approach of this era of the UK strip. Back in Race with the Devil, Dreadwind and Darkwing were working for Megatron, but he had (kind of) died, so this follows up on what they get up to next now that Thunderwing is in charge of the Decepticons. Here, they're hanging out in a bar on Cybertron, but it's attacked by Mecannibals... only they're too drunk and self-pitying to notice! So the story cuts between them and the desperate attempts of an Autobot agent to stop the Mecannibals from eating everyone. Fun stuff, exactly what you should do in a five-page Transformers comic, I reckon.

"Rage! / "Assault on the Ark!", from Transformers #241-42 (28 Oct.–4 Nov. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Stuart Bartlett

These two tales jump back a bit to explain more of how Thunderwing ascended to power, following up on The Big Shutdown! They're fine but I kind of didn't really care.

"Mind Games", from Transformers #243 (11 Nov. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz, letters by Annie Halfacree

It's hard to talk about this story without getting into the weeds on continuity. Basically, when Simon Furman took over the US book, he decided he wanted to recurrect Megatron. But Megatron had already been resurrected in the UK book. He didn't want to alienate US readers by suddenly revealing Megatron had already been resurrected, so he wrote a story for the UK strip explaining that what everyone had thought was a resurrected Megatron was actually a clone of Megatron created by Straxus. (Chronologically, this goes before most of what I've reviewed above; see the note at the end of this post.) Anyway, not much happens here; it's mostly to set up the next story.

from Transformers #244

"Two Megatrons!", from Transformers #244 (18 Nov. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Best of the Rarities #1 (IDW, Aug. 2022)

script by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior; letters by Glib, colored by John-Paul Bove

The "real" Megatron and the clone Megatron battle it out. Transformers fans have written whole dissertations on how this causes more problems than it solves, continuity-wise, but if you ignore all that, this is a great story with a perfect climax. Megatron is dead, love live Megatron!

"Underworld!" / "Demons!" / "Dawn of Darkness", from Transformers #245-47 (25 Nov.–9 Dec. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Jeff Anderson and Geoff Senior; letters by Helen Stone, Annie Halfacree, and Glib

To be honest, I completely forgot about this story until I went to write it up right now. I guess some Transformers battle robot zombies in sewers? Not really my thing.

from Transformers #248

"Fallen Star!", from Transformers #248 (16 Dec. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Fallen Star (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Helen Stone

Another vignette, this one focused on Starscream who, thanks to events in the US book, has been brought back to life... but is feeling like he's lost his mojo in the process. But then he realizes that maybe after all, he's still got it. Told in the first person, this is a fun story of Starscream at his best. (Well, worst.) Nicely done.

from Transformers #249

"Whose Lifeforce Is It Anway?" / "The Greatest Gift of All!", from Transformers #249-50 (23-30 Dec. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman, art by Staz, letters by Stuart Bartlett and Helen Stone

Two linked stories, both pretty okay. Not as forgettable as some of these, but not the best either. In the first, we see an Autobot walrus robot named Longtooth. Long enough, Optimus Prime bequeathed a fragment of the Matrix to him to use to save a dying comrade... but the cowardly Longtooth kept it for himself. Guilt has since made him suicidal in battle, but all his fellow Autobots think he's just very brave. This I think is a good set-up for a story, but really all that happens is he just suddenly decides to send the Matrix fragment (anonymously) back to Earth so Optimus can make use of it. Not much of a story. In the second one, Optimus thinks about using the fragment to bring back some dead Autobots, but ends up using it to revitalize a part of Earth damaged ecologically by the Transformers' war. It's fine, you know. More Optimus angst.

from Transformers Annual 1990

"The Quest!" / "Destiny of the Dinobots!" / "Trigger-Happy!" / "Dreadwing Down!" / "The Chain Gang!", from The Transformers Annual [1990]

stories by Steve Alan (with Steve White), Ian Rimmer, Simon Furman, and Dan Abnett; art by Andy Wildman, Art Wetherell, Stephen Baskerville, and Dan Reed; colour by Steve White and Euan Peters; letters by Glib; dinosaur consultation by Steve White

The 1990 Transformers Annual (by which I mean the one published in 1989) contains, as they usually do, a mix of comic and prose stories. The UK produced two more after this, but this was the last one with a substantive amount of original content. "The Quest!" is a dull text story designed to recap Transformers history, but most of what's left is decent stuff. "Destiny of the Dinobots!" is a tragic glimpse of the future of the Dinobots (seemingly set after the "Earthforce" run I'll discuss in my next Transformers post); "Dreadwing Down!" and "The Chain Gang!" are two decent action-focused tales. I also enjoyed "Trigger-Happy!", a two-part text story about Backstreet, an Autobot who screws up so much he goes on the run rather than be punished by Optimus... but thankfully it's all a big misunderstanding.

from Transformers #254

"The Void!" / "Edge of Impact" / "Shadow of Evil", from Transformers #251-53 (6-20 Jan. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Aspects of Evil! (Titan, 2005)

script by Simon Furman; art by Staz and Cam S; letters by Glib and Annie Halfacree

These are the first three installments of the last-ever future timeline story, detailing what Rodimus, Arcee, and Kup do after their defeat by Galvatron back in Aspects of Evil! It's all very moody, as some kind of enemy is stalking the Autobots on their escape vessel... but to be honest, I don't particularly care for how downbeat the future stories have become. The future was never cheery per se, but since the Autobots defeated Unicron, it feels like it's just fallback after fallback, and Rodimus Prime deserves better.

"White Fire", from Transformers #254 (27 Jan. 1990), reprinted in Transformers: Best of Hot Road #1 (IDW, May 2022)

script by Simon Furman, art by Cam Smith, letters by Stuart Bartlett, colors by John-Paul Bove

And finally the future timeline comes to an end here, in a story where Rodimus almost defeats Unicron... but Kup screws things up so that the Matrix will be eternally corrupted. Good job, heroes! I don't like the direction the future stories were going in, so I am glad it all got cut off here, to be honest.

A Quick Note on Chronology

from Transformers #241

Suffice it to say that this era of the strip is very confusing chronologically, with the UK stories jumping around a lot relative to the US stories and even themselves. I'll make a post later with more details, but here's how the above stories go chronologically, by my reckoning anyway. I've included US stories and UK stories not covered in this post for context; stories actually discussed here are in bold. I've omitted the future timeline stories from this list.

US #53: "Recipe for Disaster!"
UK #215-18: Race with the Devil
UK #219-22, 229, 232-33: Survivors! / "The Hunting Party!" / A Small War!
UK #243-44: "Mind Games" / "Two Megatrons!"
UK #230-31: The Big Shutdown!
UK #241-42: "Rage!" / "Assault on the Ark!"
US #54: "King Con!"
UK #235-36: Deathbringer!
US #55: "The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship!"
UK #228: "[Double] Deal of the Century!"
UK #237-39: "Way of the Warrior" / "Survival Run" / "A Savage Place!"
US #56-59: "Back from the Dead" / "The Resurrection Gambit!" / "All the Familiar Faces!" / "Skin Deep"
UK #240, 245-48: "Out to Lunch!" / "Underworld!" / "Demons!" / "Dawn of Darkness" / "Fallen Star!"
US #60-61: "Yesterday's Heroes!" / "The Primal Scream"
UK #249-50: "Whose Lifeforce Is It Anyway?" / "The Greatest Gift of All"
Annual 1990: "The Chain Gang!"
US #62-66: Matrix Quest

This post is the forty-eighth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers issues #255–89 of Transformers UK. Previous installments are listed below:

01 May 2023

Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2 (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 43)

Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2: Collected comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Richard Alan, Alan Barnes, Paul Cornell, Martin Geraghty, Scott Gray, Robin Smith, and Lee Sullivan

Collection published: 2022
Contents originally published: 1993-2002
Acquired and read: December 2022

I got twelve pages of new-to-me content in the previous Daleks collection... here just eight, and all the reprints here already had extras. Good value for money!?

If this had come out in time, I would have read its one new strip between Ground Zero and End Game. That's about when it was released, and a random Peter Cushing story feels of a piece with the "past Doctor" strips that ended with Ground Zero.

Daleks versus the Martians, from Doctor Who Magazine Spring Special 1996
written by Alan Barnes, art by Lee Sullivan, letters by Elitta Fell

Fun fact: I have only seen the first Peter Cushing film as a Rifftrax installment, and I have never seen the second at all. This is a prequel to the second, I guess, setting up the Dalek invasion of Earth. Lee Sullivan draws good Daleks, of course, but otherwise there was nothing for me to be found here.

Stray Observations:

Other included stories and what collections to find them in: (see below for links to my reviews)

Emperor of the Daleks! and ...Up Above the Gods (in Emperor of the Daleks)
Bringer of Darkness (in Land of the Blind)
Fire and Brimstone (in End Game)
Children of the Revolution (in Oblivion)

Early reports were that this volume would include Return of the Elders (a follow-up to the old Dalek strips from TV Century 21, reprinted as a standalone DWM special in 2020), which was published as a back-up in DWM #249-54. This did not come to pass. Alas, as it would have brought this volume's newly reprinted content up to a whole fourteen pages!

This post is the forty-third in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Clockwise War. Previous installments are listed below:

23 November 2022

Transformers UK #180–89, 199–205, 219–22, 228–34: Time Wars and Other Stories (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 28)

I read IDW's five Transformers Classics UK volumes alongside Panini's Doctor Who Magazine collections because they lead into Death's Head's appearance in A Cold Day in Hell! I then followed Death's Head out of A Cold Day in Hell! into his own series, and I even picked up The Sleeze Brothers based on its connection. But it was always my intention to eventually go back to The Transformers UK and find out what happened after volume five.

This, however, was made more complicated by the fact that IDW's reprint series stopped with volume five. The UK-original stories from #180 to #289* are available in three different ways:

Titan did a series of reprints of almost all of the Marvel UK material, but organized thematically, rather than by publication order
IDW reprinted some key UK storylines under the Best of UK branding, though mostly early stuff later collected in the Classics UK series
Hachette reprinted every G1 comic in a 100-volume partwork, The Definitive G1 Collection

The Hachette reprints appealed, especially as they integrated the UK and US strips, but they are expensive... if you can find them for sale at all! So I ended up going with the Titan ones, even though their reprints of the black-and-white strips (#215 onwards) are in the manga-sized "digest" format, about half the height of the UK originals! Except I couldn't find a copy of the Titan Time Wars collection anywhere, but thankfully IDW had a Best of UK: Time Wars I could use instead. The digest-sized ones have a cover price of $9... for some I have paid over $30 on the secondary market!

(There are two UK stories I will never read, because Titan reprinted both in collections that otherwise entirely contained stuff I already read, so it's hard to justify paying so much for single stories. These are "Cold Comfort and Joy!" from #198, reprinted in Second Generation, and The Fall and Rise of the Decepticon Empire from #213-14, reprinted in City of Fear.)

I worked out a somewhat idiosyncratic order for them: I didn't want to be jumping from volume to volume too much, so I tried to balance original publication sequence with fewer transitions between volumes. If Classics UK had continued, it would have run three more volumes, so I've divided the run into three roughly equal chunks to review here on my blog. Today I'm covering the first of those chunks, thirteen stories from twenty-eight original issues (plus one annual) distributed across five collections.

from The Transformers #180

The Big Broadcast of 2006 / Space Pirates!, from The Transformers #180-87 (20 Aug.–15 Oct. 1988), reprinted in Transformers: Space Pirates (Titan, 2003)

scripts by Simon Furman; pencils by Lee Sullivan, Dan Reed, and Dougie Braithwaite; inks by Dave Elliott, Dan Reed, Dave Harwood, and Lee Sullivan; colours by Steve White and Euan Peters; letters by Glib

"The Big Broadcast of 2006" was actually a US story (reprinted in Classics, Vol. 4), set in the future era of The Transformers: The Movie. But while the US comic never did anything with the future era other than this story and the movie adaptation, the UK comic had by this point depicted a robust and detailed future history—which was completely contradicted by this tale. UK writer Simon Furman solved this problem by writing a two-page frame to "Big Broadcast" that established it was a story being told by Wreck-Gar, full of lies to mislead his Quintesson interrogators: "Wreck-Gar's whole account is full of absurdities and contradictions." As the Quintessons point out, by this point in the UK continuity, Galvatron, Cyclonus, and Scourge were all in the 1980s, not the future. And besides, the UK continuity was up to 2008, not 2006. It's a clever conceit, though I imagine it will have more impact if I ever read it where it "goes"; this just reprints the two UK pages.

It leads into the next UK future epic, Space Pirates!, one of those future stories that actually doesn't intersect with the present-day timeline. I wasn't really convinced this one held together, to be honest; the maguffin that everyone is chasing after didn't make a ton of sense to me, and the story requires seasoned warriors to make dumb decisions for everything to hang together. I do like a bit of Rodimus angst, but I feel like such angst was done much better in IDW's original continuity two decades later. Now, arguably a lot of Simon Furman epics probably wouldn't make sense if you delved into them, but this one didn't grab me the way some of those others did, so I'm less apt to forgive it its mistakes.

from The Transformers Annual 1989

"Firebug!" / "Dry Run!" / "Altered Image!" / "All in the Minds!" / Time Wars, from Transformers #188-89, 199-205 (22-29 Oct. 1988, 7 Jan.–18 Feb. 1989) and The Transformers Annual 1989, reprinted in The Transformers: Best of UK: Time Wars (IDW, 2009)

plot by Simon Furman; scripts by Dan Abnett, Ian Rimmer, and Simon Furman; pencils by Jeff Anderson, Lee Sullivan, Dan Reed, Andrew Wildman, and Robin Smith; inks by Jeff Anderson, Cam Smith, Lee Sullivan, Dan Reed, Stephen Baskerville, and Robin Smith; colours by Euan Peters and Steve White; letters by Tom Frame, Glib, Annie Halfacree, Glop, and Peter Knight

This is a couple smaller stories, and then another big Transformers epic. Most of the small stories lead into the epic Time Wars, aside from one about the Wreckers battling a fire creature. There's Shockwave using the resurrected Megatron as a weapon against his future self, Galvatron, with the aid of Cyclonus and Scourge, also from the future, and then a Galvatron/Megatron showdown... which turns into an alliance, truly a delightful thing. I guess the one about Scorponok also leads into Time Wars, but it feel disposable.

Anyway, it all leads into the cross-time epic of Time Wars, which honestly I don't think makes sense even by Transformers time travel standards. A bit too much noise and fury, and not enough for someone to actually grab onto, once again, though it has its moments.

from Transformers #222

Survivors! / "The Hunting Party", from Transformers #219-22, 229 (27 May–17 June, 5 Aug. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Way of the Warrior (Titan, 2005)
scripts by Simon Furman; art by Dan Reed, John Stokes, and Simon Coleby; letters by Glib

After Time Wars, the UK Transformers comic changed gears, going small scale—and black and white! Survivors! picks up from the end of Time Wars, chronicling the Wreckers, who haven't been given new orders since those events. They end up teaming up with some former members of the Decepticon Mayhem Attack Squad, Carnivac and Catilla, to take down the deranged Skids. All the characters, all feeling like abandoned warriors, join up together at the end. I'm curious to see where this goes, as "The Hunting Party!" indicates that the new Mayhem Attack Squad has orders to hunt down Carnivac and Catilla for going AWOL. Bad Transformers who become good Transformers is probably one of my favorite tropes (see Dinobot, Blackarachnia, MtMtE Megatron), so this has some real potential if it gets follow up on.

from Transformers #230

The Big Shutdown! / A Small War!, from Transformers #230-33 (12 Aug.–2 Sept. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Perchance to Dream (Titan, 2006)
scripts by Simon Furman; art by Lee Sullivan, Jeff Anderson, and Geoff Senior; letters by Helen Stone, Stuart Bartlett, and Glib

These two stories are united in being about Thunderwing, who is rising to power as Decepticon leader on Cybertron. (I think there is a power vacuum because of the events of Two Megatrons!, which was actually published later!) The Big Shutdown! is a delightful hardboiled pastiche, as the Autobot detective Nightbeat must stop Thunderwing from committing a series of murders on Earth as part of a test being administered by the Decepticon leadership back on Cybertron. The end confused me, but I greatly enjoyed the rest of it, and I hope we get more Nightbeat in this series.

A Small War! jumps ahead to when Thunderwing does lead the Cybertronian Decepticon forces, and it introduces the Micromasters, a group of Autobots who are tiny (i.e., human-sized). The Micromasters get captured, but escape anyhow—only the Decepticons, led by Thunderwing, now also have the secret of their construction. This is fine; it mostly seems to exist to set up the Micromasters' first US appearance in a story I haven't read yet. (It appears in Classics, Vol. 5, but I've only read up through vol. 4.)

from Transformers #234

"[Double] Deal of the Century!" / "Prime's Rib!", from Transformers #228, 234 (29 July & 9 Sept. 1989), reprinted in Transformers: Earthforce (Titan, 2005)
scripts by Simon Furman, art by Andy Wildman, letters by Stuart Bartlett and Helen Stone

Finally, we have two small standalone tales. "[Double] Deal of the Century!" introduces Double-Dealer, the Transformer who plays both sides; to be honest, I was thoroughly confused by it because I'm often bad at recognizing Transformers, and that's even harder when they're in black-and-white. "Prime's Rib!" is a random future story, set in 1995 (so about halfway between the 1980s "present" and the 2005+ "future") explaining how there can be a girl Transformer in Arcee if Transformers don't have gender. Optimus Prime had her built to appease angry feminists on Earth! Hilarious if you can take it ironically, I guess. But also pretty stupid.

* The UK comic continued to #332, but from #290 on it was all reprints of US content.

This post is the twenty-eighth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Flood. Previous installments are listed below: