What is the greatness of Transformers UK?

[STL]

Alright. In fandom, I'm constantly reminded by how great Furman's run on the Transformers UK books were. I've never really read them though they did come into my possession at one point. I jumped on the IDW reprints of these tales and quite honestly have been dumbfounded by the inadequacy of these UK stories.

Mind you, I have high expectations of them b/c of fan affection for them. However, given all my reading of Target: 2006, Dinobots thus far (two frequently mentioned storylines), I've thus far only be greated by sheer mediocrity. I'm not saying it's worse than stuff of it's time. What I'm saying it isn't much better than the US Marvel Transformers or G2 (which though had some good moments were never quite any good)

Looking in terms of characterisation, I see glimpses here and there of the base G1 characters but really the plots are loopy and the other Autobots are almost background generic with the odd comment showing their individuality. Even the Dinobot stories aren't showing much... I mean, Sludge head over heels over a woman...

Oh and the art sucks majorly but that's a personal preference thing and I can appreciate people have different preferences.

What's disappointing is where are these high and mighty complex tales that I keep hearing about that are the highpoint of Transformers fiction. I can't see it. As far as I'm concerned, Furman's run on the US G1 Marvel series was far superior in terms of story.

So can anyone show me where the greatness is?

[Paulbot]

I'm not sure what IDW is reprinting in the Dinobots series? I assume it's Dinobot Hunt? That's very early on but has it's moments (like the Autobots questioning former Decepticon Jetfire's loyalty whereas in the US he was just welcomed into the ranks no questions asked). The later Dinobot story "In The National Interest" is a great story and my favourite Dinobot story.

TF UK's main difference was that the focus was on the Transformers. Most of Budiansky's run the stories were about humans interacting with Transformers whereas Furman had no problems telling stories that were soley about Transformers at times.

After Target 2006 the next 100 issues had an ongoing plot centred around Galvatron interspersed cleverly between the US stories (and 98% of the time not contradicting them!). This was a far longer, bigger story than anything the US produced. This is where the greatness comes from.

While the US continued to have stories designed to introduce the new toys, the UK comic simply told good stories about the Transformers. Forget Carwashes, used car lots and space carnivals, the UK gave us the Predacons vs the Dinobots, robot zombies(!) and an all-out Quintesson invasion of Cybertron.

The later UK stuff, the black and white five pagers, is not as great, but worth it for the character of Carnivac who Beast Wars Dinobot owes a lot to.

[i_amtrunks]

The later UK stuff, the black and white five pagers, is not as great, but worth it for the character of Carnivac who Beast Wars Dinobot owes a lot to.

The Wreckers/Survivors stuff is gold.

The Earthforce stuff was alright for a bit of stand-alone fun, had a lot more humour in it than anything else released around the same time.

The Titan trades are worth the $10 or so they'll set you back, otherwise Time Wars is a good read. Furman really did do some great character work, especially for Grimlock, but the stuff for Nightbeat, Thunderwing, and even Rodimus far surpasses anything ever seen in the US comics.

[GoktimusPrime]

Paulbot and i_amtrunks have summed up the differences in the quality of story telling quite well.

As for the artwork...

Here's a comparison of the US and UK covers of...

"The Human Factor!"
US UK

Underbase Starscream
US UK

Marvel US' José Delbo - "Thunderbirds are go!" (his TFs tend to look like puppets)


Marvel UK's Andrew Wildman


Marvel UK's Geoff Senior


And differences in colouring between same artworks...

US

US UK

US UK

US UK

US UK

In the US comics Xaaron was always completely yellow
Whereas he had more colours in the UK comics

The UK comics had better print quality too - US Marvel Comics in the 80s used a very cheap and "pixelated" print format which didn't look nice. :/

[kup]

Does this mean that in the comic world US = Hasbro and UK = Takara?
________
Pissing Mature

[Paulbot]

Yes. All the best creators of the G1 US comics came from the UK comics first.

[Sky Shadow]

So can anyone show me where the greatness is?

Imagine it's 1986, you're Australian and you're nine years old. This is just before the movie (and thus Season Three of the cartoon) has come out. You rock up at a newsagent and instead of the usual Transformers comics there's this new one with painted art that comes with free posters, stickers and sticker books. And - instead of the simplistic stories in the cartoon or the other comic's stories about subjects like a white guy with an afro who claims to control the Transformers - you're reading something completely new. For the first time in any medium we're reading stories about Ultra Magnus and Galvatron. The Autobots are led by Jetfire and Megatron against bad guys who include Scourge and Jazz. On Cybertron there are characters like Roadbuster, Octane and Twin Twist. And all these characters are wrapped in a complex epic story about time travel, Cybertron and Earth that's unlike anything that has *ever* happened in any genre of Transformers before. And in the UK comics it turns out that this sort of thing happens every week.

To this day, 'Target 2006' still ranks amongst the best Transformers stories ever told. (They even just released some toys that were a homage to it.) And then, for years after that first Australian storyline, we went back to the newsagents week after week and picked up yet another well-written chapter in the tapestry of a massive ongoing storyline. Try to find another single Transformers medium that lasted for three hundred or so stories. (I'm pretty sure there isn't one.)

The Wreckers; Transformers changing sides; time travel - that stuff all began here before other continuities. You're looking at this with a hindsight of an extra couple of decades of Transformers history, much of which is just ripping off the stuff Furman did for the franchise anyway. If you don't get it, maybe you had to be there. But it shouldn't be that way. Transformers UK is empirically awesome.

--

Edited due to me being chronologically challenged.

[GoktimusPrime]

Imagine it's 19961986,

Fix'd!
But yeah, I agree - in the context of the 1980s, compared with the Marvel US comics and G1 cartoon, the UK comics were awesomesauce. Transformers Animated by 2008 standards is mediocre at best.

[kup]

I think that they hold up extremely well now. My real exposure to the UK comics (It was US comics as a kid and even so I never got to read most of them) was as an adult I couldn't stop reading them until I had gone through all 300 or so issues.

[GoktimusPrime]

When I was in high school other kids often mocked me for still liking Transformers. For the few kids that cared to actually ask why I still liked Transformers (and actually wanted to know the answer instead of just mindless ridicule) I would tell them about the stories from the UK comics and it would immediately justify my Transfandom in the eyes of others. I remember during one English class I sat down and talked to some of my classmates about Transformers theology (Primus, Unicron* etc. - all spawned from the UK comics). They actually sat and listened intently and some admitted that they were quite fascinated by the story even though they had no personal interest in Transformers.

(*as a god)