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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
In just over a week it'll be 52 years since the very first issue of SMCW went on sale. If you were around back then and are anything like me, you'll probably find that hard to grasp as it only seems like a few years ago at the most. Looking at the above cover reminds me of family and friends who are now gone, as well as places that either no longer exist or have changed beyond recognition. However, while perusing this mag, for a few seconds at least, everything is at it was, and in the back of my mind, still is. Long may it be so, eh, Crivvies? Feel free to comment.
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February 10th 1973 was the day SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY #1 went on sale (and the secret of FOOM was revealed to the waiting world). After sharing the first 19 issues of The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL, the web-spinner was awarded his own mag, backed up by The MIGHTY THOR, with ol' Shell-head, The INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, joining them in issue #50.
A week this coming Monday, is the 52nd anniversary of this collectors' item classic, so I thought I'd treat you to a selection of covers and images from SM's very first pulsating periodical in the U.K. He'd previously appeared in POW! back in the '60s and then TV21 at the start of the '70s, but this was the first British weekly that presented full, uncut adventures in a publication with him as the title star.
So feast your eyes on the pics that follow, and indulge yourself in warm recollections of when you first laid eyes on them 52 years ago. (And dig that dynamic JIM STARLIN illo on the back page. Terrific stuff, eh?) Okay, ready for your trip back in time?
Then let's go!
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| It was exactly one day short of six years since this story had appeared in FANTASTIC #1. Nowadays, six years seems like only a fart in the wind to me, but back then it felt like half a lifetime away. In fact, considering I'd not long turned 14 when SMCW #1 appeared, it practically was. |
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| This Starlin illustration was also used as the cover of MWOM #20 |
And below is the paper bag mask given away with this first issue. Were any readers happy with this free gift I wonder?
(This is a slightly revised post of one first published on Tuesday, February 5th 2013.)
26 comments:
I still remember picking up my first issue of SMCW in my then local newsagents, it doesn't seem like 52 years ago, more like 25 or 30 tops. 52 years prior to 1973 was 1921, I wonder if any of today's 13 year olds ( the age I was when I bought SMCW #1) reading this blog think that 1973 is as long ago to them now as 1921 is to me ( looking back ) now?
I remember my father talking about the war when I was a kid, which had ended only 13 years before I was born and 23 years when I was 10, and it seemed like pre-history to me. To him it would've seemed even less time away than SMCW #1 seemed to us when it was around 5 years old. I'd better stop - I'm depressing myself.
I didn't buy SMCW until issue 450 I think when it became SMTVC. I wonder why it was called SM ComicS Weekly and not SM ComiC Weekly? Why the plural? Did it combine several US comics? Talking of depressing, my Mom is looking to move into an over 55s accommodation. The depressing thing is that I am also old enough to move into an over 55s accommodation. Where does the time go?
I suppose because it had Spidey and Thor, M, in separate strips, hence the plural of 'Comics'. As for where the time goes, I regularly ask myself that very question, but still haven't managed to come up with an answer.
SMCW ended with #157 which came out on February 7th 1976 (ten days before my 10th birthday). Its' landscape replacement Super Spider-Man & The Superheroes was numbered 158 but it should have been re-launched at #1 of course.
Oh no it shouldn't. (It's behind you!)
My younger brother used to get MWOM and I'd eagerly read each issue. Seemed like a lame cash grab to remove Spidey and start a separate comic, even (gulp!) lamer to replace Spidey in MWOM with Daredevil ("because YOU demanded it!" "No I didn't!*).
For reasons I can't remember, possibly related but possibly not, we stopped getting MWOM right about then and didn't get SCW at all.
*maybetheydidntactuallysaybecauseYOUdemandeditbutitisthesortofthingtheydsayisntit
I think they were referring to Fred You, who was a big Daredevil fan. Comics always did that sort of thing though, didn't they? Merged due to low circulation? No, it was because the readers demanded it! As if.
Oh, FRED YOU!!!! I'd forgotten about him, the get-out-of-jail-free card of the publishing industry (and beyond)!
In a fix?
Fred'll fix it, put the blame on him and nobody will know any better!
lol.
btw, the whole build up and reveal of FOOM was a terrible anticlimax, wasn't it?
"This week, we can reveal that the second word of the acronym FOOM is...
drumroll...
more roll of drum...
roll a bit more...
wait for it, wait for it...
"OF".
*crickets
Had me on tenterhooks, but then again, I was always easily impressed.
Fred sends his regards - he's a personal friend of mine, as it happens.
That's just reminded me, I've got one copy of FOOM Magazine. I knew it had got a red cover but didn't know what number it was. No. 3. If you've got No. 10, you're a lucky son of a pup because it's potentially worth £1800 as it had a preview of the new X-Men.
https://www.keycollectorcomics.com/series/foom-magazine,6066/
I've got a complete set of FOOM mags, M. There's a cover gallery of them on the blog somewhere. Number 10 had an asking price of £11,000 on eBay back in 2021.
Ooh nice. I think I would have sold if I could have got £11,000 or rather the wife would have encouraged me to. I'll have a look at your covers gallery now, ta.
I think the seller was being overly-optimistic in his asking price, M. Took another look tonight and it's going for a variety of prices, the dearest being just over 3 and a half thousand quid. I wonder if it will ever sell.
So you're saying... next time somebody says to me "F. You!" I can reply "because he demanded it!"
?????
Or maybe I'll just say
"F You? A personal friend of KID, so there!"
My hooks aren't as tender as yours, clearly. I didn't subscribe to FOOM either, although I now acknowledge the prescient genius of Marvel creating their own fanzine.
Either, or, Ex - or both.
I'm overcome with a sudden compulsion to be pedantic, Ex. Tenter has nothing to do with tender. Some people say 'tenderhooks', but they err, the correct word being 'tenterhooks'.
I'd always assumed that Captain Britain No.1 was the first Marvel UK comic to have colour pages but I'd also assumed that MWOM No.1 was the first British comic to feature Marvel characters. Wrong on both counts!
Actually, CJ, TV21 had some Spider-Man pages in colour when they reprinted the strips by Romita, but of course, they weren't Marvel UK. MWOM had around 6 full-colour pages from #s 1-4 - with issue 5 they were upped to 8, but they didn't last long.
When FOOM was announced Marvel asked readers to come up with their own takes on the acronym before the revelation of "the real initials." My fuzzy memory says that some fan came up with a better name than Friends of Ol' Marvel but I don't recall the better idea.
Thanks, GP. I think I'll do a post asking Crivvies to try and come up with alternate names for FOOM. That should be fun.
You have TEN of them?
Ten of what, Ex? Ten terhooks?
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