Week Ending Oct. 7, 1972
Welcome True Believers
Growing up in 1970s Britain was not without its 'Lord of The Flies' style charms, we may not have had the internet, games consoles, more than three TV channels and were still several years away from a Betamax VCR, but we did have all the fresh air you could eat and some pretty good weekly comics. Admittedly, most of these seemed to feature interchangeable delinquent schoolboys indulging in what could be reasonably described as proto hate-crimes or brave Tommies giving the Nazis what for, but in March 1975 I picked up my first Marvel UK comic, The Super-Heroes #2. Things were never quite the same after that.
I collected Marvel's UK output with passion of a cocaine enthusiast at a music industry awards party, likewise I moved on to the pure US stuff when the hit was no longer enough. Nostalgia is a powerful mistress though, and about three years ago, while searching eBay for something else entirely, I decided to see what Marvel UK issues were still out there.
Fast forward three years...
I now have every issue produced by Marvel UK between 1972 and 1979 (after moving my goalposts several times) luckily, as these UK reprints are viewed as the poor, web-toed cousin of the 'real' Marvel comics, this did not require that I sell my organs on the dark web to achieve it.
So then, collection collected, I then decided to read them all in release order, and while I'm setting myself pointless tasks, why not document the process in this very blog? Why not indeed...
Mighty World of Marvel #1
I was too young to pick this up from the newsagent, but what an amazing use of five pence this must have been for those that did. A weird mix of duotone green/black, black and white and full colour, containing reprints of the origins of The Hulk, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. The stories probably seemed a little dated in 1972, now it looks like mind-boggling value for some classic tales.
Opening with the debut of The Incredible Hulk, which obviously dictated the use of the additional green colouring, despite the character actually being grey at this point in the original comics.
Hulk always seemed an odd choice of lead character for Marvel's flagship UK title, but looking back now, it appears obvious that spin-offs were planned for other characters more capable of holding their own title.
Personally, of the three stories in this issue, this one holds up the best. Sure, the dialogue is clunky but Jack Kirby's art has an almost cinematic style to it here.
I have read numerous retellings of the FF's origin story but this my first encounter with the original, albeit reprinted, version. It may well have been a pivotal moment for Marvel, but viewing it now it is a bit of a mess. It reads like Stan and Jack had two different attempts at the first issue, weren't happy with either and cobbled together a single story from parts of both.
Now this is the bit that really set Marvel apart from all the other comics out there at the time: hyperbole and shameless self-promotion (and using the only two internal full colour pages to do it) an introduction from Stan 'The Man' Lee, plus the offer of the world's greatest mystery gift *spoiler alert* a poster, it's a poster (something that would make finding complete copies of the first few issues of MWOM needlessly painful 45 years later)
The final tale in this historic anthology is the origin of Spider-Man, or in this case, the lesser known Green Spider-Man. Another story I am familiar with, without having read the original. I have never been a fan of Steve Ditko's art, but here I can see why he was the perfect choice for the nerdy, disturbingly incel-like Peter Parker. As with the previous two stories, this must have seemed dated even by the standards of 1972, and the American setting somewhat unrelatable for British kids. However, it was clearly a welcome change from the UK comics we were used to, and the weekly format was going to allow us to catch up with the US back catalogue surprisingly quickly.
I hope to continue this blog with each week's Marvel UK releases in chronological order, I'm probably kidding myself if I imagine this will actually be a weekly event though, but until next time...
Make Mine Marvel.
Growing up in 1970s Britain was not without its 'Lord of The Flies' style charms, we may not have had the internet, games consoles, more than three TV channels and were still several years away from a Betamax VCR, but we did have all the fresh air you could eat and some pretty good weekly comics. Admittedly, most of these seemed to feature interchangeable delinquent schoolboys indulging in what could be reasonably described as proto hate-crimes or brave Tommies giving the Nazis what for, but in March 1975 I picked up my first Marvel UK comic, The Super-Heroes #2. Things were never quite the same after that.
I collected Marvel's UK output with passion of a cocaine enthusiast at a music industry awards party, likewise I moved on to the pure US stuff when the hit was no longer enough. Nostalgia is a powerful mistress though, and about three years ago, while searching eBay for something else entirely, I decided to see what Marvel UK issues were still out there.
Fast forward three years...
I now have every issue produced by Marvel UK between 1972 and 1979 (after moving my goalposts several times) luckily, as these UK reprints are viewed as the poor, web-toed cousin of the 'real' Marvel comics, this did not require that I sell my organs on the dark web to achieve it.
So then, collection collected, I then decided to read them all in release order, and while I'm setting myself pointless tasks, why not document the process in this very blog? Why not indeed...
Mighty World of Marvel #1
I was too young to pick this up from the newsagent, but what an amazing use of five pence this must have been for those that did. A weird mix of duotone green/black, black and white and full colour, containing reprints of the origins of The Hulk, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. The stories probably seemed a little dated in 1972, now it looks like mind-boggling value for some classic tales.
Opening with the debut of The Incredible Hulk, which obviously dictated the use of the additional green colouring, despite the character actually being grey at this point in the original comics.
Hulk always seemed an odd choice of lead character for Marvel's flagship UK title, but looking back now, it appears obvious that spin-offs were planned for other characters more capable of holding their own title.
Personally, of the three stories in this issue, this one holds up the best. Sure, the dialogue is clunky but Jack Kirby's art has an almost cinematic style to it here.
I have read numerous retellings of the FF's origin story but this my first encounter with the original, albeit reprinted, version. It may well have been a pivotal moment for Marvel, but viewing it now it is a bit of a mess. It reads like Stan and Jack had two different attempts at the first issue, weren't happy with either and cobbled together a single story from parts of both.
Now this is the bit that really set Marvel apart from all the other comics out there at the time: hyperbole and shameless self-promotion (and using the only two internal full colour pages to do it) an introduction from Stan 'The Man' Lee, plus the offer of the world's greatest mystery gift *spoiler alert* a poster, it's a poster (something that would make finding complete copies of the first few issues of MWOM needlessly painful 45 years later)
The final tale in this historic anthology is the origin of Spider-Man, or in this case, the lesser known Green Spider-Man. Another story I am familiar with, without having read the original. I have never been a fan of Steve Ditko's art, but here I can see why he was the perfect choice for the nerdy, disturbingly incel-like Peter Parker. As with the previous two stories, this must have seemed dated even by the standards of 1972, and the American setting somewhat unrelatable for British kids. However, it was clearly a welcome change from the UK comics we were used to, and the weekly format was going to allow us to catch up with the US back catalogue surprisingly quickly.
I hope to continue this blog with each week's Marvel UK releases in chronological order, I'm probably kidding myself if I imagine this will actually be a weekly event though, but until next time...
Make Mine Marvel.
An enjoyable start Tim. I will look forward to reading more. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Adam, I'm looking forward to making my way through some great comics.
DeleteOnly just discovered your blog. So starting reading from the first post. Takes me back to buying the very first issue all those years ago! I remember the duo-tone, but had forgotten that they used it on spider-man as well.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, welcome aboard. I didn't start reading Marvel UK until 75, so these early issues have been a real pleasure to discover.
DeleteHi Tim, great idea for a blog sir. I was lucky enough to be in at the start of this incredible run of British Marvel Comics, I still have most of them up in the loft and am sorely tempted to get 'em down and start reading them all over again. I'd already discovered the original U.S. comics a couple of years earlier and had started to collect as many of these as I could find and afford at that time, so the U.K. launch was a Godsend to me. I think the Hulk TV show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno was very popular at this time which probably explains why the MWOM led with the Hulk stories rather than the FF. Anyways, good luck with the blog, looking forward to reading the rest of your posts.
ReplyDeleteHi David, thanks for reading. I collected Marvel UK for most of the 70s and then defected to the US originals, but nothing sparks my nostalgia like these weeklies. I think we were actually lucky to have them when we did.
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