The Transformers Annual #1985
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThe Transformers Annual 1985 is the inaugural hardback collection from Marvel UK's Transformers line and the very first publication in what became a celebrated annual series. It is notable as the first UK comic appearance of the Insecticons, beating their debut in the American monthly by introducing them in Simon Furman's strip 'Plague of the Insecticons!' — even if the circumstances of that introduction sat awkwardly with both the US and UK ongoing continuities. The second Furman comic strip, 'And There Shall Come… a Leader!', was among the earliest attempts in any Transformers medium to dramatize the Cybertronian civil war in flashback form, predating by nearly two decades the celebrated War Within prequel series that Furman himself would later write for Dreamwave. The annual was designed explicitly to reach children who did not yet follow the weekly comic, giving it a broader cultural footprint than a standard issue, and the Transformers annual format it established would go on to produce some of the most acclaimed standalone storytelling in the entire Marvel UK run.
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The annual was assembled by Sheila Cranna, the launch editor of the Marvel UK Transformers weekly, co-published with Grandreams Ltd. and released in time for Christmas 1985. Cranna's original plan — reprinting American Marvel text stories to save money — collapsed when rights clearances could not be obtained, and her next choice, Simon Furman, was unavailable in person when she went looking for him at the office. On a recommendation from letterer Richard Starkings, writer James Hill was brought in to produce the annual's two prose stories, while Furman wrote both comic strips. By the time the book reached newsstands, Ian Rimmer had taken over as ongoing editor of the weekly, but the annual remained entirely Cranna's production, and both Hasbro and Marvel shaped its contents to function as a Christmas toy showcase for new 1985 figures as much as a piece of storytelling.
Trivia · 9 facts
- Published December 1985 by Marvel Comics Ltd. in association with Grandreams Ltd. (UK); it is the first in the Marvel UK Transformers annual series, which ran through 1991.
- Contains two original comic strips by Simon Furman: 'Plague of the Insecticons!' (art by unconfirmed credits per sources) and 'And There Shall Come… a Leader!' (art by John Stokes, lettering by Richard Starkings).
- 'Plague of the Insecticons!' is the first UK comic appearance of the Insecticons (Bombshell, Kickback, and Shrapnel), published before their introduction in the main American Marvel series — though their portrayal here contradicted the way they eventually appeared in the ongoing US comic, leading most continuity guides to treat the story as non-canonical.
- 'And There Shall Come… a Leader!' is set on Cybertron in the early years of the Autobot-Decepticon civil war and depicts one of the earliest direct confrontations between Optimus Prime and Megatron in the Marvel comics continuity; the story was later referenced in the UK weekly issues #42–44.
- Two original prose stories were written by James Hill (brought in via a recommendation from Richard Starkings after rights issues blocked reprints and Simon Furman was unavailable); Hill was under the impression the annual was not considered in-continuity with the weekly comic.
- The annual opens with character guides — two-page spreads introducing the main Autobot and Decepticon casts — deliberately aimed at readers unfamiliar with the weekly comic, a strategic choice driven jointly by Marvel UK and Hasbro to broaden the audience and support the Christmas toy range.
- Puzzles and activity pages within the annual were reprinted from existing Marvel Books Transformers colouring titles (Search for Treasure Under the Sea, Decepticon Patrol, The Deadly Fuel Shortage), not created fresh for the annual.
- The annual was released in two formats: a standard hardcover edition labelled as an annual, and a softcover variant that omitted the word 'Annual' and the article 'The' from its cover — a distinction that has caused bibliographic confusion among collectors and cataloguers.
- Stories from this annual ('Plague of the Insecticons!' and 'And There Shall Come… a Leader!') were later reprinted by Marvel UK in the 'Plague of the Insecticons' Collected Comics special and subsequently in Titan Books' UK reprint trade paperback programme and the IDW Publishing Transformers Classics: UK series.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints The Transformers #1 (1984)
Reprinted in The Transformers Classics UK #1 (2011)
Key issues in The Transformers Annual
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