Transformers: How Marvel UK Took Bumblebee on a Whole Other Journey to Goldbug

Welcome to the 927th installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In the second legend of this installment, discover how Bumblebee became Goldbug in a very different way in the British version of Marvel’s Transformers comic book series.

An interesting thing about British reprints of American comic books over the years is that British comics, historically, were released in weekly serialized formats. In the case of the British Marvel UK weekly comic book series, The Transformers, it was a case of 11-pages of comics, plus various back-ups. Well, just do the math. A weekly comic book comes out four times a month (sometimes five). A comic book at the time was 22 pages. So one comic book could be split into two installments, but then that leaves two weeks without a comic book!

So, naturally, the answer was for Marvel UK to do NEW 11-page stories that would fill in the gaps between the issues. Simon Furman became the writer of these new stories, working with multiple artists (since it was weekly), like Geoff Senior and Will Simpson, and he did a great job. He did SUCH a great job, in fact, that Marvel ultimately hired Furman to write the main American Transformers series, as well. However, naturally, when you’re producing 22 pages a month, Furman couldn’t help but come up with some new stories of his own that didn’t quite fit into the continuity of the main series. That’s normal enough, but sometimes, there were other factors that forced the British comics to go in different directions than their American counterparts. That leads to the legend at hand, at the request of reader Adam W., who wanted me to discuss (after I did an article about Bumblebee’s journey into Goldbug in the comics, where I MEANT to mention that it was handled differently in the UK, but I forgot to include that mention) WHY was Bumblebee’s journey to become Goldbug different in Marvel UK, and HOW was it handled?

How did Bumblebee become Goldbug in the American comics?

Bumblebee was one of the more notable original members of the Autobots in the Transformers, as he was sort of the down-to-Earth Transformer, as he transformed into a Volkswagen Bug. He served with the team for a few years, but, as I noted in the aforementioned piece, there was going to be a new line of Transformers toys called “Throttlebots,” which was basically rev up and race versions of Transformers toys. So that would have to be worked into the series. Well, in the G.I. Joe and the Transformers miniseries (by Michael Higgins, Herb Trimpe and Vince Colletta), the series opens with Optimus Prime sending Bumblebee on a recon mission to a United States base…

When the G.I. Joes saw Bumblebee, they all freaked out, and destroyed him…

Obviously, eventually the Joes and the Autobots teamed up with each other. In the final issue of the series, we discover that Main-Frame has been trying to rebuild Bumblebee…

Ratchet is impressed by Main-Frame’s work, but he obviously completes it, to bring Bumblebee back for good…

Bumblebee decides that he no longer wants to be known as Bumblebee. Now that he is reborn, he wants the more respectable name, Goldbug…

Isn’t it funny to think of “Goldbug” being the more dignified name?

Okay, so why couldn’t that be done in the British Transformers comic books?

How did Bumblebee become Goldbug in the British comics?

The trick was that the British versions of Transformers and G.I. Joe were on a different release schedule than they were in the United States. G.I. Joe didn’t come over to England as part of its pre-established Action Force toyline until 1985, and the Marvel comics didn’t start getting reprinted in England until 1987. So the G.I. Joe and the Transformers miniseries would have made no sense adapted into the UK comics.

Instead, Furman came up with a plotline involving a new mercenary robot character he and Geoff Senior had introduced named Death’s Head. He was trying to carry out a bounty on Galvatron, when, in Transformers (UK) #114 (by Furman, Simpson and Tim Perkins), he encountered Bumblebee…

Death’s Head then blew Bumblebee away!!

Can you even IMAGINE how mind-blowing that must have been for the little kids who were reading the comic at the time? I mean, okay, obviously the deaths in The Transformers Movie were even more traumatizing, but still!

So, in Transformers #118 (by Furman, Simpson and Perkins), Wreck-Gar discovered the pieces of Bumblebee, and decided to help rebuild him…

And, of course, as I assume you already figured out, when Wreck-Gar was finished rebuilding Bumblebee, he was now Goldbug!

So now Goldbug’s stories could be reprinted without any problem.

This reminds me of the old Comic Book Legends Revealed about how Marvel’s Brazillian comic book book reprints did a reprint of Secret Wars, but removed the characters who had not yet made their debut in the continuity of Brazilian Marvel comic books at the time! It is also like the Mexican Spider-Man comic books of the 1970s that did new stories featuring Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy set between issues to delay having to reprint the story where Gwen Stacy is killed as long as possible.

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Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.