Marvel/Grandreams TransFormers Annual 1986

It has occurred to me that, if I'm not going to blast through all four of the TransFormers annuals I own as quickly as possible, I should at least try to deal with one every year... and, having dealt with the 1985 annual in January of 2022, I'm a little overdue on this one, even in the worst case scenario.

With the advent of Marvel/Grandreams TransFormers annuals, and since I was a regular reader of the TransFormers comic (when the newsagents actually received it and remembered to add it to our newspaper delivery) it became inevitable that I'd continue to receive them as Christmas gifts. I mentioned in the write-up of the 1985 book, I'd been getting other annuals for years already, and TransFormers pretty much became my primary interest once they appeared on the scene.

While I probably enjoyed the first book at the tender age of 11, looking at it again, more than thirty years later, I found its content almost frustratingly bad, not helped by the distinctly variable artwork throughout. Let's see if the second collaboration presents any improvements...

Marvel/Grandreams TransFormers Annual 1985

Back in my youth, publishers of comics and teen-oriented magazines habitually ended the year with a hardbacked book featuring either retrospectives or - frequently, in the case of the comics - some wholly new material. In those days, I would always get such annuals for Christmas, and amassed quite a selection over the years, from The Beano to The Eagle (shared with my sister) to TransFormers, all of which ended up in the loft at my parents' place.

Cut to just before Christmas 2021, and my mother mentioned that she wanted to do a massive clear-out of the loft. Earlier this month, I popped over there a little earlier than I normally would when attending a local computer club, and assisted with the sorting effort. While most of my time was spent identifying toys/toy parts and grouping them together by type, we did find a couple of bags of annuals, so I grabbed the four TransFormers ones just for fun...

But then I figured I may as well take the opportunity to write about them, as they're as much a piece of TransFormers history as the toys. Here's the first...