Cracked #227 [1987]

Here's a bit of a treat, a very nice page from an issue which doesn't appear on any of the major Ditko checklists. Apparently he did more pages for CRACKED during Mort Todd's stint as editor than was previously known. So now the quest is on for more. If you have any issues of CRACKED from between around 1986 to 1990 (around #216 to #260) let me know if anything looks like Ditko in there.

Anyway, this 2-page story is "The TransInformers Vs The Defecticons".  You see, the concept of this issue is that this is a Russian edition of CRACKED, from those late days of the Cold War, so all the features have that extra parody twist to their usual parody. In this case, one group of ridiculous shape-changing robots is attempting to escape through the Berlin Wall, and the other is determined to stop them.  A very nice little story, drawn in the intricate duo shade style that Ditko used for a lot of his CRACKED work.  A lot of weird little background gags really enhance the story (I like the robot coffee pot), and the last image is a really great image at the Berlin Wall, worth tracking down the issue just to see it.