 |
| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Are you all ready for some more? (And no, the title doesn't refer to CAPTAIN HURRICANE's 'eppies'!) Here are the covers of more British MARVEL weeklies from the late 1970s and early '80s, all from my own collection at the back of a cupboard. FURY was an odd one, an attempt by Marvel to produce a comic more in line with traditional weeklies that were the staple of IPC and D.C. THOMSON. I no longer remember how many issues it survived for before being merged with another title (MWOM), but not many I'd guess.
MARVEL COMIC was the revamped The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL, redesigned by editor-in-chief DEZ SKINN to resemble comics like VALIANT, LION, and a whole host of other weeklies by rival companies. I'm not quite sure why, because most (if not all) of those comics had fallen by the wayside by the time this title was unleashed, but the strips were resized in the same way as the Marvel reprints in WHAM!, SMASH!, and POW! were back in the '60s.
I recall buying the new 'first' issue on the way into Glasgow to see SUPERMAN The MOVIE (for the second or third time), and me and a friend each having a fish tea in The BLUE LAGOON, across from Glasgow's Central Station. Come to think of it, I also got the SPIDER-MAN COMIC that same day. (These are my original copies by the way, not replacements.)
Anyway, in a magnificent display of self-restraint, I'll spare you further memories of the other comics in this post and let you ponder on your own personal reminiscences associated with these Marvellous titles. Why not tell your fellow Crivvies all about them in our cataclysmic comments section?! Speaking of which, we seem to have lost some of our regulars since I did away with the 'anonymous' option (in order to avoid loads of abuse I was receiving). If only those former (and very welcome) commenters would create a Google account, then we could all once again enjoy their sparkling words of wit, wisdom and wonder. How about it, guys?
Loving this series of posts. One of my 80s favourites was Marvel team up weekly .Believe it or not , but I even used to buy the Marvel junior UK comics as well!
ReplyDeleteFury was to me the worst of the UK Marvels up to that point ( despite some nice Carlos Ezquerra covers) and possibly the worst regular title that they published through out their history- typically it had to merge with MWOM (the only regular weekly title I bought from late 70s) and seemed to be on the cover banner for ages until MWOM merged with the "Complete Fantastic Four". Seems strange that as Fury didn't sell well (lasting only 25 issues - only the first Conan weekly lasted less up until then) that they would try again with a UK style weekly book in Marvel Comic (Hulk and Spider-man) a few years later (although I quite liked Marvel Comic) McS
ReplyDeletePanic ye not, JP - Marvel Team-Up will be with us soon. Glad to hear you're enjoying the posts.
ReplyDelete******
The curious thing about Sgt Fury, McScotty, is that, apparently, 'commandos' isn't even an American term. Stan lee said he just liked the sound of it and nicked it from us. I quite liked Marvel Comic myself, but nothing ever really compared to the first 30 or so issues of MWOM.
I loathed Marvel Comic and Spider Man Comic, the changes that Dez Skinn brought in caused me to move away from the UK weeklies and to start buying imported US Marvel comics which were becoming much easier to get hold of by 1979. I did like the UK monthly Savage Sword of Conan though, that 'cover in a box' design looked good on Conan though I hated it on the other monthlies. Fury was just stupid - British kids who bought Victor and so on wanted to see British troops. So they foisted it onto MWOM which was by then just a dumping ground for failed Marvel weeklies - The Mighty World of Marvel starring The Incredible Hulk and Another Comic You Didn't Buy But You're Having It Anyway.To make way for Fury something else had to go.
ReplyDeleteCol, I suspect that my fondness for those two comics is more down to nostalgia than how I felt about them at the time, because now that I think about it, there were things I didn't like about them. For example, some of the contents didn't grab me, and resizing the strips compromised the effectiveness of the artwork to some degree.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for merging titles was a practical, if not always a popular one. When the readership was too small to sustain a failing title, the idea was to attract those readers to the better-selling one by merging the two and thus increasing its circulation.