Timebuster / Time Cruisers Resource

Alternate Intros

When Klick, and then World Club Magazine, expanded into new regions of the world with new audiences, the editors began to need to frequently re-introduce the Timebuster comic. In order to accomodate the rolling changes that had been made to the story without a lengthy preamble, two refreshed introductions to the story were made.

The first, from 1996, totally replaced the original time machine with the Time Cruiser/Flybo. The second, from 1998, eschews both vehicles and has Tim going back in time with a stationary time machine.

Intro 2 - Time Cruiser

This is very similar to the original intro, but expanded by an extra page and with the Flybo toy instead of the forever inobtainable original time machine. This intro was slotted into several places, depending on the timing of the magazine's debut in a new region. In France it was placed right before the Exploriens arc, and in Germany it led into Fright Knights.

When this intro was first made, Ingo was still not introduced - but it continued to be used after he appeared, leading to a small inconsistency in some regions where he just shows up once Tim arrives at his first destination. funy monkey

Scan: emily. Translation: emily. Source: Lego Klick (France)

Intro 3 - The Wretched Ape

In this single-pager, Tim is foolishly standing on the transport bed of Dr. Cyber's stationary time machine. His villainous pet activates the device, sending both of them plunging into their hellish and unending adventure. So far as I can tell, this was only ever used as an intro for World Club Australia, where it led into Insectoids. From there, Tim dives underwater directly for Aquazone '98, and gets the zapper to continue beyond that to new worlds.

As you might notice, we don't have an actual scan of this page... Kim Hagen posted a crop of the first panel to his online portfolio, and I've also edited a crummy view of the full thing (sans text) from the behind-the-scenes feature (see the history section for more on that).

Bonus - True Origins

Below is a snapshot provided by Kim Hagen to Sadie. It appears to be from a test book, and includes a prototypical introduction. This is two pages, and depicts a more chaotic Tim hedonistically jumping into the time machine for fun, only to be punished by the device's premature activation.