But it can also be a time of magic.
And the ebb tide of 1979 gave us just that because, following the success of the summer specials, October saw Marvel UK giving us a walloping four specials of the winter variety.
What were they?
And how special were they?
Keep reading to find out.
But first, there's the serious matter of international sport to be dealt with and this night in 1979 saw BBC Two broadcast The State Express World Challenge Cup, as Canada took on Australia at snooker.
To possibly no one's surprise, Canada were led by Cliff "The Grinder" Thorburn. However, Australia were represented by Gary Owen, Paddy Morgan and Ian Anderson, three people I've never heard of. How can this be right? If it's snooker and Australia, surely it has to be Steady Eddie Charlton? His absence means my whole faith in the sport is shaken to the core.
It would be nice to think the Ian Anderson in question was the lead singer of Jethro Tull, having grabbed a cue and decided to give it a try but I suspect it wasn't.
Speaking of faith, this week in that year saw Lena Martell ascend to the top of the UK singles chart, with her Jesus-pestering gospel anthem One Day at a Time.
Over on the album chart, there was no change at the top, with Regatta de Blanc retaining its crown and doing so by seeing off the challenge of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk which crashed in at Number Two.
I can give no reliable information about the contents of this comic but I would assume the Surfer's still battling the Badoon.
The Watcher and Star-Lord's whereabouts are a complete blank to me.
I'm going to make a guess that Luke Skywalker confronts Darth Vader in this issue.
I'm also confident no revelations of a familial nature will be made.
The Corporation are out for revenge on both the Hulk and Machine Man and, thus, trick Hulkie into thinking Machiney's kidnapped Trish Star, so the green grappler will want to kill him.
Captain Britain's origin's still being retold.
And, speaking of Trish Starr, Ant-Man also gets to meet her, this time when she has a public row with her uncle the villainous Egghead, prompting our hero to get involved.
Nick Fury's suspected of being a traitor, in an early Barry Smith tale.
The Eternals are still getting nowhere in their battle with the Hulkbot. Can't they just levitate him into space? That would seem, to me, to be the easiest solution.
In our second issue from TV's greatest hero, we get coverage of Brighton's 1979 Seacon convention, more from Chris Claremont's adaptation of War of the Worlds, an adaptation of An Unearthly Child, Cybermen, Daleks, and more from The Iron Legion.
All this in just 28 pages? How is such a thing even possible?
This comic must be bigger on the inside than on the outside!
Man-Wolf's kidnapped J Jonah Jameson, thanks to the malevolent machinations of the dying Professor Smythe - and only Spider-Man can stop him!
Actually, probably most Marvel heroes could stop him but it wouldn't have sounded so dramatic if I'd said that.
For a change, I have no idea what else happens in this issue.
This is it. The first of our winter specials arrives, as we get a good dose of both Battlestar Galactica and the Micronauts. No disrespect to either of those franchises but I'm not sure I'd want to spend 40 pence on either of them.
However, our second winter special's a full 15 pence cheaper, as we get all kinds of Marvel-related fun and games.
And, if you don't get your fill of Battlestar Galactica from the Star Heroes special, you can get even more of it from our third winter offering.
Amongst, no-doubt, riotous mirth from Howard the Duck, the Waltons and Silver Surfer, this magazine includes material from that well-known master of hilarity Alan Moore.
And, finally, among our winter specials, we discover Spider-Man's, in which the Watcher asks, "What if someone else had become Spider-Man?" a look at how the wall-crawler's British comic's changed over the last six years, and that 1960s tale which revealed how Lee and Ditko concoct a story.
It's the one with Sturdy Steve drawing Spidey on a rocket flying past the Statue of Liberty. I've always had a soft spot for that one.
Posts
43 comments:
Dr. Who "TV's greatest hero"? That sounds like a future post for debate, Steve.
Speaking of future posts, and I know you're open for suggestions, what do you think about us dissecting Reed & Sue's wedding? I couldn't respond to Dangermash's corrections & observations from Sunday's post. Just a thought. Didn't want to change topic so early in this presentation.
As far as Hulk-bot (whom I'm a big fan), I haven't dug up my old Eternals yet. I Can't remember if he was generally destroyed at the end of that arc. If not, it would have been cool to have the Mad Thinker get a hold of it when they introduced Eternals in regular continuity.
As far as the plot, it might not have been a good idea to send Hulk-bot into space. If they just sent him into orbit he would desisimate any satellites that came his way.
Though he was cosmic-powered, as opposed as having the "power cosmic", he might still have an animal rage for revenge to propell him back to earth. That or the Celestials ( or Galactus) could use him as a herald/first strike.
In my opinion they had to take him out then-and-there.
Once again, Machine Man, as well as Devil Dinosaur, are some of the worst Kirby contributions to Marvel's universe.
Looks like "Frantic" was the UK version of Marvel's "Crazy", which was a dull & unimpressive imitation of MAD. Only CRACKED could come close or occasionally surpass those guys.
KD, I actually reviewed Reed and Sue's wedding, way back in 2011. The post in question can be found right here: https://stevedoescomics.blogspot.com/2011/04/only-wedding-that-matters-round-here.html
Funnily enough Kd, SezDez had been editor of the British edition of Mad before his time at Marvel UK (not that it made the reprints from Crazy in Frantic any better of course).
Is "well-known master of hilarity Alan Moore" intended to be ironic Steve?
Because despite his association with the '80s trend for "dark" comics I find Moore's work can be very funny. He's really good at humour, one of the few comic book writers that can make me laugh out loud.
Not that his work as Curt Vile in that Frantic special, a series of spot-gags about Santa, is a particularly good example. But to be fair, it was early days - I think that was his first stuff to be professionally published outside of the strips he used to do for Sounds.
Fairly sure the Howard the Duck reprint was the first issue of the US monthly, by Steve Gerber and Frank Brunner.
-sean
Apologies, oh my brother. Thanks.
Btw, Seacon '79 also got coverage on tv if anyone's interested in seeing footage of a 70s sf convention (special guest Brian Aldiss)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMga-1TVZWc
-sean
Dislike to ask about a topic that I'm sure that's been discussed, how many pages of an American comic book were reprinted in your books?
3-6? Lord, as far as Steve's post, it seems like you folks went months to get through an American issue.
“Steady Eddie" Charlton? For nicknames and the art of the cue, “Steady” doesn’t come close to “Minnesota Fats.” Can I get an Amen?
Speaking of Incredible Hulk, any of you been reading the Incapable Trump comic? Orange skin instead of green; thin, hair sprayed, yellow hair instead of a thick mange; but he does use one-syllable words like Hulk.
Steve!
Should it be “Winter can be a terrible time;” or “Winter can be a terrible time:”
Seems the latter since you follow "time" with a list? You are a professional writer and I'm just a kibitzer and I want to know your reasoning. I mean, I still understood what you meant but it's a learning point for me. I may want to pen a few of my own "Incapable Trump" comics!
Oh my stars, imagine that Trump ran (more like waddled) out on a gamma bomb test range to rescue the Bo Jo...
The Hell with Howard the Duck! I'd be way more interested in The Waltons!
Not sure if you guys saw that in the UK but I have to assume so, since it is being parodied in a UK mag?
“Good night John Boy!"
Gents - it's funny y'all be talking about the FF wedding issue. I just read it again, a few months ago, b/c it's reprinted (for only $! - Can I get a BIG AMEN???!!!) and I had the exact same thoughts like the fights scenes were incongruent. Weirdly so given the relatively high quality of FF at the time!
K.D.-
The "Hulk-bot" was apparently destroyed by the Eternals, but I googled him (because nothing is good on T.V.) and he came back. He was repaired and sent by Modok and the Leader to fight the Red Hulk and Dr. Doom (because maybe nothing was good on T.V. that day either).
I prefer "Cosmic-powered Hulk" because it has more of an ominous ring to it, I think.
You mentioned it as a possible herald for Galactus. Ironically, Marvel ret-conned it so it started as technology meant to create "cosmic-power-absorbing" robot heralds by Galactus, (remember Air Walker) and later discovered by the Mad Thinker. The Thinker built the Hulk-bot using that, himself either discarding it, forgetting about it or just getting arrested, and it was in turn discovered by a couple college nerds.
It always did seem a stretch those two college clowns could build that thing themselves. It's got the power to absorb Cosmic Energy!!! No wonder they got suspended.
the Thinker has left a lotta robots laying around over the years, such as Quasimodo, the Awesome Android and that big green one with the magnetic feet that stomped up the side of the Baxter Building that one time. The guy's a real slob, if you ask me.
Whew!
Okay.
M.P.
Fascism as you like it Charlie!
Funnily enough, Boris Johnson took to comparing himself (and/or maybe the UK? - it wasn't very clear) to the Hulk fairly recently.
To be fair, he does have the brains for that.
-sean
He's got the same haircut as the Hulk, I'll give him that.
M.P.
The Waltons is on over here, Charlie, on the True Entertainment channel, along with Little House On The Prairie. Cracking entertainment in the morning. I'd also have been going straight to The Walton’s strip in that comic. I might get out of bed now and check out what's on.
Charlie, my view is you only use a colon if you can't get away with a semi-colon, and you only use a semi-colon if you can't get away with a comma. As far as I'm aware, colons are generally frowned upon, these days.
When it comes to snooker, in fairness, we did have Hurricane Higgins as well as Steady Eddie. Then again, we also had Steve "Interesting" Davies.
MP, thanks for the Hulkbot info. Who would have thought it had such a complex history?
KD, how many pages a strip received each week depended on the comic and the era. For many years, Spider-Man's UK comic reprinted an entire Spider-Man issue each week. On the other hand, it wasn't unknown, in the Dez Skinn era, for a strip to only have three or four pages devoted to it each issue.
Sean, thanks for the Seacon link.
Dangermash, words cannot express the sense of dread I feel every time I hear the Waltons theme tune.
My daughter told me once how you could recognise a piece of music with a 6:8 signature (or 6;8 if you're from Sheffield, miaow). It's music that makes you want to sway from side to side in your chair. The Waltons theme tune is the most 6:8y music I've ever heard. If you don't like that, best not ever listen to Soulshine by the Allman Brothers Band or Gov't Mule.
The ratio joke was a good one dm (;
But to be fair, Steve is colonically correct; as can be seen from my use of a comma and semi-colon in this sentence.
Although I wasn't aware colons are currently frowned on: I'll have to watch out for the punctuation police in future.
-sean
On YouTube you can watch Lena Martell singing 'One Day At A Time' on Top Of The Pops and the teenage audience are milling around her, looking confused :D
That Spidey Winter Special has a very Christmassy cover but I don't remember it all, or any of the other Winter Specials. But in Spring 1980 Marvel UK launched Star Heroes Pocket Book along with Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Chiller Pocket Books.
I'm pretty sure I had an issue of the Fantastic Four Pocket Book but I can't recall which one it was.
According the University of Chicago Manual of Style (the definitive and most venerated source for style, usage, and grammar) one uses the colon when a series of elements following the colon illustrate or amplify what preceded the colon. In Steve’s opening salvo, he states winter is a terrible time. Steve then provides four subsequent descriptors; clearly this is a colonic situation.
A semicolon is used to separate two independent clauses. The descriptors following Steve’s semicolon do not constitute an independent clause as there is no subject-verb aspect to the four components.
I am concerned.
Geez, I ain't gonna start havin' to watch my punctuation around here now, am I?!
For cryin' out loud.
M.P.
Yeah, looks like the punctuation police are here M.P.
In the first person singular for a change.
-sean
I approve of Charlie's punctuation information.
Regarding the weekly Spider-Man, I bought that original Man-Wolf issue in Glasgow Airport.I'm going to read it again next week in the collected Man-Wolf tpb.
I abhorred the Waltons. My family loved that show, so another reason to go to my room and reread comics.
A friend of mine told me there was an episode of Little House On The Prairie (which I also disliked), where they burnt down their town and sung hymns during the destruction.
Might have been good tv to watch when high.
About three years ago I spent eight months working away from home in the Midlands, living in a hotel that was right next door to the office. I'd get up late, SSS, go down to breakfast then head back to the room to brush my teeth and get changed. It meant that I had the TV on from like 8.40 to 8.50 and caught the 40-50 minute window in the sixty minute Little House On The Prairie episode four days a week. If you like to see Nellie Olesen humiliated / covered in mud / beaten up / given a parental bollocking / pushed in a lake / have her brand new dress ripped / etc, then I can thoroughly recommend living right next door to work.
M.P., thanks for the cosmic-powered Hulk update. Glad to hear he didn't drift off in obscurity.
Steve, there was a series of paperbacks here in the states that were reprints of silver-age Marvel comics.
Is that what your "pocket books" were?
I'm uncertain if pocket books are a term that you folks use for paperbacks.
Especially since the term was used in the Beatles' "Paperback Writer".
Steve / KD - I think I had a couple of these pocket books. I bought them at the seaside in the late 70s in the sort of shop that always seemed to have loads of two year old Marvel Teamups in the spinner. They were paperbacks but a little bit smaller than usual - maybe with a cover the size of a kindle. One of them had the Spider-Man story from Amazing Fantasy 15 and ASM 1-6; the other had ASM 7-13 (I hope Charlie appreciates the use of the semi there). And as you can imagine, these were like gold dust to a 12 year old in pre-internet days with absolutely no clue about what happened in the very earliest issues of ASM.
KD and Dangermash, I've never seen the American paperbacks, so I don't know how they compare to the UK pocket books but the UK ones were comics which were half the size of normal comics but with fifty pages. Like the books you've mentioned, they mostly - but not always - reprinted Silver Age Marvel material. I think each one contained two issues-worth of stories.
Ah, definitely different to the pocket books I was thinking of. Maybe yours were the same as Colin's and mine were the same as KD's?
The firs5 of my two was ISBN-10: 0671814435
Could yours, Steve, be the reprints like ISBN-10: 1904419410 which I still see in Waterstones?
The paperback collections I had were probably 100+ pages. I believe I had the first FF, Spidey vol. 1 & 2, and Dr. Strange.
They were so cool. My literature teacher in high school made us present to her books that we would do reports on.
She was slightly preturbed when I brought up the FF paperback. She said "If you can come up with a comprehensive summary of this, I'll allow it".
I got an "A"! Then she asked to read it!! Then she asked if I had any more!!! I lent her the others I had.
She really liked the Dr. Strange paperback, maybe because she was also a practioning witch.
But was she the sort of teacher that believed in extracurricular studies?
K.D.--
I had those paperbacks too! The ones reprinting early issues.
They were unbelievably awesome. I had two Spider-Man, one Captain America, one Hulk and one Doc Strange. The old stuff...Ditko and Kirby, mostly.
It breaks my heart I don't have 'em anymore. I dunno where they went. My mom would go on cleaning jags sometimes.
They mighta just fell apart from constant reading, like all my comics did back then. I had to go around years later buying other back issue copies of my old comics at comic book stores all the way from Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, N.Y.C. and, once, even London. Now that I think about it, I had a lotta fun doing that.
Oh, I had a Conan paperback too, reprinting the earliest issues.
Why don't they put stuff like that out anymore? There's gotta be enough old nerds like us around to make it profitable.
That was a slick move, Killdumpster, using one of 'em for a book report.
Why the heck didn't I think of that?
M.P.
Dangermash-
Yeah, she put the moves on me, but she was a bit of a hag, and it was no-go. Decent body though.
A couple of my classmates did her. They said it was good.
MP, oh my brother, I like to think I'm "smarter than the average bear". Lol.
I reread those paperbacks so much that the pages started to come out of the adhesive binding.
That's why I'm such a big fan of Marvel's Essentials & DC's Showcase collections.
Having color would be nice, but I just need the art & story.
I have Essential Thor and Essential Dracula, but without the color it ain't the same.
There's a Jack Kirby Omnibus that's pretty good, in full vibrant color with good paper quality.
Ditto some of these collections in "graphic novel" form, like Moore's Swamp Thing and Morrison's Doom Patrol.
I'm also partial to Ennis' Hitman.
M.P. is a complicated cat.
M.P.
Bet you didn't get another another A after that then KD!
Yep, you're right, DM.
I've only ever read Ditko's Doctor Strange in Pocket Book format. And I can't imagine the original comics are any spacier than squinting to read those tiny pocketbook panels.
I think the comic would be a disappointment following that.
I do feel Ditko's Dr Strange is worth checking out at full size, as I feel it was his best work for Marvel. Having said that, he did have an uncluttered style that probably suffered less from being shrunk than some other artists' work would.
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