James Hill

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James Hill is a British comic writer who wrote several Marvel UK stories before Simon Furman became the sole writer. How he got the job was that Sheila Cranna couldn't find Furman in the office one day and so asked Hill's friend Richard Starkings if he knew anybody who could write some text stories for the Annuals. As both men had worked at Harrier Comics, Starkings recommended Hill.^[1]

His most notable stories are the first Christmas story and the hugely influential "State Games" story, which established the Decepticons' origins in gladiatorial combat and Megatron as a famous warrior—this idea has since become the default Megatron origin, in large part due to being an influence on Eric Holmes' The Transformers: Megatron Origin (not to mention Dreamwave) which caused Hasbro to latch on.

He almost wrote an origin story about how the Transformers had evolved, but editor Ian Rimmer was more interested in Earth-based stories.^[2]

Comic strips

• "Christmas Breaker!"
• "Crisis of Command!" (with Mike Collins)
• "The Gift"

Annual text stories

• "Missing in Action"
• "Hunted!"
• "The Return of the Transformers"
• "State Games"

Notes

• Hill's contributions to the 1985 annual were uncredited, and thus unconfirmed until his interview for IDW's Classics UK reprints. Prior to that, a summary section included in the Titan Books reprint of "Fallen Angel" had speculated that he was the likely author of "Hunted!".
• A European toy company bought the licensing rights for some unreleased Japanese Transformers toys and asked Marvel UK to make a comic about them. As Simon Furman was busy with Transformers, Hill was asked to work on a pitch with Mike Collins before Hasbro just went and bought out their rival.^[3]

References