Other publications
The Transformers is our main thing. But in order to be an informative and comprehensive encyclopedia, it sometimes falls to us to document content from other publications. Note that we're not obligated to cover every story printed in the following issues, or we'd be here all day.
From a wiki perspective, articles with content from other publications are marked with the ExtraTF Template – extra meaning "outside", like in "extraterrestrial".
Action Force (weekly)
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| External link | Action Force (weekly) 
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| Publisher | Marvel UK | |
| First issue | Issue 1, 1st March 1987 | |
| Final issue | Issue 50, 7th February 1988 | |
After IPC Magazines ceased its publication of Action Force stories in Battle in November 1986, Hasbro gave the rights to Marvel UK, for them to release a weekly Action Force mag in the same vein as The Transformers. This publication married UK-produced main stories with back-up material reprinting strips from Marvel U.S.'s A Real American Hero – of which there was a healthy supply that had been building since 1982. These reprint stories were edited for the UK market, changing all the G.I. Joes to Action Forces among other edits, essentially creating a continuity out of two ongoing strips. The weekly Action Force comic was frequently promoted by The Transformers, including a full-blown crossover story (of which we give partial coverage).
Another bit of The Transformers's homework copied by Action Force was its gag strip, which imported Robo-Capers cartoonist Lew Stringer. The resulting comic was Codename: Combat Colin, a look into the everyday life of a yampy suburban action hero. When Action Force folded into The Transformers, Combat Colin came over with it to overwhelming critical acclaim. We have chosen to cover these early Combat Colin tales because of wiki editor favouritism to provide a complete look at his exploits in the pages of Marvel Comics.
Action Force
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Codename: Combat Colin
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Doctor Who Magazine
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| External link | Doctor Who Magazine 
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| Publisher | Marvel UK | |
| First issue | Issue 1, 11 October 1979 | |
| Final issue | Ongoing...! | |
- "Doctor Who" redirects here. For the character named Doctor Who, see The Doctor.
In 1963, a ragtag team at the BBC launched Doctor Who. The show centred around a mysterious character known only as the Doctor, who could travel through time and space in a ship called the TARDIS. This conceit was to allow the programme to explore factual history as well as science-based speculative futures. Although aimed at a family audience, it didn't become the children’s own programme that adults adore until its fifth episode took a hard turn into a post-nuclear civil war starring the dastardly xenophobic Daleks – and with them came the explosion in popularity that was Dalekmania.
In 1979, around the time Tom Baker and Phillip Hinchcliffe were making the show the most popular it had been since 1964, Marvel UK snapped up the comics licence for Doctor Who, launching what was then known as Doctor Who Weekly; this comic-cum-magazine was spearheaded by Dez Skinn, who'd been watching the show since he was 12 years old. Notable creators to have contributed to its comic strips include Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Dave Gibbons, 
and John Ridgway.
Doctor Who Magazine holds the Guinness World Record for the longest running TV tie-in. Its continuous publication outlasted not only Doctor Who itself – which disappeared from the airwaves in 1989 "on hiatus" – but also Marvel UK, which was absorbed by Panini in 1995. Doctor Who Magazine continues to report on the world of Who, including rumours that the show may someday return to television...
Back when it was a Marvel publication, the central comic strip was allowed some degree of interconnectivity with the wider Marvel universe, with crossover characters including Merlin the Wise, the Special Executive , the Freefall Warriors, the Sleeze Brothers, and, of course, Death's Head. What's relevant to us is that the Doctor (or should that be Doctors...?) once faced the Gwanzulums.
- Issue 141: "Planet of the Dead" Episode One
- Issue 142: "Planet of the Dead" Episode Two
We also cover Doctor Who Magazine (ad).
The Real Ghostbusters
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| External link | The Real Ghostbusters 
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| Publisher | Marvel UK | |
| First issue | Issue 1, March 1988 | |
| Final issue | Issue 193, September 1992 | |
- "Ghostbusters" redirects here. For the real Ghostbusters, see Ghostbuster.
Despite being conceived as a comedy vehicle for John Belushi based on Dan Aykroyd's paranormal spec int with a licensed title from an unrelated production, the 1984 movie Ghostbusters was a cultural phenomenon. This supernatural comedy launched an unlikely multimedia franchise, much of which was aimed at a younger audience – as was the style at the time – including DiC's animated sequel/spin-off, The Real Ghostbusters.
Debuting in 1988, Marvel UK's The Real Ghostbusters became a runaway hit, running for an unprecedented 193 issues with annuals and spin-off appearances galore. Producing the comic was a ballsy move in the early days as, unlike many of Marvel UK's other licensed titles, The Real Ghostbusters had no U.S. equivalent series to reprint as a safety net; in those early days, The Real Ghostbusters was filled with home-grown, in-house talent. This led to something of a transatlantic cultural exchange with the later NOW Comics The Real Ghostbusters series, as each publication began to reprint the other's material.
The Ghostbusters also fell afoul of the Gwanzulums, meaning we cover the following:
- Issue 9: "Too Many Ghostbusters!"
- Issue 20: Gwanzulums Fact File
We also cover The Real Ghostbusters (ad).
ThunderCats
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| External link | ThunderCatsFans.org | |
| Publisher | Marvel UK | |
| First issue | Issue 1, March 1987 | |
| Final issue | Issue 129, December 1990 | |
- "ThunderCats" redirects here. For the eponymous cat people, see ThunderCat.
ThunderCats was a 1985 animated series produced by Rankin/Bass – yes, the Rudolph people – based on characters created by Ted Wolf. The show told the story of a group of feline nobles exiled from their dying home planet coming to settle on the surreal world of Third Earth, where they must contend not only with its strange flora, fauna, and peoples but also the frequent machinations of the devil priest Mumm-Ra, who sought to gain the power of leader Lion-O's mystical Sword of Omens. ThunderCats stood out due to its anime-influenced (by which we mean "outsourced to Japan") animation, its moral lessons courtesy of a psychological consultant on staff, and the part of its first episode where all the main characters stroll around in the nuddy.
In the U.S., ThunderCats received a tie-in Marvel comic book 
under the Star Comics imprint. Following in the footsteps of giant( robot)s, Marvel UK's version of ThunderCats augmented its U.S. reprints with homegrown strips, text stories, and a truly awful gag strip called One Cat and his Cod. Like other Marvel UK contemporaries, the ThunderCats were embroiled in a scheme involving the Gwanzulums.
- Issue 66: "Double Jeopardy!" part 1
- Issue 67: "Double Jeopardy!" part 2
ThunderCats was running on fumes from around the hundredth issue mark, printing reprints of reprints. "Double Jeopardy!" was on shelves again in issues 107 and 108, the former of which gave us the cover seen at right.
