TV21 - ADVENTURE In The 20th CENTURY (MARVEL UNIVERSE)...

Images copyright respective owners

Strange as it may seem, many MARVEL fans who bought the ODHAMS POWER COMICS back in the '60s, tend to think that - ALAN CLASS monthly mags aside - Marvel reprints in Britain all but disappeared until The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL was launched on September 30th 1972.  What they apparently forget (and I include myself) is that TV21 published various Marvel tales within its pages from issue #62 (cover-dated November 28th 1970) to #105 (cover-dated September 25th 1971), which was its final issue before being merged with IPC's VALIANT.  (The Marvel strips didn't survive the merger.)

Over a span of 10 months, The SPIDER-MAN, The SILVER SURFER (with a guest-appearance from The FF), The GHOST RIDER (that's the one with a horse, not a motorcycle), RINGO KID, HOMER The HAPPY GHOST, and perhaps one or two other strips, dominated up to half the comic some weeks - so it's strange that so many comic fans appear to have forgotten Marvel's continued presence in the world of U.K. comics between March 1969 and September/October 1972.  (The dates when SMASH! abandoned Marvel reprints and MWOM went on sale, respectively.)

Perhaps it was the brevity of their presence.  After all, 44 issues can hardly be considered a long run and, as far as I can recall (without looking at every issue), none of the Marvel strips were ever featured on the cover - apart from an occasional mention in the banner, but certainly never in a prominent way. 

Anyway, as a little treat, here's a look at the Marvel content of the first issue (#62, new series) of TV21 to feature such strips.  Cast your eyes carefully over each creatively-crafted page.  Are you beginning to remember?  Are memories, long suppressed, starting to claw their way from the back of your brain to burst once more into the warm glare of welcome recognition?  Then congratulations!  You are whole once more and your past is once again your present.  I have done my job and done it well, so it's time for me to leave you and your joyous reminiscences to spend some time together alone.  After all, you know what they say - three's a crowd.

See you next post.

Don't forget - click on image to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.

PART EIGHT Of The TITANS CENTRE-SPREAD POSTER GALLERY...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

And now, the penultimate part of The TITANS poster gallery.  Only one more post and "that's all she wrote", fellow fans.  Some of these centre-spreads were perhaps not as dynamic as they could or should have been, but full marks to MARVEL for at least trying to do something different.  As I've said before though, it's just a shame that they weren't presented in full-colour.

Anyway, be sure to come back for the wrap-up in the final post in the series, on this, the absolutely best blog in the history of something-or-other, but don't press me on the details.

PLANET Of The APES Poster...

Copyright relevant owner

The above colour poster was given away with MARVEL U.K.'s PLANET Of The APES #1 in 1974.  The same illustration was the actual cover of the U.S. monthly first issue, just in case you were thinking you'd seen it somewhere before.  (Well, you were right - you had!)

AH, BUT IS IT AN ORIGINAL...?

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

MARVEL had been publishing their weekly periodicals in Britain for a while, when, perhaps responding to some readers' requests, they asked the rest of us if we'd like to see more original covers.  To my mind, 'original' covers meant the original covers which had first appeared on the U.S. mags, not newly-originated ones for the U.K. comics, which seemed to be what Marvel had in mind.  I responded, saying "Yes, more original covers please!" - as, no doubt, did quite a few other Marvelites, because, before too long, the weeklies sported brand-new (and, a few exceptions apart, mostly inferior) cover art all across the board.

I eventually twigged to what had happened regarding the differing interpretations of what was meant by 'original', but, going by the poor reception of many of the 'new' covers featured on this blog, I had the right idea and Marvel had the wrong one.  (I exclude JIM STARLIN's covers on early issues of MWOM because they were well-drawn and I actually like them.)  Perhaps, had Marvel stuck with more 'classic' covers from the original U.S. issues, their titles may have enjoyed a greater success.

So what say you readers?  Did you care much for the specially-produced, newly-drawn cover art on the Marvel weeklies of your youth, or, like me, did you prefer to see the classic covers that had first graced the initial printings of these early titanic tales?  Make your valued views known in the comments section - the fate of the free world hangs in the balance!  (Well, if I'm gonna lie, I like to make it a big one.)

This cover illo was also pressed into service as a splash page in the very next
issue.  Not quite in the same league as the SURFER cover above, eh?

ANNA MARIE...

Again - the velvet-voiced JIM REEVES,

singing about a lost love - ANNA MARIE.

(Hankies at the ready.)

BABE Of The DAY - INDIANA WHO...?

Move over JONES - here's INDIANA

JANE to the rescue!  I know which one I

prefer.  (And she isn't afraid of snakes - not

even of the one-eyed trouser variety.)

MARVEL'S The SUPER-HEROES COVER & IMAGE GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

At last, The SILVER SURFER had arrived!  He'd been here before of course, in the pages of an ailing TV21, but those reprints had been re-sized and re-dialogued, and, in the process, had lost something of their MARVEL 'magic'.  In the pages of The SUPER-HEROES they remained largely unaltered - apart from the early tales being split over two issues on account of them being 38-40 pages long.

Bringing up the rear of the mag was The X-MEN, the origin of which had previously been presented in The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL, but it was rolled out once more to kick-off the series proper.  I don't want to say too much at this point as I'd prefer to reveal things bit by bit as we go along, but I can guarantee it'll be worth your while coming back to view the awesome images that lay in store for you in this sensational series.

However, that's enough from me for the moment until part two - let's read what STAN (The Man) LEE (or his stand-in) has to say about it all!

ALONG CAME THREE SPIDERS...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Here's a trio of three SPIDER-MAN themed

posters.  Which of them is your eye most drawn to?

(I think I may know the answer in advance.)

MARIA ELENA...

MARIA ELENA's voice, so JIM REEVES

informs us, is like the "echo of a sigh" - a quality

that could also be said of his own.  Don't believe

me?  Then listen for yourself!

BABE Of The DAY - KIM KARDASHIAN...

Don't know what she does or

why she's so famous, but when you

look like KIM KARDASHIAN, it

 doesn't really matter, eh?

The THINGS We LEAVE BEHIND...

The row of houses I once lived in

Ofttimes, when we move from one phase of our lives into another, we do so without a backward glance and with nary a thought to what we're leaving behind.  For example, when I passed through the gate of my primary school for the final time, the fact that it was part of my life that was seemingly gone forever didn't, as far as I recall, perturb me in the slightest.  Soon, the classrooms and corridors of my secondary school became the familiar routine of my daily life, and I'm surprised, looking back today, at just how quickly and easily I adapted to the change without even realizing it.

The front gate of my old primary school - from the inside

It wasn't until I revisited my old primary a few years later, after having left secondary and joined the working classes, that it dawned on me that, in some mysterious, mystical, magical way, I was still connected to this aspect of my past and, in truth, had never really parted from it.  You see, not thinking about a thing is not the same as forgetting it.  The memory yet dwells in our subconscious; what we forget is the act of remembering - until, that is, something suddenly triggers the memory and causes it to erupt in our minds like an exploding firework.

The toilets - listen to that water trickle

I remember one day a few years back, when I suddenly caught a whiff of disinfectant and was instantly transported back to the toilets of my old primary school, where I often used to retire to during lessons for a bit of peace and quiet in the cool of the tiled environs, with the sound of gently-gurgling water emanating from the cubicle cisterns and porcelain urinals.  I felt such a soothing sense of tranquillity there, and it was my very own 'fortress of solitude' for five minutes at a time whenever the confines of the classroom became too claustrophobic for me.  (I assume my teacher simply thought I had a weak bladder.)

I can see my house from here.  The view from my classroom

I've previously mentioned how I felt when I revisited a former home for the first time since I'd moved 16 years before (which, at the time, was more than half my life away), and it was practically the same as when I'd left.  As I said in this post,  it was as if the intervening years and two houses I'd lived in since were only a dream, and I still felt right at home there.  I'm sure we've all had the experience of meeting someone we haven't seen or thought of in years and it's just as if we saw them only a short while before.  That's how I felt on that particular day.

My former back garden - ah, happy memories

Well, I could labour the point I suppose, with example after example, but I'm sure you're all smart enough to catch my drift.  Things we may think we've left behind (whether or not, at the time, we were even aware of it) come with us without us realizing it.  They reside in the caverns of memory, reluctant to let go of us despite our seeming indifference to them.  Whether it be garden gates, bedroom carpets, once favourite toys, favoured friends or whatever, they follow us throughout our lives, just waiting for an opportune moment to renew the acquaintance.

Long may it ever be so.