Where it all began! TV21 #98.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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I've never had even one moment's doubt where I first encountered the magical world of DC comics.

And that was in Adam West's Batman TV show.

How I thrilled, in the late 1960s, as, each week, the cowled crusader would face a larger-than-life foe and defeat him with the aid of the boy wonder and a level of irony so overwhelming it's a miracle I never managed to notice it.

But what about my first taste of Marvel Comics?

That was always a bit vague.

I knew that, in early 1972, I'd acquired a copy of the 1969 Amazing Spider-Man Annual from the Rag and Tag market in Sheffield and that it was the first Marvel mag I'd ever owned.

But there was more to the story than that.

Because I knew for a fact that I'd encountered a Marvel super-hero even earlier.

And that hero was the Silver Surfer.

But just where had I met him? And, if not in the pages of a Marvel comic, then how?

All I knew was that, long before the launch of Marvel UK, I'd read a British comic which featured the pewter powerhouse battling the Abomination in the streets of a city.

But where could I have read it?

In my mind, it had always been in the pages of TV21.

But that made no sense. After all, everyone knew one thing. That TV21 had been created for just one purpose, to spin yarns based on the stars of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's puppet shows and if there's one thing I've always known for sure, it's that Norrin Radd is no man's puppet. Surely, then, my memory must have been faulty.

But, no. Once I got the Internet and could do research that had formerly been beyond the realms of human capability, it quickly became clear there was indeed a time when that publication had lost its license to print Anderson-related material and had, therefore, switched to a far more random assortment of strips. 

This meant that, by August 1971, it was giving us such gems as The Tuffs of Terror Island, Forward From the Back Streets, Clancy Clott the Magician's Mate, Wheels Moran, Homer the Happy Ghost, Cap'n Stardust, The Menace of the Black Museum and Ringo Rides Again.

More than that, it was also sharing with us the adventures of Captain James T Kirk and friends in a strip dedicated to Star Trek.

But, more importantly than even that, it was proffering up reprints of the adventures of Galactus' former herald.

Gadzooks! I'd been right for all those years! My first-ever brush with Marvel Comics was indeed in a mag that had been launched to cash in on the popularity of Stingray.

But, in just which issue of that book had I encountered the Surfer and that battle?

Sadly, that wasn't an easy answer to discover.

But I persisted with the search.

And, at last, after nearly two decades of access to the internet, I can share the exciting news that I've tracked down the issue in question. And it was in TV21 #98 (August 7th, 1971) that Zenn-La's finest met the gamma-spawned gargoyle on the streets of London, got clobbered by him, recovered, had a winge about it, clobbered him back and then had a sorcerer return him to where he'd come from. All in the space of just two pages.

Such conciseness was not inherited from Marvel.

Instead, in a masterpiece of cut-and-pasted compression even Dez Skinn would have envied, the clash was condensed heavily by cramming as many panels into each page as possible and removing all superfluous images.

And so, behold, printed below, a comparison between one page of that tale as I first encountered it, and how American readers had experienced the conflict, just one a year previously.

But wait! There's more!

And a strange level of moreness it is indeed.

For, it turns out that not only does the comic feature the Silver Surfer.

It also features Spider-Man!

In this case, it focuses on a Peter Parker who's about to launch a fight with Dr Octopus that will bring the tragic demise of Captain George Stacy.

It seems odd that, although I've always remembered seeing the Surfer's yarn in this book, I've never had any recollection of Spidey's. I can only conclude the former character must have made more impact upon me than did the latter.

Regardless, here for comparison is that issue's first page of that Spider-Man tale - which was also granted just two pages per week. And, yet again, it's a masterclass in how to pack the maximum number of panels into a tight space.

Sadly, TV21 was to last for just seven more issues before merging with Valiant, and the Surfer and Spider-Man would have to wait for the launch of Marvel's very own official UK imprint, just over a year later, to once more have a British outlet that might show off their talents.