| This article is written from the Real World point of view. |  |
Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher which has published Doctor Who comic books, magazines and graphic novels, both in the United States and in Britain. Marvel's connection with Doctor Who began in 1979, when the BBC transferred the license to print Doctor Who comics from Polystyle to Marvel's British imprint, Marvel UK.
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Though Marvel UK initially enjoyed exclusive rights to Doctor Who in comics form, their rights have gradually contracted since 1996, when the Eighth Doctor debuted in a series of strips that ran in Radio Times. Since the second series of the BBC Wales production, they have been one of several companies to enjoy publishing rights to the comics adventures of the Tenth Doctor. Nevertheless, their strip in Doctor Who Magazine is generally considered by most fans to be the "main" Doctor Who comic strip, with other comics, like those found in the BBC-produced Doctor Who Adventures, construed as "niche" comics for a specific audience.
At the height of their influence, Marvel UK began to publish directly in the US market during the mid-1990s. Though they enjoyed initial success, they soon found themselves up against the wall of the general downturn in the US comics industry that decade. Having committed much of their resources to success in America, they were quickly reduced to a company that mainly reprinted Marvel US comics in Britain. By the turn of the 21st century, almost the only original work they were still doing was in Doctor Who and the Transformers. Badly cash-strapped, they were saved from extinction by the intervention of Panini Comics, a European publisher who had the Marvel reprint license for the continent. Panini's acquisition of Marvel UK had the net effect of Marvel Europe extending its territory to encompass the United Kingdom. Hence, from one perspective, the BBC's license to print Doctor Who comics and news didn't change hands, so much as the British license to print Marvel Comics. In other words, Marvel UK still technically exists as of 2008, with its licenses intact, but they are now owned by Panini, which also owns Marvel Europe. For this reason, it's within Panini's rights to now reprint a Doctor Who comic from a 1985 issue of Doctor Who Magazine, whereas special permission must be sought for Panini to reprint something from the Polystyle era.
Initially Marvel UK exercised the BBC's license in Doctor Who Weekly, a publication that was a fairly even mix between comics and Doctor Who news. In the very earliest days of that magazine, it served not only as a location for a regular comic strip featuring the then-current Doctor, but also for a variety of other sequential art. These non-Doctor stories included some tales that were set in the Whoniverse, but featured original characters, along with irregular reprints of material from The Dalek Chronicles.
It also featured 1970s Marvel adaptations of classic science fiction stories, and reprints from American Marvel Comics published from the of the 1950s and 1960s. For these stories, tenuous connection was established to the Fourth Doctor in that he appeared in the first and last panels as a sort of "Greek chorus-cum-narrator". Consequently some major American Marvel artists like Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont and Steve Ditko have credits in DWM.
Over the years, the title of the publication, its page count, and its target audience changed. Whereas it had started with a significant number of pages devoted to a variety of comic strips, it gradually became more of a news and reviews magazine with a single comic strip featuring the Doctor. It began as a child-oriented magazine and gradually became more interested in attempting to be something closer to a journalistic exercise that happened to have some comic content. Its name changed over the years until finally settling on Doctor Who Magazine, by which it is most commonly known today.
Soon after the launch of Doctor Who Weekly, Marvel UK also began publication of a seasonal, sister publication initially called Doctor Who Special. It was a biannual publication, which in many ways was like an American comics "annual". Although it could be purchased separately from the main magazine, it was also a subscriber bonus. Like DWM, it began as primarily a repository of fiction and gradually became heavily oriented towards non-fiction, journalistic articles. These specials became increasingly thematic as the run continued. Whereas reprinted comics were common early on, later issues featured exclusively original comic material, or, in one case, the complete reprinting of TV Century 21's The Dalek Chronicles. It was a significant source of comic material featuring past Doctors and companions. In fact, a number of different companions, whose TV runs had been previously ignored by both Marvel and Polystyle, made their first comic appearances in DWS, including: Vicki, Steven, Benny, and Mel. Others, such as Romana I had their first Marvel treatment in the pages of DWS, rather than the parent publication.
Confusion over the title is both common and understandable in fandom. Later issues which place the word Magazine on the cover, suggest that one possible title for the publication is Doctor Who Magazine Special. Also, the common inclusion of these issues with subscriptions of DWM force some to include that it's not really a separate title from DWM. In fact, though, no issue of the run has the word "Magazine" in the indicia title. And it was called Doctor Who Special for at least its first five issues. Thereafter, the publication dropped its legal promise to be "published twice yearly", and was technically published as a series of one-shots bearing the name of the season. In effect, Doctor Who Special morphed into Doctor Who Summer Special and Doctor Who Winter Special, along with the odd unique special, like the Doctor Who 30th Anniversary Special or Dalek Chronicles - A Doctor Who Summer Special'.
Practically, the need for these specials was eclipsed somewhat by Marvel's decision in 1990 to switch DWM from a monthly to a 4-weekly publication. This increased the annual output of DWM itself to 13 issues. Marvel would go on publishing the specials, however, for a few more years, eventually stopping them altogether after Marvel UK faltered in the US market in 1996.
Marvel also briefly produced another series, called the Doctor Who Yearbook, from 1992-1996. Sometimes considered "annuals", they are perhaps most accurately thought of as hardbound issues of Doctor Who Special. Whereas a true British "annual" is a collection of prose and comics stories featuring the then-current stars of a property — it marks that year in television, film, or sport — the Yearbook appeared at a time when Doctor Who was firmly off the air. Thus it became a retrospective look at the program as a whole, and featured a variety of different companions and Doctors. Like Doctor Who Specials, it occasionally reprinted material from Doctor Who Magazine, but was largely used to feature new stories. Its comics featured Marvel's first non-parodic attempt at Ian and Barbara, along with the first Marvel usage of Jo, Leela and Nyssa,
Marvel UK was briefly involved in a project to reprint material not generally available to Doctor Who fans in the 1990s. In a series that lasted less than 30 issues, Doctor Who Magazine's resident comic experts attempted to reprint important stories from both the Polystyle and Marvel UK runs'. Where necessary, they also colorized stories that had originally been in black and white. The magazine ended long before it had gotten anywhere close to being a comprehensive collection of the Polystyle era, but it nevertheless offered the only taste of that time that most fans had experienced.
The publication also had significant text articles which gave details as to the story names and artists that worked on every known Doctor Who comic adventure. Because of this, it is today still considered the de facto definitive guide to early Doctor Who comics. Many reference websites, including the Doctor Who Reference Guide, use this Marvel UK title as their primary reference for the comics of the first seven Doctors. Though in many ways just a reprinting of the "Stripped for Action" column that had begun appearing in DWM a couple of years before, DWCC offered expanded coverage of the subject.
Marvel also occasionally printed some single-issue Doctor Who comics, marketed as "graphic novels". Of these, only The Age of Chaos was both wholly graphic and a single, novel-length story. The others — Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer and Voyager — would be considered by North Americans to be trade paperbacks or "collected editions".
Marvel UK's parent company, Marvel Comics, had some minor involvement with Doctor Who during the height of US Doctor Who fandom in the 1980s, consisting of colorized reprints of DWM comic strips, beginning with a Fourth Doctor story arc that appeared as part of an anthology series entitled Marvel Premiere. This was followed by a monthly comic in 1984 entitled, simply, Doctor Who which featured additional DWM reprints featuring the Fourth and, later, Fifth Doctor. About two-dozen issues were published. Marvel also issued a North American edition of the Sixth Doctor DWM story arc, Voyager in an omnibus graphic novel edition. Marvel US created no significant original Doctor Who material, other than covers, pinups, and the odd prose feature in the Doctor Who comic.
In addition to the above, Marvel US also distributed Doctor Who Magazine along with the UK reprint title Doctor Who Classic Comics, the Doctor Who Yearbook, and the Who-related title, Death's Head, before Panini took over the license. Since 2007 another US publisher, IDW, has issued new reprints of the DWM stories previously issued by Marvel US in Marvel Premiere and Doctor Who.
Over time, Marvel UK began publishing a number of original stories featuring a variety of mainstream Marvel US characters, such as the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four. Eventually, these British versions of mainstream Marvel characters, combined with a few characters that were wholly original to Marvel UK, began to create a continuity that diverged somewhat from the mainstream American Marvel Universe. Thus, comic observers began to posit the notion of a "Marvel UK Universe". The Doctor Who comic strips came to be viewed as a part of that universe, and, indeed, a number of characters that originated in Doctor Who Weekly and its successor titles crossed over into other titles within the Marvel UK Universe. Even the Doctor, in his Seventh persona, could be said to be a part of the Marvel UK universe. Indeed, because of subsequent appearances of Marvel UK characters in the mainstream Marvel US Universe — in particular Death's Head — it is possible to consider the Doctor a minor part of the Marvel Universe, generally.[1] The specific part of the Marvel megaverse that the Doctor possibly inhabits is called Earth-5556.[2]
| Generation One » |
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| Cartoon |
| Marvel comic |
| 3-D comics |
| “ | Four million years ago, they came from Cybertron, a world composed entirely of machinery... a world torn by an age-old war between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons. These incredibly powerful living robots, capable of converting themselves into land and air vehicles, weapons and other mechanical forms, continue their conflict here on Earth. They are... THE TRANSFORMERS | ” |
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—Generation One introductory blurb |
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The Transformers, the monthly comic book published in the U.S. by Marvel Comics, was the very first original fiction to feature the famous robots in disguise, as well as the longest-running. It started life as a four-issue, bimonthly limited series in 1984, but proved so popular that it continued publication as an ongoing monthly until spring of 1991. The series ultimately reached 80 issues and spun off several miniseries.
The series established the Marvel Comics continuity, which would form the basis for several successor stories over the years.
Nearly all of the U.S. stories were later published by Marvel UK, along with new stories that fit between the gaps of the U.S. tales. See Marvel UK below.
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| Marvel US issues: |
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| #1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11 | #12 | #13 | #14 | #15 | #16 | #17 | #18 | #19 | #20 | #21 | #22 | #23 | #24 | #25 | #26 | #27 | #28 | #29 | #30 | #31 | #32 | #33 | #34 | #35 | #36 | #37 | #38 | #39 | #40 | #41 | #42 | #43 | #44 | #45 | #46 | #47 | #48 | #49 | #50 | #51 | #52 | #53 | #54 | #55 | #56 | #57 | #58 | #59 | #60 | #61 | #62 | #63 | #64 | #65 | #66 | #67 | #68 | #69 | #70 | #71 | #72 | #73 | #74 | #75 | #76 | #77 | #78 | #79 | #80 |
The story begins with a brief history of Cybertron and its civil war, which eventually causes the planet to become lost in space. Battling aboard the Ark, the original 28 characters crash-land on Earth four million years ago and awaken in the (then-)present day of 1984. The quest for fuel becomes their initial goal, driving the first several issues.
As the first fiction in the entire franchise, the initial issues of Transformers were breaking completely new ground. Early issues contain a variety of plot points and conventions, some of which would go on to shape the very mythos... and others that would fall by the wayside, forgotten and hilariously quaint. The concept of the life-giving Creation Matrix is a good example of the former group; "naturally occurring gears and levers" comes to mind for the latter.
The book soon built its own elaborate and wide-reaching universe, including hundreds of characters—Transformers, humans, aliens—on Earth, Cybertron, and beyond. Late in the series, a long-running plot brought in the sinister menace of Unicron, giving him a backstory and build-up that for many fans surpassed his original appearance in The Transformers: The Movie for storytelling and gravitas. This backstory would eventually go on to eclipse the origin given in the cartoon.
Because it was a book intended to sell toys, Transformers featured an ever-rotating cast. New Transformers were often hastily brought in to meet the demands of Hasbro, and older "product" was often swept aside or killed off en masse in epic, climactic battles.
After some troubled times and steadily declining readership, the series was finally canceled at issue #80. A combination of factors was likely responsible: the Transformers toyline had become yesterday's fad, the core readership had grown older and moved on, and Hasbro seems to have pulled the plug.
Several subsequent series would build upon the series; see Marvel Comics continuity for more information.
The book featured two primary writers: Bob Budiansky edited the original 4-part limited series and wrote the book from issue #5 to issue #55. After that, Simon Furman, already heavily experienced from his work on the UK book, took up the reins until the book was canceled at issue #80.
Transformers is a bit notorious for wild swings in writing quality, as serious plots alternated with such strange concepts as Micromaster wrestling and ridiculous bounty hunters. Some of this may be attributed to Bob Budiansky's eventual burn-out; after years of having to warp his stories around to meet the latest toy-appearance demands from Hasbro, his later writing on the book showed a decline in quality. Among Transfans, he is sometimes remembered unfavorably because of this period, perhaps unfairly so considering his fundamental role in shaping the Transformers universe and most of its characters, as well as some of the book's most gripping early stories. Still, even such oddball stories as "Buster Witwicky and the Car Wash of Doom" and "Guess Who the Mecannibals are Having for Dinner?" have both their merits and their fans.
Budiansky himself proposed that Simon Furman take over as the U.S. series writer.[1] With the changeover, the stories took on a more serious tone, relying on character conflict more than outlandish plot devices. Many fans regard Furman's run on the original book as one of the high points of all Transformers fiction.
The comic was written in "Marvel Style", where the writer gives the artist a plot outline instead of a full script. The artist then lays out the pages himself; afterward the writer comes back in and scripts the dialog based on the artist's work. This approach gives the artist a larger role in telling the story than simply drawing what the writer tells them to.[2]
A number of artists worked on Transformers, but the most frequent pencilers included Frank Springer, Don Perlin, Jose Delbo, Geoff Senior, and Andrew Wildman. Also of particular note is colorist Nel Yomtov, who colored every single issue of the book, as well as all of the related mini-series.
As The Transformers title began life as a limited series, it was subject to the conventions Marvel had established for limited series at the time of its publication. "Standard" Marvel comics released concurrently in 1984 cost 60 cents and were printed on newsprint; in contrast, The Transformers sold for 75 cents and was printed on a whiter, higher-quality stock (for the time) known as "Mando paper".
Evidently considered a "deluxe format" book by Marvel, Transformers continued to be printed on Mando paper even after it became an ongoing series. [3] It also remained at 75 cents—at least until issue 28, when the price of the book rose to 1 dollar. Surprisingly, with the exception of the double-sized issue 50 and issue 75, which were both priced at $1.50, The Transformers would remain at 1 dollar for the remainder of its original run.
There is some confusion over when issues first appeared, due to changing practices regarding the cover dates. When the comic began in 1984, Marvel issues were normally cover dated four months ahead of their going on sale. This was partially a hangover from the days of fierce newsstand competition when each company tried to make its comics look newer than its rivals and partially a mechanism to compensate for slower distribution on newsstands and overseas sales.
As a result of this, although issue #1 is cover dated September, it went on sale in May. This is supported by the first Usenet post about Transformers which was posted by Ted Nolan to net.comics on May 22 1984.
In 1989, Marvel decided to rationalize things by moving to a system where the cover date was only two months in advance. In order to achieve this, issues released in August 1989 have the cover date "Mid November", those in September 1989 have "December" and those in October "Mid December". The relevant Transformers issues were #59, #60 and #61.
Marvel UK produced a G1 comic which ran for 332 issues, reprinting the American stories and adding in many new stories built around them.
| Marvel UK issues (2nd story for issues with two non-reprint TF stories): |
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| #130 | #131 | #132 | #133 | #134 | #135 | #136 | #137 | #138 | #139 | #140 | #141 | #142 | #143 | #144 | #145 | ... | #213 | #214 | #215 | #216 | #217 | #218 | #219 | #220 | ... | #232 | #233 | #234 | #235 | #236 | #237 | #238 | #239 | #240 | #241 | #242 | #243 | #244 | #245 | #246 | #247 | #248 | #249 | #250 | #251 | #252 | #253 | #254 | ... | #259 | #260 | #261 | #262 | #263 | #264 | ... | #282 | #283 | #284 | #285 | #286 | #287 | #288 | #289 |
Though not without contradiction, the Marvel UK book managed to weave a number of highly complex stories "behind the scenes" of the Marvel U.S. tales. Topics included expanded stories and battles in the early days of the war (before Shockwave's arrival), more intrigue among the Decepticon commanders on Earth, the Autobot resistance on Cybertron, and the time-traveling exploits of Galvatron, who arrives directly from the future world of The Transformers: The Movie.
The UK book's weekly schedule and shorter format meant splitting stories into parts, often right in the middle of the action. Like the U.S. book, Marvel UK featured a regular column of letters from readers; however, these were supposedly answered by various Transformers, including Grimlock, Dreadwind, and others. See Letters page (Marvel UK).
Most UK-specific stories were written by Simon Furman, who was later assigned to write for the U.S. comic as well. Curiously, it was from this point that the divergences between the UK and U.S. stories became more pronounced.
Regular artists included Will Simpson, Robin Smith, Dan Reed, Jeff Anderson, Lee Sullivan, Geoff Senior, and Andrew Wildman. The large stable of artists resulted in some extreme contrasts of style throughout the book, such as Reed's highly organic art being followed by the clean, mechanical precision of Sullivan or Senior. Sometimes these changes occurred within the context of a single story.
Making the new stories align with the U.S. book occasionally involved some bending over backwards in storytelling terms. Megatron, for example, winds up with partial amnesia at the end of one story, explaining why he doesn't remember the Predacons when he encounters them again in a later U.S. story. U.S. reprints were sometimes physically edited as well; for example, a UK story has Skids being transported to Limbo after the events of U.S. #23, necessitating the removal of his occasional background appearances thereafter.
Another major change was the exclusion of the G.I. Joe and the Transformers crossover, which featured Bumblebee's destruction and subsequent restoration as Goldbug. UK continuity accounted for the reformatting by showing Bumblebee destroyed by Death's Head and rebuilt by Wreck-Gar during "Hunters!". Also, the UK comic continued to feature Megatron and Shockwave after their apparent deaths in the U.S. comic. While Megatron's appearance was eventually reconciled (sort of, if you squint) with the U.S. continuity, Shockwave's was not.
The "Perchance to Dream" story in UK #255-260 began the Earthforce storyline and heralded a nigh-irreconcilable division between U.S. and UK stories.
The Marvel UK book was published fortnightly from #1 to #26 and weekly from #27 onwards. These issues used a larger, magazine-sized format, compared to the traditional size for modern U.S. comic books. They contained 23 pages, numbered inclusive of advertising (unlike the U.S. comic). The color and paper quality was better than that of the U.S. comic, resulting in much whiter whites and, in UK-exclusive stories, no ugly dot artifacts in the colored regions.
Typically, 11 pages would be devoted to a U.S. or UK Transformers story, while the remaining pages were divided between a back-up strip, a letters page, small humorous comic strips (most notably Robo-Capers and Combat Colin), and advertisements. From issue 213 onwards, the central section of the comic was printed in black and white and contained a shorter UK story. The U.S. strip remained in color but was divided between four issues. This was the format for the majority of the issues published between #215 and #289. Issue #289 was the last to contain new UK Transformers stories.
UK children's comics typically have a weekly or fortnightly publication schedule, and monthly publication is the preserve of more substantial magazines aimed at older readers. The decision to publish fortnightly necessitated the division of the U.S. storylines between two or more UK comics, otherwise the UK comic would run out of material. The back-up strip then bulked out the issue to an acceptable size. When the comic began to be published weekly, this required still more Transformers material, which led to longer runs of original UK stories.
The Marvel UK series ran for about a year longer than its American counterpart and altogether had about twice as many stories.
Similarly to the U.S. comic, there is also some confusion over when issues of the UK comic were published. The date on a British weekly during Transformers's run was normally the off-sale date when it would be replaced by the next issue. For example issue #283 has a cover date of 18th August 1990 but was released on the 11th August 1990. During at least most of the run, the norm was for weekly comics to come out on a Saturday.
Occasionally, an issue was seen arriving on the Friday before it was "due", with such sightings usually during the Christmas/New Year period when distribution can be unsettled and overcompensated for, but it is hard to verify individual sightings.
Marvel UK Annuals were published every year, just before Christmas, for the life of the comic. Each annual was made up of a combination of a comic strip, text stories and editorial content. Some annuals also contained crossover stories with the main weekly comic in an attempt to boost sales. Due to falling sales, later annuals mainly contained reprinted stories from the comic. (Reprinted stories are not listed below.) These reprints are still of interest, as they present formerly black-and-white works in full colour.
| Marvel UK Annual 1986 |
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| Hunted! | Missing in Action | Plague of the Insecticons! | And There Shall Come...A Leader! |
| Marvel UK Annual 1987 |
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| In the Beginning... | The Return of the Transformers | State Games | The Mission | To a Power Unknown | Victory! |
| Marvel UK Annual 1988 |
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| Ark Duty | Doomsday for Nebulos | Stylor's Story | The Final Conflict |Vicious Circle! | What's in a Name? |
| Marvel UK Annual 1989 |
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| All in the Minds! | Altered Image! | Peace | Prime Bomb! | The Saga of the Transformers — So Far! |
| Marvel UK Annual 1990 |
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| Chain Gang! | Destiny of the Dinobots! | Dreadwing Down! | The Quest! | Trigger-Happy! |
| Marvel UK Annual 1991 |
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| The Magnificent Six! |
| Marvel UK Annual 1992 |
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| Another Time and Place |
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