Robo Machines (comic)

Robo Machines !
An early advertisement for the comic.
Author(s)	Tom Tully
Current status / schedule	Cancelled
Publisher(s)	Fleetway Publications
Genre(s)	Science fantasy

The Robo Machines was a British comic serial which ran in Eagle from 10 November 1984 to 27 July 1985. Although it was titled after the Bandai-owned Robo Machine toyline, it primarily used the Tonka-owned names of the Gobots (which were later incorporated into Hasbro's Transformers). The characterizations, however, were original, and the plot wildly diverges from the American-made Challenge of the GoBots.

In Europe, Bandai, rather than Tonka, distributed the action figures from the Robo Machine line, and with the Challenge of the Gobots cartoon yet to arrive in the UK, they engaged Fleetway Publishing to create a comic to help promote the line. Tom Tully, an experienced writer whose work included Roy of the Rovers and The Steel Claw, would script the series. The art was initially handled by Mario Capaldi, with Kim Raymond taking over midway through the first of the two arcs.

The comic was set in a different continuity to the Gobots cartoon, with the characters hailing from the planet Robotron, and some character names reflecting the European line (for example, the Renegade Twin Spin appeared as the Guardian Carry-All, and the Renegade Vamp was named Casmodon).

The first arc begins on Robotron, a planet in the Proxima System, where the organic inhabitants are very scientifically advanced people who through cybernetics are now 99% machines themselves, and robots are used in every walk of life. There, a power-hungry scientist named Stron-Domez has modified two criminal Robo Machines, Cy-Kill and Tank, so they can transform into vehicles. After an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the President of Robotron, Stron-Domez takes his creations to Earth, which he had identified in being rich in minerals to build more transforming Robo Machines. The Robotron Security Forces dispatch Ex-El and a group of volunteers in pursuit aboard the Command Centre. Ex-El has studied Stron-Domez’s blueprints for Tank and Cy-Kill, and plans to modify his volunteers in the same fashion.