Post by MacNimon on Jul 7, 2011 20:20:47 GMT
The collecting of covers required for this thread was basically the cause of this board being set up, simply because I came across so many great covers not covered by this topic. This is meant as a chronological look at the output of Marvel material in the UK, most likely up until the early-mid 1980s. All covers used in this thread will appear in their own topics soon afterwards.
Marvel’s output in the UK may have started in earnest with the release of MWOM in 1972, but this wasn’t the company’s earliest foray into the UK market. A number of UK publishers licensed material to publish in existing UK titles during the 60s, allowing Marvel to judge whether there could be a market here for their material in the future…
But the story actually dates back to the 50s when companies such as L.Miller & Sons (perhaps more famous nowadays for the creation of their Marvelman character when they lost the rights to reprint the US Captain Marvel series - and as Marvel actually bought the rights to the character a couple of years back, so you could say that Marvelman is Marvel’s earliest created UK superhero) and Thorpe & Porter published b&w reprints of some of the Marvel - or rather, Atlas as they were known at that time - titles of the period, mostly westerns, but also the revived 1950s versions of Captain America, Sub-Mariner and Human Torch.
Covers from this period are pretty hard to find, but here's a selection...
Not that there would have been many issues of those superheroes, as Marvel’s 1950s superhero revival was a very short-lived affair! Even though the superhero range didn’t last, the westerns continued and later, a few of the much more successful early 1960s superhero strips appeared in some of Miller’s mystery titles.
At the same time in the early 60s, Alan Class set up a series of anthology comics in a rather chunky 68-page format (namely Suspense, Sinister Tales, Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown, Uncanny Tales and Astounding Stories) which reprinted mystery, monster and sci-fi stories from a variety of US publishers. These titles continued well into the 1980s and were a major part of my childhood, being readily available (and cheap!) in local newsagents…many of these titles also included superhero stories, although printed totally at random and if you happened to read part one of a two-part story there was no guarantee that the second part would appear in the next issue, or even anytime soon…he just stuck the words ‘The End’ in the final panel!
Although probably nowhere near complete, here are a selection of Marvel covers from that great series…
In May 1966, Odhams - publishers of the Eagle comic – started printing Hulk stories in their Smash! title beginning with issue 16. Strangely they began running the stories from the second story, totally ignoring the origin issue. Smash! Was an anthology title which featured a mix of humour and adventure stories; below you can see the Hulk’s first regular appearance in a UK weekly title…
And as seen below, Thor even made it into the pages of The Eagle, at one point taking over Dan Dare’s old cover slot…
Over that same late 60s-early 70s period, a number of annuals were also produced, many by World Distributers.
Possibly Marvel only provided b&w images to UK publishers because a number of interesting colouring mistakes were to occur over those few years…such as the following and one of the annual covers above
In May 1966, Odhams - publishers of the Eagle comic – started printing Hulk stories in their Smash! title beginning with issue 16. Strangely they began running the stories from the second story, totally ignoring the origin issue. Smash! Was an anthology title which featured a mix of humour and adventure stories; below you can see the Hulk’s first regular appearance in a UK weekly title…
The range came to be known as Power Comics...Wham! was first published in 1964 and was followed by Smash! in 1966 and Pow! in 1967. The original idea for Wham was to be a more modern version of DC Thompson’s Dandy and Beano, but in many ways it followed the same format as the Boy’s Papers of the time such as Lion, Tiger, Buster etc with a mixture of humourous and adventure stories. Soon however, black and white reprints of Marvel material began to appear...first, Wham! featured the Fantastic Four, then the Hulk appeared in Smash, and Pow! featured Sgt Fury and Spiderman.
Due to the much larger page size the artwork was cut and pasted into a different layout from the originals...
Odhams decided to issue two more weekly comics, Fantastic and Terrific.
These were a slightly smaller size, somewhere in between the size of “Pow” and the original American comics they were reprinting. These two comics were almost full of black and white reprints of Marvel material, with The Avengers, X-Men, Iron Man, Thor etc with a token UK story included as well. Eventually, due to a lack of available material the comics all began to merge with each other until only Smash was left without any Marvel material at all.(remember, the oldest material was the Fantastic Four which launched in late 1961 and didn't even become monthly until after it's first year. At a weekly rate, Odhams weren't long in using up all available material)
While Fantasic was one of the later comics published in the "Power Comic" line up, it is probably the best remembered one. While the earlier comics in this 'Power Comics' line began with purely original British strips but introduced UK reprints of the USA Marvel comics into their pages over time, Fantastic (and it's sister title Terrific) contained mostly Marvel Comic reprints from the start. For most readers growing up in the 1960s these black & white reprints were their first introduction to Marvel super heroes. The one thing that everybody seems to remember from Fantastic (and Terrific) is the back page, which was normally a pin-up page; while it often used original US Marvel artwork some of them were originals, apparently by a young Barry Smith who later found fame as the original Conan artist for Marvel.
The line-up of strips featured in Fantastic was Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men, with the token UK strip being The Missing Link (which became Johnnny Thunder with issue 16). This line-up continued until issue 51, as Terrific merged with Fantastic from issue 52. The new line-up was: Thor, X-Men, Avengers, and Dr Strange with appaerently no UK strip now in it's pages. Terrific's line-up of strips was Sub Mariner, Avengers, Dr Strange, and abbreviated origins of Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man and Captain America in the first issue - replaced by The Living Dolls (U.K. strip) from issue 2. Terrific lasted for 43 issues before merging with Fantastic.
Terrific began publication the same week as the 9th issue of Fantastic was published.
Eventually, due to a lack of available material (remember, the oldest material was the Fantastic Four which launched in late 1961 and didn't even become monthly until after it's first year. At a weekly rate, Odhams weren't long in using up all available material) the comics all began to merge with each other until only Smash was left without any Marvel material at all.
Marvel’s output in the UK may have started in earnest with the release of MWOM in 1972, but this wasn’t the company’s earliest foray into the UK market. A number of UK publishers licensed material to publish in existing UK titles during the 60s, allowing Marvel to judge whether there could be a market here for their material in the future…
But the story actually dates back to the 50s when companies such as L.Miller & Sons (perhaps more famous nowadays for the creation of their Marvelman character when they lost the rights to reprint the US Captain Marvel series - and as Marvel actually bought the rights to the character a couple of years back, so you could say that Marvelman is Marvel’s earliest created UK superhero) and Thorpe & Porter published b&w reprints of some of the Marvel - or rather, Atlas as they were known at that time - titles of the period, mostly westerns, but also the revived 1950s versions of Captain America, Sub-Mariner and Human Torch.
Covers from this period are pretty hard to find, but here's a selection...
Not that there would have been many issues of those superheroes, as Marvel’s 1950s superhero revival was a very short-lived affair! Even though the superhero range didn’t last, the westerns continued and later, a few of the much more successful early 1960s superhero strips appeared in some of Miller’s mystery titles.
At the same time in the early 60s, Alan Class set up a series of anthology comics in a rather chunky 68-page format (namely Suspense, Sinister Tales, Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown, Uncanny Tales and Astounding Stories) which reprinted mystery, monster and sci-fi stories from a variety of US publishers. These titles continued well into the 1980s and were a major part of my childhood, being readily available (and cheap!) in local newsagents…many of these titles also included superhero stories, although printed totally at random and if you happened to read part one of a two-part story there was no guarantee that the second part would appear in the next issue, or even anytime soon…he just stuck the words ‘The End’ in the final panel!
Although probably nowhere near complete, here are a selection of Marvel covers from that great series…
In May 1966, Odhams - publishers of the Eagle comic – started printing Hulk stories in their Smash! title beginning with issue 16. Strangely they began running the stories from the second story, totally ignoring the origin issue. Smash! Was an anthology title which featured a mix of humour and adventure stories; below you can see the Hulk’s first regular appearance in a UK weekly title…
And as seen below, Thor even made it into the pages of The Eagle, at one point taking over Dan Dare’s old cover slot…
Over that same late 60s-early 70s period, a number of annuals were also produced, many by World Distributers.
Possibly Marvel only provided b&w images to UK publishers because a number of interesting colouring mistakes were to occur over those few years…such as the following and one of the annual covers above
In May 1966, Odhams - publishers of the Eagle comic – started printing Hulk stories in their Smash! title beginning with issue 16. Strangely they began running the stories from the second story, totally ignoring the origin issue. Smash! Was an anthology title which featured a mix of humour and adventure stories; below you can see the Hulk’s first regular appearance in a UK weekly title…
The range came to be known as Power Comics...Wham! was first published in 1964 and was followed by Smash! in 1966 and Pow! in 1967. The original idea for Wham was to be a more modern version of DC Thompson’s Dandy and Beano, but in many ways it followed the same format as the Boy’s Papers of the time such as Lion, Tiger, Buster etc with a mixture of humourous and adventure stories. Soon however, black and white reprints of Marvel material began to appear...first, Wham! featured the Fantastic Four, then the Hulk appeared in Smash, and Pow! featured Sgt Fury and Spiderman.
Due to the much larger page size the artwork was cut and pasted into a different layout from the originals...
Odhams decided to issue two more weekly comics, Fantastic and Terrific.
These were a slightly smaller size, somewhere in between the size of “Pow” and the original American comics they were reprinting. These two comics were almost full of black and white reprints of Marvel material, with The Avengers, X-Men, Iron Man, Thor etc with a token UK story included as well. Eventually, due to a lack of available material the comics all began to merge with each other until only Smash was left without any Marvel material at all.(remember, the oldest material was the Fantastic Four which launched in late 1961 and didn't even become monthly until after it's first year. At a weekly rate, Odhams weren't long in using up all available material)
While Fantasic was one of the later comics published in the "Power Comic" line up, it is probably the best remembered one. While the earlier comics in this 'Power Comics' line began with purely original British strips but introduced UK reprints of the USA Marvel comics into their pages over time, Fantastic (and it's sister title Terrific) contained mostly Marvel Comic reprints from the start. For most readers growing up in the 1960s these black & white reprints were their first introduction to Marvel super heroes. The one thing that everybody seems to remember from Fantastic (and Terrific) is the back page, which was normally a pin-up page; while it often used original US Marvel artwork some of them were originals, apparently by a young Barry Smith who later found fame as the original Conan artist for Marvel.
The line-up of strips featured in Fantastic was Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men, with the token UK strip being The Missing Link (which became Johnnny Thunder with issue 16). This line-up continued until issue 51, as Terrific merged with Fantastic from issue 52. The new line-up was: Thor, X-Men, Avengers, and Dr Strange with appaerently no UK strip now in it's pages. Terrific's line-up of strips was Sub Mariner, Avengers, Dr Strange, and abbreviated origins of Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man and Captain America in the first issue - replaced by The Living Dolls (U.K. strip) from issue 2. Terrific lasted for 43 issues before merging with Fantastic.
Terrific began publication the same week as the 9th issue of Fantastic was published.
Eventually, due to a lack of available material (remember, the oldest material was the Fantastic Four which launched in late 1961 and didn't even become monthly until after it's first year. At a weekly rate, Odhams weren't long in using up all available material) the comics all began to merge with each other until only Smash was left without any Marvel material at all.
