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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS and relevant owners |
Can't think of a single thing to write about for a new post at the moment, so here's a batch of classic Marvel UK covers (which I've shown before) to at least give you something to look at. Did you buy any of these weeklies back in the day, Crivvies, and if so, which one/s was/were your favourite/s? Don't be shy now.
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| Yeah, I know there are three monthlies in this post, but I didn't want to exclude them from the party! |
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20 comments:
I had Captain Britain, Complete FF, Rampage, Hulk Comic, Marvel Superheroes and Doctor Who. I also had Savage Sword Of Conan #2, The Titans #2 and Star Wars Weekly #2 so I just missed the #1 issues on those occasions. As you know, Kid, my very first Marvel comic was POTA #5 but how I wish I'd been aware of #1-4.
I've mentioned this before but Rampage #1 came out on my father's 50th birthday - October 12th 1977.
So he'd be coming up for his 94th birthday if were he still alive, eh, CJ?
I had all these comics when they first came out, and I've got them all again. Having said that, 10 of them are my originals.
Kid, my father died in 1999, aged nearly 72, but I shudder to think of him aged 94.
You included Marvel Superheroes in your list even though it wasn't actually a #1 issue - the numbering was continued from Marvel Comic and MWOM before that. You omitted Savage Sword Of Conan monthly #1 and Rampage monthly #1.
Well, I never claimed they were all first issues, CJ. Having said that, read the cover of Marvel Superheroes again - it clearly says '1st Giant Issue'. Marvel Comic also continued the numbering of MWOM, probably the first time a comic was revamped as two separate mags. I've actually got the two mags you say I omitted, but when I first scanned these covers, I only grabbed what was easily to hand. (I'm lazy that way.)
Now added, CJ.
I bought Rampage monthly #1 but my first issue of Savage Sword monthly was #8 which I bought on May 30th 1978 - the same day that I went to see Star Wars. The story in Savage Sword #1 was "Iron Shadows In The Moon" which I finally got to read (in colour) in the Conan Treasury Edition in November 1978.
I had all of these comics at the time and still have MWOM, SMCW and Rampage issue 1's. Of all those title Fury was by far the worst. Wish I had kept my first issue if the Avengers.
Most of these were a little before my time, but I had the Doctor Who one- bought it in a second-hand bookshop in the late 80s for 5p!
Btw, that Dracula Lives cover is a thing of beauty.
I think I had the Treasury Edition, CJ, so I'll have to replace it at some stage. I got all my UK marvels from the first issue, apart from the Star/Heroes pocket book. I didn't start buying that until they started reprinting the original X-Men stories in #10.
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The majority of the comics on show are my originals, McS, but MWOM and SMCW are replacements. Having said that, I got them over 40 years ago. In fact, The Avengers is a replacement also, as is POTA, Dracula Lives, and maybe Fury. However, with the two I added to the post, 12 mags are my original copies.
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I think they're all great, DS, but then again, I'm biased. After all, they all represent my teenage years.
I still have my original first 25 issues of MWOM and 1 to 10 of SMCW and a few other scattered titles from the early days of those titles and the Avengers.
I've got all the paper covered MWOMs and SMCWs, McS, but they're replacements I've had for around 36-37 or so years. However, I've got quite a few of my original glossy covered ones.
There's an issue of Marvel Super Heroes a few months after the one pictured above that has the Avengers vs Count Nefaria, and the X-Men story where Magneto abducts them in a flying circus caravan - I think Mesmero was involved in that story too- that I read before school one morning around 1986 or 87, and I could not concentrate on a thing all day in school because of how much that comic enthralled me. When I got home from school that day, I reread the whole thing, cover to cover.
Kid, any idea who the character over Nick Fury's right shoulder on the Titans cover is meant to be? The one with the metallic looking head? I'm stumped, unless its Whirlwind coloured incorrectly.
Been there, done that, DS. I used to pore over comics for hours and re-read them several times because I was so enthralled by them. Sometimes I'd sneak them into school in my schoolbag so that I could steal a look at them when teach wasn't looking.
Don't have a scooby who that character is unless it's one of the less well-known Inhumans. Don't think it's Whirlwind because the mask isn't quite right, and besides, he's a baddie.
I assiduously collected MWOM, SMCW, Avengers, Dracula Lives, POTA, The Super Heroes,Savage Sword of Conan, The Titans and Captain Britain all from their #1 issues.
At that point I think I gave up buying them, sometime in 1976, when the UK Marvels had largely closed the gap with my US comic collection. For me, the top two comics were MWOM and SMCW, followed by POTA and Savage Sword (with that brilliant Neal Adams poster). I think that as I started buying non-distributed Marvel comics around 1975 from the likes of Dark They Were & Golden Eyed, the Marvel weeklies held less appeal for me, plus I harboured a growing resentment that the UK Marvel weeklies were the main cause that top US titles like Amazing Spider-Man were being prevented from being distributed in the UK.
That Neal Adams poster is on my wall at this very moment, B, and has been for decades. Marvel denied that they stopped distribution of certain titles because of the weeklies, so I wonder (assuming they were telling the truth) if the US Spider-Man mag became more popular due to SMCW and simply sold out before most people saw it in the shops. Will we ever know for sure?
MWOM,SMCW, POTA, TSH, SSOC, CB, Titans, Fury, Rampage. As I’ve said before, luckily those UK reprints showed me the silver age Marvel at the right age to read them. Plus I got an occasional toy or mask made from a paper bag!
Yeah, that mask, eh? Whose idea was that? Did you keep any of the UK titles when you returned to the States, PS? Seen Valerie lately?
Blimey - talk about a nostalgia rush!
I remember Dad buying me the first issue of MWOM - Mum ironing the Hulk transfer onto a T-shirt for me...I changed loyalties to SMCW later (couldn't do without my Spidey fix).
That rectangular format for The Titans - I remember thinking how bizarre it was at the time. Not easy to read and must have been a nightmare for newsagents to display on their shelves...
Talking of which - do you have any vintage photos of newsagent comic displays from the 1970s, Kid? With all the free gift gunk stuck on them, they just don't look the same these days.
I wish I did have photos like that, PG, especially of newsagents from my childhood. However, I'd imagine 'generic' photos from times past can be found on the Internet somewhere.
I always wondered why they did the landscape format instead of just doing them as 'Commando'-sized comics. They did eventually do Pocket Books right enough, which were essentially the same thing.
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