Sunday 14 February 2016

February 14th, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

In this week of 1976, Slik hit the Number One spot on the UK singles chart with Forever And Ever - and Joe Dolce was nowhere to be seen. How Midge Ure must have felt he'd triumphed over the Antipodean ukulele botherer.

Little did he know the chart-based nightmare that'd await him just five years later.

Fortunately, as we buried our faces in that week's Marvel UK output, we could live in blissful ignorance of the spaghetti-strewn mayhem to come.

Marvel UK, Avengers #126

Can it be true? The Vision about to be killed by common or garden hoods?

As he can make himself as hard as diamonds, I suspect not.

I'm not so sure about the Scarlet Witch's chances though.

Conan, meanwhile, is looking somewhat constipated.

Mighty World of Marvel #176, Hulk

Hooray! It's the first part of probably the strangest Hulk story I ever read as a boy.

Even more hooray! The publication of this issue meant there was only one week to go before The Mighty World of Marvel finally reappeared on the shelves of my local newsagents - and did so almost permanently.

Marvel UK, Planet of the Apes #69, Conquest

I don't recall this cover but I do recall the contents. Didn't Ricardo Montalban fling himself from a window in order to protect Caesar from something or other?

I like how horrified he is to discover there's a gang of apes waiting to beat him up when he lands. I can't help feeling he's somewhat overrating his ability to survive a fall from a thirteenth floor window.

Marvel UK, Dracula Lives #69

It's the confrontation we've all dreamed of seeing.

Quincy vs Dracula.

What a TV movie that would have made. It would surely have been Jack Klugman's finest hour.

The terrifying thing is you could actually imagine them making it.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #157

Spider-Man's still hanging out with Dr Strange.

Marvel UK, the Titans #17, Hulk vs Captain Marvel

I'm assuming this is the Gil Kane pencilled tale where the Hulk menaces a university professor for some reason I can't remember.

"Fantabulous," is a word you don't hear anymore.

Come to think of it, you never did hear it but it was one of those words you always felt like you used to hear.

Marvel UK, the Super-Heroes #50

If the internet's telling me the truth, this was the last issue of The Super-Heroesalthough I do seem to recall it being revived as a monthly title in the 1980s.

As the cover features various people whose strips the comic had published in its fifty weeks, I assume it was already known that it'd be the last issue?

10 comments:

Paul R said...

Loving that cover for Super-Heroes Weekly.

dangermash aka The Artistic Actuary said...

Looks like a random MTU story taking the place of Cap in Titans this week. Were MTUs really such standalone tales that they could be randomly reprinted? Makes me wonder whether Cap was about to be replaced in Titans and Marvel UK needed a fill in story for just one week rather than printing the first issue of a multipart story (that's just a guess, not based on inside knowledge).

And, for the second week running, Doctor Strange appears on the front of SMCW as if he's a back up strip rather than guesting in ASM. Change is in the air (and that really is inside knowledge, not a guess).

Anonymous said...

Steve, whenever I see Ricardo Montalban in anything I always expect a little guy to turn up and say "Hey boss, ze plane, ze plane..."
That surely would have improved Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

I remember a Marvel Superheroes monthly in the early 80s, but I thought it was a continuation of MWOM (or Marvel Comic or whatever they were calling it by then) rather than a revival of The Superheroes.
Mind you, I could be wrong - naming one of their best mags (with the Thomas/Adams X-Men, Starlin's Avengers/Two-in-One epic, Alan Davis on Captain Britain etc etc) after a poor earlier title seems like a very Marvel UK thing to do.

-sean

Anonymous said...

Marvel Superheroes monthly did continue the numbering from MWOM, if little else. The Superheroes should be close to its merge with Spiderman, an aspect ratio upgrade and an even clunkier title. Pretty sure Captain America stayed in the Titans, as it also carried across to Spiderman, in due course.

I remember that POTA cover suggesting a more dramatic window exit for Ricardo Montalbano, than the interior art depicted. I think I started to lose interest in POTA around this point.

DW

Anonymous said...

Am I the only one who liked 'Shaddup You Face' ? - OK, just me then. Marvel Super-Heroes monthly was indeed supposed to be a continuation of MWOM (and the dire but thankfully short-lived Marvel Comic) but as DW mentioned, there was nothing about it that related to MWOM in any way - it ran from September 1979 till about 1982/83. The merger of The Super-Heroes and SMCW occurs next week. Whoever drew that POTA cover has seriously got his films mixed up - those gorillas are dressed in military garb rather than the red boiler-suits they should be wearing.

Unknown said...

Maybe it was the DC reprint title (by London Editions) called the "SuperHeroes" you were thinking about.

Steve W. said...

I must admit I do get the 1980s Marvel monthlies mixed up. I seem to recall Marvel Super-Heroes reprinting the Dark Phoenix Saga at some point and possibly the Avengers' Bride of Ultron tale.

Anonymous said...

Marvel Superheroes monthly did reprint X-men and Avengers stories but probably remains best known now, as Sean said, for the Alan Davis Captain Britain stories. Mighty World of Marvel also came back as a monthly, reprinting the Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series and the Moore/Davis Captain Britain story, continued from the short lived (but rather good) Daredevils.

DW

Anonymous said...

I'm a bit vague on 80s Marvel UK too, Steve, but I'm fairly sure the (then stil) new X-Men were in the monthly version of Rampage, taking over from the Hulk as main stars. Back ups were Dr Strange and...um ... Luke Cage?
Or was he in Marvel Superheroes? Thinking about it, maybe that was Iron Fist. Or possibly the Champions.

So yeah, its easy to get the two mixed up. Call me cynical, but I expect sales were good on Rampage so if the X-Men and John Byrne were popular in one monthly, then why not two? (I know, I know - who'd have thought the house of ideas would behave like that?)

-sean

Anonymous said...

Sean, the new X-Men's UK debut was in Rampage monthly in early 1979 but they didn't replace the Hulk as the main attraction till a couple of years later. In about 1982 Rampage and Marvel Super-Heroes merged and, as Steve said, the Dark Phoenix saga was printed in MSH in 1983 just before the magazine was cancelled.