Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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It's time, once more, to fling ourselves into a look at what Marvel UK was up to half a century ago.
And the thing that suddenly leaps out at me is that, of their five titles, the two newest cost a full one pence more than their older ones do. What kind of madness is this?
And is it a portent of things to come?
Still, not to worry. It's not like there's a track record of Curt Connors' serums going horribly wrong.
And, speaking of the man, I do believe he's managed to transform himself into the Lizard again!
There's also trouble for Iron Man. Unable to remove his armour, thanks to his dicky ticker, he's suspected of having murdered the officially missing Tony Stark.
And, meanwhile, Hawkeye decides to launch an attack on Stark's factory and abduct Pepper Potts!
Thor's still up against Replicus - and still getting nowhere in his struggles with it.
Fortunately, mob leader Slugger Sykes is available to sabotage the alien robot by flinging himself at its control panel and blowing himself and its creator to pieces.
But all of that pales into insignificance when compared to the chance to win ourselves one of these fancy modern colour TV things that everyone's talking about, these days.
Apparently, you can win it by playing Charades.
I'm not sure exactly how you play Charades via the medium of the comic book but you could clearly never accuse Marvel UK of lacking optimism.
But all of that pales into insignificance when compared to the chance to win ourselves one of these fancy modern colour TV things that everyone's talking about, these days.
Apparently, you can win it by playing Charades.
I'm not sure exactly how you play Charades via the medium of the comic book but you could clearly never accuse Marvel UK of lacking optimism.
I do detect the arrival of Doc Samson who's out to both cure Bruce Banner of being the Hulk and Betty Ross of being Lalique.
But, once he's done that, will he be able to resist the temptation to use all that drained-off Gamma energy to turn himself into a super-strong hero?
I think we can all guess the answer to that question.
Especially with his surname being Samson.
Elsewhere, having halted the threat of the Tri-Man, Daredevil now has to contend with the latest plans of the Masked Marauder and the gallivanting Gladiator.
The Fantastic Four, meanwhile, find themselves in an atypical tale when an aggrieved but bald scientist decides to assume the identity of the Thing, in order to gain access to the Baxter Building and bump off Reed Richards.
The Fantastic Four, meanwhile, find themselves in an atypical tale when an aggrieved but bald scientist decides to assume the identity of the Thing, in order to gain access to the Baxter Building and bump off Reed Richards.
Will Reed spot the deception in time?
And will he even need to?
Iron Fist has finally managed to reach the office of Harold Meachum but, once he gets there, Meachum's poor health leads our hero to decide not to kill him.
Then a ninja shows up and does it.
Meaning Fisty's going to get blamed for the slaying. It seems that, when you're a Marvel martial artist, you just can't get a break.
But, hooray! Ant-Man is fighting against his own ants, thanks to the Whirlwind having shrunk him down to insect size.
Dr Strange, meanwhile, finds himself trapped in one of the Ancient One's nightmares.
Dr Strange, meanwhile, finds himself trapped in one of the Ancient One's nightmares.
And I think we can all guess which villain that's likely to cause the reappearance of.
In Transylvania, Frank Drake manages to accidentally revive Dracula and must then watch in horror as the fiend kills his girlfriend Jeanie and turns her too into the undead.
Still, at least the locals have turned up with flaming torches, to set fire to things.
I think Jack Russell's lycanthropic alter-ego has to fight an actual real-life wolf, this week, for reasons I can't recall.
And Robert Walton IV is still trying to liberate Frankenstein's Monster from the block of ice he's living in lately, while telling the cabin boy just how the creature came to be.
No painted covers for us, this week.
And that's not the only shock to our system. Having had the whole of last issue dedicated to the adventures of Charlton Heston; this week, only a third of the book is dedicated to them.
Instead, we discover a whole new world, as Gullivar Jones is accosted by a man on a flying carpet who transports him to Mars and an adventure even John Carter could only envy.
And then, we round off the issue, with Kraven the Hunter deciding he wants to defeat Ka-Zar and Zabu in a tale drawn by Jack Kirby.
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24 comments:
Can you remember any TV ads for Dracula Lives and Planet Of The Apes when they first came out, Steve? I can remember TV ads for The Titans and Captain Britain but none for POTA otherwise I'd have started reading it from No.1 as I was already an apes fan due to the TV series but I had to wait until I stumbled upon No.5 before I became a regular reader of the comic.
You guys had TV commercials for comic books over there?! That’s kind of amazing.
I’m guessing Marvel UK is already trying to stretch out their U.S. POTA comics, which they still managed not to do very well, since they ended up with the infamous Killraven / Apeslayer comics once they started to run out of the U.S. POTA materials. Maybe that’s why they haven’t started using the Terror on the Planet of the Apes strips yet either? Saving them for a rainy day?
I wonder if UK fans were confused by the Gullivar of Mars stories taking up space in the POTA mag.
As per our discussion about fireworks over the last few days: I mentioned that unauthorized fireworks usage in our area had tapered off to almost zero and then suddenly last night there was a lot of bangs and booms , lasted about an hour, and I was all “WTF?!” This morning my wife happened to mention that the Dodgers won the World Series last night, and it suddenly made sense. I’m so not into sports, I often don’t realize one of our local teams was even in the finals until people start shooting off their fireworks when we win.
b.t.
Colin and Bt, I have no memories of seeing any adverts for POTA and Drac Lives .
I think I did see adverts for Mighty World of Marvel when it first launched. I think that was how I became aware of it.
bt, Terror On The Planet Of The Apes began in No.12 of the POTA weekly after the adaptation of the original apes movie had concluded in the previous issue.
No, I don't think anyone would be confused by finding Gullivar Jones in a POTA comic, b.t. Pretty much all domestic British comics were mixed anthologies so it was a widely understood format for kids here; the single feature was a thing in US imports, which were a smaller size, in colour throughout, and had waaay more ads. The glossy covers of the Marvel UK titles linked them to the parent company, but they were obviously not the same thing.
As the first issue of POTA reprinted a whole Apes story, maybe finding back-ups in #2 might have been disappointing for anyone who had started with #1, but not confusing I don't think.
Anyway, #2 was the first I got, and the format made sense to me. In fact, I was actually excited to see Gullivar Jones, because it was clearly a first episode! And if you generally read import Marvels like I did, how often did you start with a series at the beginning? I mean, the FF, Thor...they had all been going for ages - numbered in three figures - and even with the newer B-list titles you never saw a US first issue. I recall being stupidly excited at actually seeing Eternals #1 on the newstand - well, in the newsagents, but let's keep things simple and say newstand - and then not too long after... 2001 #1. That would be, what... '76? And yet you could hardly ever find an issue of the All-New, All-Different X-Men...
But the vagaries of import distribution in the 70s is getting a bit off the point. Which is: being able to read the beginning of a whole series, right from the start for a change (hey, I didn't know in the original Gullivar Jones was only in a couple of issues of Creatures on the Loose, and wouldn't last too long). It kind of sold me a bit more on the idea of the Marvel UK reprint titles, which previously I had not seen as the real thing.
I still didn't read them much, but they were worth keeping an eye on. POTA for instance would later prove to be quite helpful filling in the gaps of my Jungle Action issues, when it reprinted Panther's Rage.
And Avengers weekly would soon have the first Colan/Palmer run on Dr Strange, which looked great in black and white.
-sean
Further on fireworks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9TIO4U_eHI
-sean
Good morning, my fellow Americans! This is Charlie horse 47. And of course this could apply to our friends in the UK but I am not sure.
By far, Charlie’s most informative experiences with Gulliver‘s travels came from a Saturday morning cartoon atound 1970. And if my memory serves me correctly, it was one of those ongoing cartoons Embedded in the banana splits club hour On NBC.
I am really curious to know if you others had the same timeline of experience? I mean, I cannot imagine any of us at such a young age, having exposure to Gulliver‘s travels via the novel? Hence any reference to that whether it’s in books comics, etc. my mind immediately goes back to, this silly cartoon from 1970. The same for you?
BT - in my yute,I was an avid watcher of baseball and hockey on television. What is amazing, in this day and age, is that perhaps the most awesome rivalry in all of American sports… A Yankees versus Dodgers World Series… Seems to have escaped most peoples attention span in 2024?!
I did not watch a single game. I know there was a home run slugfest for several games in a row. I also know that two butt-hole Yankees fans grabbed the Dodgers outfielder’s glove and tried to pry the ball out of it which was the only event that seem to make the talk shows and headlines for the mask consumption.
Is it a pity that the nation no longer shares an event like this in comment and talks about it? I don’t know… Just musing.
It’s funny… I have this incredibly overwhelming wave of nostalgia warmly washing over my body when I see these early 1960s marvel covers. Even an avengers covered by Don Heck will do it for me.
I can’t say the same for DC but for their adventure comics featuring the Legion of superheroes.
Does anyone else feel more nostalgic towards marvel or DC covers from the 60s? Or all of you more 50-50?
Regarding guns, fireworks, alcohol… Are the laws universal across the United Kingdom? Or do various subdivisions of geography have their own laws pertaining to this? Here in the states, as I am sure most everyone knows by now lol, every state and even every city gets to make up its own laws. For the most part.
Charlie (?), Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate legal systems from England and Wales and, therefore, make their own laws. Local councils can set some by-laws, as long as they don't contradict national laws. As far as I'm aware, firearm, firework and alcohol restrictions are pretty much uniform in all those jurisdictions.
Charlie - First acquaintance with Gulliver's Travels? An aunt & uncle gifted massive hardback illustrated editions of Gulliver's Travels, for my brother & myself. Aged 8 or under, Gulliver's Travels - even illustrated - was far too long for our limited attention spans - and we never read them. My aunt & uncle were postal workers, in London - so maybe oversized editions of Gulliver's Travels were some kind of free gift ( just thought I'd share a boring anecdote that doesn't go anywhere! )
Tarzan, however, did a take on Gulliver's Travels, in 'Tarzan & the Ant Men'.
Either Superman and/or Batman did a spoof of the story too, didn't they?
Besides, with Stan Lee the term 'Brobdingnagian' was always bandied about, in relation to Giant Man/Goliath. Not that I knew Brobdingnagian was a Gulliver's Travels reference, as a kid.
Phillip
Sean - As regards reading a series right from the start, I remember reading ROM from the beginning, in 'Forces in Combat', but few others spring to mind.
Phillip
In my earliest days as a comics buyer, AMAZING SPIDEY, FF, THOR , INCREDIBLE HULK, AVENGERS and CAPTAIN AMERICA were already in the triple digits numbering-wise, so it was definitely exciting to get the first issues /first appearances of MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, MASTER OF KUNG FU, IRON FIST, etc.
Marvel’s B/W mags never seemed to show up for sale in my neck of the woods, so when I saw ads for the new PLANET OF THE APES comic , I didn’t even bother to get excited about it because I thought I’d never see a copy anyway. But lo and behold, I did see it on sale at a Liquor store and happened to have a dollar and change on me, so I got the first issue of that one too :)
b.t.
BT - dis your liquor store stick the comics in back with the pornos? The grocery store, which was the only place I could find Comics and they did have two spinner racks, did not do this. But… when i moved at the age of 12 the so-called “news agency “did. I only ask because I am still bemused. By the fact he went to a liquor store to buy comic books. CH 47.
In the UK, in 'Blockbuster' monthly, I read Iron Fist (reprinted) from the start. That being said, some bits were trimmed (sometimes rightly so, comparing it with the original! ) I think Spider-woman started from the beginning too, in UK monthlies. But not a lot else.
Phillip
Charlie (?) — the liquor store where I bought POTA (and later, SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN and DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU) had them on a little wooden magazine rack right as you walked in, with the comics magazines stacked next to MAD, NEWSWEEK, HOT ROD, EASYRIDERS, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED , the racing form, etc — they kept PLAYBOY and PENTHOUSE and the other Men’s Magazines behind the counter.They didn’t have a spinner rack, so they didn’t sell any color comics.
But — about a mile west of that store was another Liquor Store that had a spinner for color comics and a magazine rack, but they never carried the b/w comics mags. And a mile Northeast of that one was another Liquor Store that carried the Warren and Marvel b/w mags AND had some color comics all on the same magazine rack. I think all of them had the skin mags behind the counter. That was pretty standard. The 7/11 stores out here did that too.
b.t.
Tesco played Manic Monday by the Bangles the other day and it occurred to me that I'd never heard the original Prince version so I've been listening to it on YouTube. The line "I was kissing Valentino by a crystal blue Italian stream" is in the original version too which I didn't expect. Anyway it was fascinating to finally hear Prince's original nearly 40 years after first hearing the Bangles hit.
Today (Nov 2nd ) is the 70th anniversary of Hancock's Half Hour - the first ever episode of the legendary comedy series was broadcast on November 2nd 1954 but the BBC has completely ignored the anniversary. Almost all the radio episodes from 1954-59 are available on BBC Sounds though.
b.t.-
Lemme get this straight. In your "earliest days as a comic buyer" you figured out the local liquor store sold comics?
How old were you, anyway? In my experience, a kid can't just stroll into a booze barn with nothing else than 5$ and a shit-eating grin. And to echo Charlie's question, did they have porno mags in there?
M.P.
Wait, sorry b.t.
I didn't see your comment above, answering Charlie. My bad.
Still....a liquor store.
Ah, but I miss the old days of the spinner racks. I would make a bee-line for 'em whenever I had to go to the store with Ma and my little brother.
M.P.
Well the spinner was interesting in retrospect for Charlie. In the good 10 years that he more/ less actively visited the spinner he may be saw one time, another person using the spinner.
And both locations, the one in Gary, Indiana, and the one in Crownpoint Indiana had two spinners: One for men in tights and the other for all the other second bananas like Archie and Harvey and I am guessing Charlton.
Charlie is excited to learn that his hometown of Gary Indiana now has the United States lowest life expectancy!
M.P. — in my area, most Liquor Stores were like mini-markets or convenience stores. Besides booze they also sold basic grocery items like bread and dairy products, ice cream, batteries, greeting cards, candy, Hostess snack foods etc. And most of them had a magazine and/or paperback rack. Not only were kids allowed inside, I think stores depended on their business to a degree. My brothers and I spent much of our weekly allowance money in them, on candy bars and soft drinks.
b.t.
Where I lived as a sprog in west Cork (before we moved to England) the nearest shop was also the local pub.
-sean
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