The weekly Transformers UK comic was available in many newsagents across Australia and for many fans growing up in the 80s the definitive Transformers comic series.

Titan books reprinted most of the major UK stories, and IDW reprinted these in comic book and trade paperback format.

Now IDW have gone back to the beginning with the aim to republish all the UK material and if this book is any indication it's going to be a fantastic collection of books.



Format

It's printed in regular comic trade paperback size, but it's thick, 296 pages. Because the UK comic was a larger format the page is reduced in size to fit with a large margin around the page, but with a 'page' border around the content it doesn't look too bare.

The paper is not super glossy but good for the reproductions. Given the age, and the lack of digital copies of the original material, it's mostly scans. These range in quality and aren't perfect, but good enough.

Original material that was black and white is still black and white in this book. Some of the scans come from the "Collected Comics" reprints not the original books but, besides the wrong "Next issue" text on the last page of an 'issue' it's unnoticeable.

Content

There's a complete cover gallery but at a reduced size that fits four comics a page. Beside each gallery is a quick summary of what's in the issue.

The book starts with a foreward from the collator (fan and now IDW writer James Roberts) and then an overview of the history of the UK comic complete with interviews of staff from the time. Similar features were in the Titan reprints but this is much more in depth.

Each story starts with a text overview, often with interviews with the writers, a summary of how the story fits with the US material, and where the stories have been reprinted.

Interspersed are pictures of the free gifts and adverts and fact files, staff photos and other random things. The book ends with even more of these, with many toy ads which are interesting but again only at about quarter page size.

Stories

This book covers the stories:
"Man of Iron!"
"The Enemy Within!"
"Raiders of the Last Ark"
"Decepticon Dam-Busters!"
"The Wrath of Guardian/Grimlock!"
"Christmas Breaker!"
"Crisis of Command!"
and the contents of Annual 1986

None of these are particularly that essential. Man of Iron was reprinted in the US series so it's probably the best known. The Dambusters story is a retelling of events from the original cartoon three-parter told as a flashback by Ratchet to the Dinobots (so the plot is probably even more well known).

Crisis of Command features Geoff Senior's first art (and his striking rendition of the animation models after so much of the toy based art makes his issues a highlight to me).

There Shall Come A Leader from the 1986 annual is an interesting look at the start of the war, but you've got to wait until the next book for State Games (the origin of the war that has inspired most re-tellings since).

Pics


History text


The Enemy Within (Toy-based art example)


Crisis of Command


Geoff Senior's early TF UK art


Cover galleries


A Dinobot poster included in one of the early TF comics

Overall

This isn't the best of Transformers UK, but it's a great way to get some of the most obscure TF comics. The series is off to a great start but the background information and interviews and random content reprints are somewhat more interesting than the stories the book reprints. I don't think this is essential (book three is likely where the essential reading will appear) but it's well worth considering for the complete picture.