Marvel In The UK

[MacNimon]

January/February 1976: MWOM 174-175, SMCW 155-156, Avengers 124-125, Dracula Lives 67-68, POTA 67-68, Superheroes 48-49, The Titans 15-16.

[MacNimon]

February 1976: MWOM 176-177, SMCW 157-158, Avengers 126-127, Dracula Lives 69-70, POTA 69-70, Superheroes 50, The Titans 17-18.

1976's great collapse starts here, with the final issue of The Superheroes:#50. The title merged into SMCW with #158, in a new Titans style format.

[MacNimon]

February/March 1976: MWOM 178-180, SMCW 159-161, Avengers 128-130, Dracula Lives 71-73, POTA 71-73, The Titans 19-21.

[MacNimon]

March 1976: MWOM 181-183, SMCW 162-164, Avengers 131-133, Dracula Lives 74-76, POTA 74-76, The Titans 22-24.

[MacNimon]

April 1976: MWOM 184-186, SMCW 165-167, Avengers 134-136, Dracula Lives 77-79, POTA 77-79, The Titans 25-24.

[MacNimon]

April/May 1976: MWOM 187-189, SMCW 168-170, Avengers 137-139, Dracula Lives 80-82, POTA 80-82, The Titans 28-30.

[MacNimon]

May 1976: MWOM 190-192, SMCW 171-173, Avengers 140-142, Dracula Lives 83-85, POTA 83-85, The Titans 31-33.

[MacNimon]

June 1976: MWOM 193-195, SMCW 174-176, Avengers 143-145, Dracula Lives 86-87, POTA 86-88, The Titans 34-37.

Marvel's collapse from it's prominent position in the market continued in June, with the cancellation of Dracula Lives with #87 due to material drying up. Dracula alone continued with a lower page count in POTA, allowing the character to have a longer run than would otherwise have been the case. By this time the following year, only two of these titles would still be in publication and there would be tough times ahead for the company ahead of a revival at the end of the decade...

[Stephen Morgan]

It was a great shame that Marvel UK declined the way it did, I was still buying those titles at this point, never missed an issue if I could help it, but looking at those covers, apart from The Warlock storyline, I hardly recall anything about any of them, and the covers don't seem as iconic as they once did just a few short years back, and the least said about the way they turned the mags on their sides the better.
But, as you say, a revival was on the way, still a little way off though and we'll discuss that when we come to it.

[MacNimon]

You're quite right in what you say, Stephen. Possibly the most iconic covers are behind them but there are still some excellent ones around. That Avengers one with Mar-Vell (#140) which kicks off the Kree-Skrull War is a favourite of mine. And the Spider-Man one from the same week, featuring him holding Gwen Stacey's dead body...that brings back memories, it was the first real death of a regular character I'd ever came across reading comics and it stuck in my head for years.

And on the topic of that revival, I have this thread well prepared with covers ready up until late 1981 to date with only a few missing - mostly Frantic and a few Pocket Books - there are more regular titles at that time than there were in 1975, but they were mostly monthly by that time.

And speaking of the Avengers, I notice a few posts back that instead of posting the covers of issues 134-136, I somehow posted #135 three times! So to rectify my mistake, here are those covers as they should have appeared...

[Stephen Morgan]

Now that you mention the Kree/Skrull war I have a vague recollection of that epic storyline, and, yes that cover (140) seems to be the best of the recent bunch, I also remember the cover of your recently posted 134, that's another good one.

[MacNimon]

Part of the problem wasn't just the covers though. Although some material (Conan, for example) was just entering it's greatest period, many of the best superhero storylines had already been published and the most popular series were rapidly catching up with the US originals - which themselves weren't as good as several years previously. And even those series which didn't sufer much in terms of dropping quality had another problem...a strictly limited amount of material available to reprint (Dracula Lives and POTA). You can't publish a title if you've got nothing left to fill it's pages...

Marvel had other ideas to fill the void left by the vanishing titles, though, as you'll see. Unfortunately we were entering a period of trial-and-error which saw a number of short lived titles come and go before a couple of sci-fi spin-offs steadied the boat and Dez Skinn kicked off a new era...

[MacNimon]

And one quick last word regarding the covers...although possibly the most memorable are behind us, the actual style of them doesn't change (with the possible exception of the monthlies starting late 1977) until Dez Skinn's Marvel Revolution in 1979. And whether that change is for the better or worse is up to you to decide...in the meantime look for more and more Pablo Marcos covers...

[Stephen Morgan]

You've jogged my memory re Conan, I must have been reading the Conan comics as I have the paperbacks of the Conan stories from 1976/77 as realised by co author L Sprague De Camp. Very good they are too.

I guess one of the changes to the line up and ideas for the comics range would be the Captain Britain comic which emerged in 1977 around about the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, nothing like being patriotic. When you started posting these covers I did manage to check out one or two of those and found that I have two copies of the first issue complete with free gift, bound to be worth a few bob now I guess?

[MacNimon]

You've jogged my memory re Conan, I must have been reading the Conan comics as I have the paperbacks of the Conan stories from 1976/77 as realised by co author L Sprague De Camp. Very good they are too.

I guess one of the changes to the line up and ideas for the comics range would be the Captain Britain comic which emerged in 1977 around about the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, nothing like being patriotic. When you started posting these covers I did manage to check out one or two of those and found that I have two copies of the first issue complete with free gift, bound to be worth a few bob now I guess?

Well, there are a couple on eBay at the moment...one with a starting price of £14.99, the other with a Buy It Now price of £29.99. In this link it says that although these are common items on eBay, they have been known to sell for over £35.

I've still got my copy of this, and quite a few of the colour issues of this title, but the free gift is long gone. Same with #24 (the first B&W issue), I've still got the actual comic but the free gift hasn't been seen for over 30 years!

[Stuart Wallis]

To be fair, Marvel only had a fifteen- rather than fifty-year back-catalogue at this point, so something had to give sooner or later. Talking of those couple of sci-fi spin-offs, wasn't one of them Star Wars? Can't think what the other main one was...

[MacNimon]

Talking of those couple of sci-fi spin-offs, wasn't one of them Star Wars? Can't think what the other main one was...

Yes, Star Wars was basically the title that has been credited with keeping Marvel afloat during tough times, both here and in America. The exact name of that other sci-fi title has slipped my mind for the moment, but it might come back to me...

[Stuart Wallis]

Answers on a postcard!

[MacNimon]

June/July 1976: MWOM 196-198, SMCW 177-179, Avengers 146-148, POTA 89-92, The Titans 38-40.

Marvel's collapse continues here with the Avengers ceasing publication with #148. It would be absorbed into MWOM beginning with #199 of that title. The collapse would continue later in the year, but Marvel was going to fight back with a new title and a new character first...

[Stuart Wallis]

I had no idea that Wolverine or the Punisher were that old! Eighties characters at the earliest...

[MacNimon]

I think the Punisher first appeared in 1974, Stuart.

July/August 1976: MWOM 199-203, SMCW 180-184, POTA 93-97, The Titans 40-44.

This is where things really started to go wrong. We have just seen the final issue of The Avengers...due to falling sales, it was cancelled after issue 148, after which it was merged with MWOM beginning with MWOM 199. It was the combination of the loss of this title, which combined with the other recent cancellations, saw Marvel's output fall from a high of 7 titles to a mere 4, for a short time at least. Whereas Dracula Lives was running out of material, and The Superheroes showed that Marvel's 'B'-list characters would struggle to sell a title on their own, generally the Big Guns were still selling well. So cancellation of The Avengers was the biggest surprise of the three, but possibly Marvel's expansion plans of recent years had backfired; I know from personal experience that I couldn't afford to buy all the titles all the time (or to tell the truth, all the titles at any time) and if this problem was repeated around the country, then something would have to give; on the other hand, maybe after 3 years it had quite simply just ran it's course. Anyway, whatever the reason, plans were now being made regarding their next title, due out a few months down the line, and they had decided that it was now time to try something a bit different. Something new...

This year was obviously notable for the number of mergers. While Dracula Lives was understandable, as was possibly The Superheroes with it's line-up of second stringers, the loss of The Avengers was something of a hammer blow to Marvel, having been used to nothing but generally good sales and regular expansion of the range (Conan being their only prior blip). This led to a period of constant upheaval, with many strips being regularly moved around from one title to another. The Avengers, for example, would only last 12 weeks in MWOM before being transferred over to Spider-Man.
However Britain was in the grip of recession at the time, and the economic outlook wasn't looking particularly good for the forseeable future, so careful thought was being put into the next expansion title; in the meantime the fact that more strips were being crammed into the same number of pages meant a smaller page count per strip, per week thus slowing down the speed at which the UK titles were catching up with the American ones.

[Stephen Morgan]

Good collection of covers there as usual Kenny, although the only thing to jog my memory there is the cancellation of The Avengers comic, it had long been a favourite and I remember my disappointment at its cancellation.



A question for you. There's a Garth strip running in the Daily Mirror atm, it's a reprint of a strip from around '76-77, it's a piece of fantastic artwork from the late Frank Bellamy and it's about a race of underwater dwellers who enlist Garth's help in ridding them of an aqautic enemy. The story's rung some bells with me and I recall a Marvel strip from around this time about a sunken ship and some survivors who'd lived in it since it sank. They were rescued and brought to the surface where they promptly exploded due to the pressure change.
Now, I can't remember which strip it was in, Defenders maybe? Any ideas?

[Stuart Wallis]

Can't help you with that, but it's interesting that Garth's still running, even if they are resorting to recycling 35-year-old strips. Which reminds me, OT; wonder if Judge Dredd's still running in the Star?

[MacNimon]

Sorry Steve, I can't help you there either. The stories are so long ago that I've forgotten large chunks of them, although I often find my memory being jogged when I actually look at them nowadays.

I'm glad to see that Garth's still running though, even if it is reprints. I used to like it, and Frank Hampson's artwork is great, isn't it? I haven't read that strip for years!

[Stephen Morgan]

Can't help you with that, but it's interesting that Garth's still running, even if they are resorting to recycling 35-year-old strips. Which reminds me, OT; wonder if Judge Dredd's still running in the Star?

No! The only srtip running in The Star is Beau Peep, a comic strip about a Legionnaire.

If I want the answer to my question then the only way I'm going to find out is if I actually dig them out and re-read them all over again. Someday, someday.