UPDATED: Slimer! - Marvel UK

Update 8th September 2026 - now with a Marvel UK (rather than a Now Comics) cover for issue #6

Michael Carroll's timeline of Marvel UK comics (here) has an array of interestingly short-lived comics on that I thought I should create cover galleries for them. Sometimes this is easier said than done but let's start off with the 13 issue Slimer comic from 1989/90.

The comic was based on the Slimer! animated series, which was a spin-off of The Real Ghostbusters animated TV show and reprinted NOW! Comics Slimer! strips.

Many of the covers in this title’s run - but not all - were used NOW Comics US Slimer title, which had a longer run. Marvel's title featured reprints from NOW Comics, and NOW Comics utilised MUK material from The Real Ghostbusters in their title, and adapted some of the UK covers for the US market. For example, NOW Comics Slimer! #14 utilised their take on Dave Elliott's cover for The Real Ghostbusters #8...

You can look at other Ghostbusters related comic posts on this blog, as follows...

• Collected Comics here

• The Best of The Real Ghostbusters here

• The Real Ghostbusters - Puzzlebuster here

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #1, October 1989, 45p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #2, November 1989, 45p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #3, December 1989, 45p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #4, January 1990, 45p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #5, February 1990, 45p

cover by Patrick Owsley

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #6, March 1990, 50p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #7, April 1990, 50p

Online images of this edition are poor - can you help?
Here’s the NOW Comics edition, which used the same cover…

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #8, May 1990, 50p
Online images of this edition are poor - can you help?
Here’s the NOW Comics edition, which used the same cover…

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #9, June 1990, 50p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #10, July 1990, ??p
 Online images of this edition are poor - can you help?
Here’s the NOW Comics edition, which used the same cover…

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #11, August 1990, 50p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #12, September 1990, 50p

Slimer, Marvel UK, issue #13, October 1990, 50p

Image sourced from here

Blimey! It's Slimer, Marvel UK, Holiday Special issue #1, 65p

There's a guide to Marvel UK's Slimer! title here on the Ghostbusters Fandom Wiki

There's a guide to NOW's Slimer! title here on the Ghostbusters Fandom Wiki

UPDATED: Commando - heritage characters

Updated to include another Sgt Rayker story in issue 5987 (out now!) and a first Iron Annie story in issue 5983

Updated to include another Cadman story in issue 5979

Updated to include another Harrier Squadron story in issue 5975

Updated to include another Sgt Rayker story in issue 5967

Updated to include another Lord Peter Flint story in issue 5947

Updated to include another Braddock story in issue 5939

Updated to include the first Harrier Squadron [from Warlord] story in issue 5929

Updated to include another Braddock issue in issue 5919

Updated to include another Kampfgruppe Falken issue (#5861) - which I'd missed previously, whoops!

Updated to include another Union Jack Jackson story - issue 5917

Updated to include another Codename Warlord story - issue 5913

Updated to include another Cadman story in issue 5909

Updated to include another Braddock story in issue 5891

Updated to include a V for Vengeance (from The Wizard) - issue #5887

Updated to include another Codename Warlord story - issue 5841 - which is out now!

Updated to include another Kampfgruppe Falken issue (#5827) which is out now!

Updated to include another Union Jack Jackson issue (#5813) and a Sergeant Rayker issue (#5817)

Updated to include Commando 5803 (which is on sale currently). It's another Lord Peter Flint issue

Updated to include issue Commando 5799 which is on sale currently. It's another Cadman issue - art by Mike Dorey.

To celebrate the release (last week I think) of Commando issue 5759 (below) and the inclusion of Kampfgruppe Falken in it I thought I'd log the other back issues of Commando that feature other DC Thomson 'heritage' characters.

Have I missed any? Just let me know!

Commando 5929

Commando 5975

It is the mid-1990s and across a battle-scarred Europe, the forces of WESFED (Western Federation) and the Eastern armies of the ASBLOC (Asian Bloc) are in a delicate state of truce. But the fragile peace is under constant threat and only Harrier Squadron — an international allied task force of jump-jet pilots — can prevent a flight of bandit “ghost fighters” from re-igniting the deadly conflict!

Commando 5759

Commando 5827

Commando 5861

Major Heinz Falken is playing a dangerous game of chance. His life and those of his men hang in the balance as they fight for survival. The battle on the Eastern Front between German and Russian armies has become a war of attrition, with both sides lacking resources. When their supplies are hijacked by the Russians, Falken is forced to recover them by systematically searching Soviet stronghold bunkers. But guessing which one is the right bunker is like playing a game of Russian roulette – and they’re running out of bullets.

Braddock has two issues so far

Commando 5269

Commando 5267

Commando 5875

The daredevil bomber pilot returns! Now that his squadron had converted to Vickers Wellingtons, Sergeant Matt Braddock couldn’t wait to get airborne. But a hairy first mission soon left him without a navigator – luckily, the impressive Sergeant George Bourne was looking for a new crew. Bourne and Braddock were soon thick as thieves, but it wasn’t long before Braddock’s gung-ho attitude landed them in an Italian POW camp. Braddock was going to have to rely on more than his flying skills to get out of this one!

Commando 5891

After his daring escape from an Italian POW camp, Braddock found himself craving his next adventure. Luckily, adventure had a way of finding him! German Focke Wulf Condors were causing problems for the Allies in the Atlantic, and the Brits didn’t have any planes with the same range. Braddock’s solution? Steal one of the German kites, of course! But this mission would require a crack team, and some of Brad’s flight crew were more up to the task than others. Could they pull it off?

Commando 5919

Commando 5939

Lord Peter Flint has appeared in 4 issues as well

Commando 5255

Commando 5263

Commando 5803

Lord Peter Flint, AKA Codename: Warlord, relied on being a 'coward' to stop being suspected as a secret agent! So when a journalist tried to write a hit piece on him, that was the least of his worries! He was busy stopping a REAL assassination plot!

Commando 5841

Britain’s finest spy, Lord Peter Flint, is on another top-hole adventure! After Warlord’s most disastrous mission yet, Flint ends up as the number one target of ‘six of the best’ assassins the world has ever seen!
But why does the phrase ‘six of the best’ seem familiar to him? Who is the mysterious sixth assassin who is an ‘old friend’ of Flint’s?
Will these questions be answered – or will this be the end of Codename Warlord?!

Commando 5913

The Libyan desert is experiencing some funny weather! Mysterious, sudden rainstorms are turning the hot sands to boggy quagmires that are beaching British tanks! But not only that, a Nazi officer has disguised himself as an Arab tribesman to sow discontent, and a German scientist has attempted to defect – something very strange is going on.
Enter Lord Peter Flint – Codename: Warlord – Britain’s best secret agent, to investigate the weird happenings. A storm is brewing, and he can sense the hand of his old nemesis, Professor Kranz, is behind it all!

Commando 5947

Lord Peter Flint is on one of his most dangerous — and important — missions yet! ‘Shadow Sands’ is the codename for the biological weapons project collecting anthrax spores on an isolated Maunsell Fort off the coast of England. Flint’s handler, Kingpin, was at the fort when it was raided by a team of German commandos and Professor Kranz’s robot Panzermen. Now he’s been taken hostage along with the leading scientists!

But Intelligence believes someone on board the fort helped the Germans — and they suspect Kingpin! Kingpin, a traitor?! It can’t be true! Warlord has until midnight to rescue the hostages and clear Kingpin’s name!

Cadman has 4 issues so far

Commando 5697

That cowardly cad returns! From the pages of The Victor to Commando, Cadman the Fighting Coward looks skyward to escape the trenches - but he soon finds that life in the Royal Flying Corps isn't any easier or safer than on the ground!

5665 - interior art by Mike Dorey, cover art by Mike Dorey & Neil Roberts

5799 - interior art by Mike Dorey, cover art by Mike Dorey

Commando 5909

Lieutenant Gerald Cadman, the fighting coward, once again finds himself precisely where he does not want to be — on the front lines! The arrival of the heroic and aristocratic Captain Blickley-Phipps, however, gives Cadman an idea for how to improve his station.

But for Private Tom Smith, something doesn’t seem right about Blickley-Phipps. Ruthless in his quest for glory, the captain will gladly sacrifice his own men for victory. Even Scruff the dog can smell an impending disaster, but Cadman may be too distracted to find a way out this time!

Commando 5979

Union Jack Jackson

Commando 5287

Commando 5813

Union Jack Jackson's back! With a little help from his pals, Jack must find an airfield which has been launching attacks on Navy convoys. But he get more than he bargained for when he sees aircraft taking off from the back of a submarine!

Commando 5917

Union Jack Jackson and his pals were on a mission to steal an experimental radar receiver from the Japanese when they hit a hurdle. The USS Red Bank, the destroyer they were going to sail away on, was sunk by Japanese suicide pilots… men who would self-sacrifice their lives to sink their enemies.
So then, why was one of the pilots — Kamikaze Ken — floating, alive, in the water beside Union Jack Jackson?

Sergeant Rayker

Commando 5987

Sergeant Rayker is back! As the Americans advance, Rayker’s mind is on victory, but also on revenge for his friend Clancy Davis, who was murdered by the SS.
As his unit moves further into Germany, the horrors of the Nazi regime are revealed, but will Rayker be able to exact his personal retribution or will Wolfgang Viessmann of the SS evade justice?

Commando 5817

Last seen in Warlord in 1984, Sergeant Moses Rayker returns! Trapped behind enemy lines, Rayker encounters an unfriendly face in the form of Buford ‘Bubba’ Ballard. Will Rayker end up smacking the tar outta him before they make it back?

Commando 5857

Legendary Warlord character returns to Commando! Sergeant Rayker was tasked with rounding up four drunken US Marines. But not long after he finds himself under enemy fire with the drunken marines in tow. Perhaps this job isn’t as easy as it sounds!

Commando 5967 - Rayker: back in the ranks

Sergeant Moses Rayker, a black man in a white man’s army, fights two wars: one against the Germans and another against racism within the segregated American military.

After extreme losses during the German surprise attack in the Ardennes, General John Lee asks for something new from Santa — Infantry volunteers. Race isn’t important, he says, but anyone who joins needs to be a private or PFC.

It took Rayker five years to earn his stripes, but those guys need a leader, and to be one, he’ll need to be back in the ranks.

from the pages of The Wizard - Commando 5887 - V for Vengeance: Prisoner 7234

As air raids wreak havoc over the skies of Berlin, dread pervades the Nazi party. High-ranking officials are being assassinated one by one by the mysterious group named ‘The Deathless Men’. At the scene of each crime, the killers leave a list of future victims alongside a proclamation titled ‘V for Vengeance’.
Desperately, those whose names are listed seek answers, but their only clues link each assassin to deceased prisoners of a concentration camp – are the dead returning to seek revenge?

Iron Annie

Commando 5983

After Leutnant Kurt Stahlmann sabotages an SS scheme to smuggle plundered Soviet treasure back to Germany, he is assigned the task of flying supplies to Leningrad and clearing Russian ground defences along the way. Unbeknownst to Kurt’s crew, the vengeful SS have taken measures to ensure that his beloved Junkers Ju 52 Iron Annie’s next flight will be her last.

UPDATED: Comic Speculator News (1992-94)

I've now added in the cover for issue 14 for this update

Inspired by episode 342 of the Awesome Comics Podcast (check it out here) I thought I'd remind myself of the '90s speculator boom nonsense by pulling together my issues of the British answer to Wizard that was Comic speculator news. It lasted 13 issues in total, here's what you missed...

Comic Speculator News promo issue

not to hand - do you have a copy?

Comic Speculator News issue 0, December 1992

looks like it's been run off on a photocopier - single sided photocopying at its best!

Comic speculator news #1, February 1993

Comic speculator news #1, February 1993

All the issue have front & back covers that look like front covers - I'll include them here to avoid (?) confusion. A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #2, April 1993

Comic speculator news #2, April 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #3, May 1993

Comic speculator news #3, May 1993

I can't recall what this is referencing
A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #4, June 1993

Comic speculator news #4, June 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #5, July 1993

Comic speculator news #5, July 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #6, August 1993

Comic speculator news #6, August 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #7, September 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout (apart from the covers)

Comic speculator news #8, October 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #9, November 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #10, November 1993

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #11, January 1994

A4 sized, 48 pages, black & white throughout

Comic speculator news #12, February 1994

it then seems to have undergone a name change to... 

Comic News #13, March 1994

it's now free (rather than 55p). It COULD have been an entirely separate title but I reckon that if issue #12 of CSN came out in Feb 1994 and this is issue #13 and is dated March 1994 then I reckon it's the same publication.

Comic News #14, April 1994

Comic News #15, May 1994