And this week a break from superheroes, and a welcome to robots. This is the cover to Transformers #200.
Now doubtless this is going to confuse some US readers. 'Transformers? What? What the hell has that to do with Marvel?' Well, much as though there was only a relatively short period of Transformers stories published in the USA, here in the UK we started writing some of our own, to add to the US reprints. And before anybody knew quite what was going in it actually became the UK offices which were producing most of the Marvel Transformers material. And weekly - not monthly.
Obviously, Marvel US gave up the creative rights to do Transformers comics a long time ago, along with several other toy and cartoon series licenses. IDW own those now. But I think it's testament to Marvel UK's Transformers staff, that IDW a lot of time and money purchasing the rights to reprint UK material, today. It really is held in that high a regard.
I did own this issue once upon a time, but sadly it was chucked with oh so many comics of my childhood by over-zealous parents, wanting to tidy up after me. So I've had to rummage around online to find this cover. Sadly, this also means that I cannot credit the artist/s responsible for it. And that is a shame.
#200 was part of the epic 'Time Wars' storyline. To try and explain, Transformers stories were set in two timelines. One, the present day. And Two, the near future of Transformers the movie. Time Wars was the result of characters from the near future (Galvatron, Cyclonus and Scourge) came back in time to the present, and Cyclonus was killed by Megatron a good twenty years before he was created. This cause a rift in space and time, which grew and grew, until bad stuff happened.
Now that I think about it, so many Marvel UK stories centred around time-travel and playing with the same timeline. What is more is they always seemed to make sense. Such a shame that Marvel US can't do the same, without claiming that future they show is an alternate universe, sooner or later. I've always hated that idea.
There will be another blog up later today. But it's Mother's Day, here in the UK, and I have certain duties to fulfill, first. I'll be back, later..
This was a brilliant story, the climax of Furman's epic time travel plot thread, which began with the more famous 'Target: 2006'. I've still got the issue - a quick check reveals the cover is by Lee Sullivan. Even without the credit, a glance at the back cover gives away the artist - Sullivan always drew Galvatron as a robot Jack Nicholson, and he has that Nicholson leer on the back of this wraparound.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reminder of a great storyline!
Mark
Thanks, Mark.
ReplyDeleteI had a sneaking suspicion that it might have been Mr Sullivan. His style was quite distinctive.
And I'd totally agree with the Nicholson leer. Lee's rendition always look so wonderfully malicious. And when you pair that up in terms with Megatron, I always felt there were some very distinct differences between the two. Obviously they're both the same man/robot, but Galvatron was very much like Megatron with all the fail-safes removed. And I think that actually scared the big Meg, just a little bit...
Man, Time Wars was excellent. I love Lee Sullivan's work on the last two parts of that story with the rift tearing a screaming mad Galvatron to pieces!!
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