The Transformers (Generation 1), Marvel, U.S.

The Transformers comic by Marvel was the first and arguably the best known Transformers comic. Although it was originally intended to be a 4-issue limited series, it expanded into an ongoing series, which ran for 80 issues before being cancelled.

Marvel UK

The sister title in the UK, which ran for 332 issues, was weekly and thus spliced in original stories into the continuity of the reprinted US issues, was mostly written by Simon Furman . At the start, it had a more serious science fiction approach. Because of the weekly approach, the UK comic was able to flesh out characters and ideas more. One example of this, in the US comic, The Aerialbots and Stunticons are first shown having just been built and being given life by the creation Matrix program. In the UK comic, this is more fleshed out. This is a new technology, much more complex than the Constructicon combination, that Soundwave saw while Scanning Buster Witwicky’s brain, the effects of having the Creation Matrix downloaded into his brain for a time. Also, Furman tried to maintain continuity with The Transformers: The Movie , and wrote several stories set in the future after the movie’s ending, as well as bringing charcters from the future (ie Galvatron) into the present-day. Due to his epic and mythological approach, he was highly praised and succeeded Bob Budiansky on the US title at issue 56. The mythic tone continues to influence the Dreamwave and IDW comics.