We got the uk gijoe comics, now comics gave us the uk ghostbusters comics as back-ups and the he-man mag gave us some uk he-man comics. So why did marvel not give us the uk comics back in the 80s other then man of iron? Why gijoe but not transformers? Target 2006 would have made a great mini-series. Were comic sales that bad that marvel didn't want to make a second comic for the uk comics? Gijoe got three comics a month plus the yearbook! Why did we not get them?

 

I'm only hazarding a guess here, but I'd say reason number one is that the UK comics were created as filler (regardless whether some fans view it as better than the non-filler), and that Marvel didn't need filler in the U.S. market. As for why G.I. Joe did, I'm guessing there was just a greater demand for the Joe comics. Remember that Marvel also kept their Joe series running after they ended Transformers.

 

Moving to TF Comic Discussion Forum.

FWIW, I did buy the UK comics, IIRC, Amazon.com had them years ago, TPB's, but IIRC there were 4 of them at the time.

 

I assumed he meant "why didn't we get them while the series was still running under Marvel?"

 

That's why I posted TBP... it was way after the 80's releases.  

And moved the thread to Comics, lots of folks who post here know the original history pretty darn well... and can give some insight as to why.

 

Sales for Transformers (here) were decent, certainly enough for some additional mini series and whatnot; sales for GI Joe, were, believe it or not, pretty huge until probably the late 80s. Like top 10 huge. It was probably thought that expanding the Joe franchise was a far better bet than Transformers. It's a shame we didn't get Transformers: European Missions or what have you, but that's the way it goes. GI Joe wasn't able to sustain the sales, and ultimately, Transformers would not have, as well.

On the other hand, it says something that, when Budiansky stepped down, the go to guys were from Marvel UK.

 

Well the gijoe comic did last into the 90s. In fact transformers G2 started in the gijoe book that had started before the transformers book!

 

I realize that. What I'm saying is, until probably 1989 or 1990, GI Joe was a huge seller for Marvel. Huge enough to sustain spinoffs. It fell off of a cliff and was selling progressively worse and worse into the 90s until it's cancellation.