Fourth and final Australian Machine Men Promotional Comic and Catalogue
During the Australian Machine Men run a series of four comics was released via select toy retailers to promote the toy line.
Issue four is titled, 'Challenge of the Machine Men' presumably to tie in with the re-titled for Australia, Challenge of the Gobots cartoon. It's likely to have been released mid year 1986 and as with previous issues was both comic and catalogue.
Continuity between issue three and four is by far the strongest with specific action following on in the latter comic. Newly released standard and Super Machine Men characters receive action cameos, with others more shamelessly shoehorned in to get their name and faction included. Crasher appears in one frame with the name, 'Crusher'. It's likely the artist was supplied the name incorrectly as the character is seen crushing Dive Dive's leg vs. a text error by the artist himself.
Most notably the comic introduces the Rock Lords and again it's very likely the artist was working from the same promotional photograph found in the middle of the comic. Slimestone is illustrated with his prototype head and Granite refers to himself as, 'Bolder' as per the promo photo where the names are swapped. Brimstone is seen from the back however he announces himself as, 'Pulvereyes' (no hyphen) and in the photo Brimstone is titled Pulvereyes while Pulver-Eyes is named, 'Rockmite'*. The comic ends on a cliffhanger with the appearance of the Narlies; an illustration that looks as if the artist didn't have a photo reference and only had one described to him.
* harking back to his Western rock type of Dolomite and his insect face. The name change to Pulver-Eyes making no logical sense and likely a last minute alteration because someone though it sounded cooler.
All in all the Rock Lords pages have some great, dynamic frames and have the strong feeling the artist did a lot with very little to go on.
Richard Rea is again the artist for this issue.
The back cover shows a selection of Super Machine Men including a prototype for Clutch with a red head; also seen in a Tonka retailers catalogue. Spy Eye (with no hyphen) also appears to be a pre-production version.
Puzzler and Monsterous AKA Puzzler and Puzzler Fiends respectively are shown with both combiners having variant heads or head paint application. Tic Tac has non-production release flame stickers on the hood while it, Jig Saw and Rube do not have their torso stickers when shown individually in robot mode. Gobots Weird Wing is titled, 'South Claws' matching how they were distributed in Australia and Europe; South Claw and Weird Wing's named swapped and South Claw with an added, 's'. Gobots Weird Wing is shown with unpainted, grey wings and Fangs appears to be gold.
Humorously and very much in keeping with mid 80's Cold War events, in this issue the Australian Army call in a nuclear strike. It should be noted that Australia had (and still has at time - 2020) no offensive nuclear capability or desire to possess one.
