tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163141447241149534.post1552948950537386732..comments2024-03-28T15:14:28.323-07:00Comments on Disciples of Boltax: Bish's Review: Marvel UK #121 "Ancient Relics" Part 1Jimtronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18138709079942253485noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163141447241149534.post-72019356708284956732011-07-07T06:31:52.313-07:002011-07-07T06:31:52.313-07:00Good points Chuffer - I feel, given the way all th...Good points Chuffer - I feel, given the way all the superhero books were (and are) we were lucky not get more of this sort of thing.Bishbothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01429304622553626284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163141447241149534.post-79610534090308018722011-07-07T04:02:34.810-07:002011-07-07T04:02:34.810-07:00I never had much confusion with the Action Force/G...I never had much confusion with the Action Force/G.I.Joe confusion – partly because I didn’t read much of the UK weekly comic, so didn’t have to cope with their near-impossible task of matching two very different continuities (much further apart than the UK/US Transformers, and with no ‘time-travel/future’ storyline to ease the pressure).<br /><br />It wasn’t even a problem when G.I.Joe became the regular back-up strip to Transformers (despite them being U.S. stories with rewritten speech bubbles). I’d say this was due to the writing styles: Larry Hama’s G.I.Joe felt very military and realistic (as much as it could be), the team writing Action Force (I think Simon Furman took some, but not all, of the stories) made them more like a superhero team with military hardware (closer to Thunderbirds, I guess). No criticism of either style, but so different it made it easier to discern the two brands.<br /><br />And another gripe about Marvel’s cross-marketing: it was a let-down that the rest of this story (dealing with the really exciting event of Megatron’s return) was continued in the Action Force comic (back then, pocket money would only stretch so far). It can’t have been much fun either if you were a purely-Action Force fan, to have five or so issues given over to a story that was much more significant to Transformers.Chufferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03100510579733340261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163141447241149534.post-75256713601682647032011-07-06T16:02:16.916-07:002011-07-06T16:02:16.916-07:00Anonymous - Sorry if I wasn't as clear as I co...Anonymous - Sorry if I wasn't as clear as I could be. I meant that I couldn't help but take it from the perspective of a modern reader who knows all about GI-Joe.<br /><br />Tim - Great info as usual - That's seriously Jeff Anderson? Ouch... I knew Wild Bill was supposedly from Hull(!?), so had presumed a UK team - I guess I should edit that. To be honest, given GI-Joe reappear in G2 it really makes a lot more sense if I mentally train myself to read GI-Joe instead of Action Force.Bishbothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01429304622553626284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163141447241149534.post-51149210718356057882011-07-06T07:06:01.180-07:002011-07-06T07:06:01.180-07:00The cover was by Jeff Anderson.
Action Force was ...The cover was by Jeff Anderson.<br /><br />Action Force was branded as an international team with some hilarious changes of nationality - practical joker Airtight was German, cowboy Wild Bill was British from the very unWild West of Hull and flyboy Ace was a French Canadian! Material from the US G.I. Joe titles was reprinted in the UK (and presented as the adventures of Action Force's US branch) but with some modifications for names & continuity, and also in a more mixed order. One result is a continuity with some problems that make even the classic TF conundrums (such as the one Ancient Relics begins...) look simple by contrast.<br /><br />That said I think some confusion has subsequently sprung up, possibly because the later Action Force Monthly title was also sold in the US under the title "G.I. Joe European Missions" with promotional statements claiming that Action Force was the name the team operated under locally. And when the toyline & reprint strip adopted the name "G.I. Joe: The Action Force" the explanatory mini-comic "Divided We Fall" (run in TF #245) presented G.I. Joe and Action Force as separate organisations coming together, in contradiction to how Marvel had previously handled things.Tim Roll-Pickeringhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12589024696145675963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9163141447241149534.post-17971486779559958502011-07-06T02:35:03.102-07:002011-07-06T02:35:03.102-07:00I'd just like to point something out. You sta...I'd just like to point something out. You state that British readers would have thought of Action Force as a British team. I was reading both Action Force and Transformers at the time and thought nothing of the sort. The team was written as an international team, with both UK, American, European and other nations included (unlike the US version which was predominantly American).<br /><br />So the idea of Action Force in London was no more strange than them being in the USA or Paris to us at that time. <br /><br />This was also true of the Toy Bios in the UK.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com