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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Back in 1973, I was surprised to see quite a number of copies of JOURNEY Into MYSTERY With THOR #1 gracing the spinner-racks of various newsagents in my home town. The Annual was dated 1965, which - in 1973 - was more than half my life away at that time. Furthermore, I had first read the main story (THOR Vs. HERCULES) in the FANTASTIC Holiday Special published by ODHAMS PRESS in 1968.
Anyway, even as a mere callow youth - I recognized that this mighty MARVEL masterpiece was a genuine collector's classic and well-worth buying. Why had it taken eight years to make an appearance in shops though?
As most of you will know, American comics came over to this country as ballast, so could potentially lie about in the holds of ships or darkened warehouses for months or even years before eventually finding their way to newsagents' outlets - hence the occasional spotty distribution of some issues. If that is what happened in this case (though it's by no means certain), then, ironically, the black and white reprint of this story was on sale a whole five years before the original colour publication.
However, regardless of whether it was the first U.K. appearance of this issue or simply the discovery of a few misplaced copies, it was a welcome addition to my growing collection of U.S. comics and I was glad of the delay.
Strange to think that erratic distribution sometimes had its advantages, eh?
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