Week Ending March 31, 1973

This week in 1973 sees a bit of a (half) milestone for Marvel UK, as it marks six months of publication. Despite having to rely on content that may have seemed a little dated even four decades ago, Marvel's UK arm has two titles up, running and starting to hit their stride. Again, as noted by keen-eyed readers on Facebook last week (I was less attentive and missed it) we have a pair of covers with matching compositions. I'm actually impressed with the effort this must have taken, probably only to be unappreciated by ungrateful 70s kids.

Mighty World of Marvel #26

Last week we were promised a bold new direction for the Hulk, this week's pages give me reason to doubt a similar claim made for next week. We open with some uninspiring artwork and what seems like a fairly blatant passive-aggressive commentary on that subject in the credits box from Stan. Hulk is still captured by the Leader and in danger of a fatal transformation back into Bruce Banner due to a bullet lodged in his brain. A situation quickly resolved by the Leader, leaving the Hulk bizarrely indebted to the greed slap-head and even stronger after an extra strong dollop of gamma rays. It would be nice if Hulk could stay basically the same for a couple of weeks and put a little more thought into the plots instead. Anyway, the reason for all this effort on the part of the Leader becomes clear, when he sends Hulk to the home planet of the Watcher to steal a glowing ball and wrestle an alien-hulk who rocks up at the same time for the same purpose. Sorry, did I say it becomes clear?

Daredevil starts a new adventure, one that due to the UK black and white format, receives heavy editing and some uncomfortable unintended consequences. DD faces the peril of Killgrave the Purple Man Controller, while confused British kids had to wonder if Jim Davidson had taken over scripting duties, with so many context-free references to skin colour. If only the story and art were strong enough to overcome this needlessly stupid editorial choice, but they really are not. The writing is forced to do all the heavy lifting for the art, but gives itself a literary hernia in the process. The Joe Orlando/Vince Colletta art looks like someone had a great talent for copying or tracing reference materials but really could not be bothered with anything that they didn't have a photo of.
Oh, and I don't want to say I called it, but this week sees the demise of the short-lived Daredevil hood/rucksack.
I totally called it.

The continuing series of free 'mini posters' get a little less 'mini'. Which does beg the question: why are they not just normal pin-up page size anyway?

More Marvel UK edits a-go-go, as the Red Ghost becomes the Mad Ghost and relocates to Bodavia. To be fair, Mad Ghost suits him better, as his plan to create a hairy Fantastic Four from himself and his trio of house-broken apes is proper underpants on your head lunacy. As for the story, Reed is up to his usual trick of inventing something capable of changing the direction and fabric of human society that will probably be forgotten by next week and takes the FF on a works outing to the moon. Unfortunately the Red/Mad Ghost has arranged a similar jolly for his simian staff. Stage set, we just have time for a cameo appearance of the Watcher's ankles before this week's closing panel.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #7

It is great that we got so much original cover art for these early Marvel UK weeklies, but Spider-Man with a ball and chain attached to his leg makes me wonder if the artist was working from a third-hand synopsis of a story they had never read.

A UK edit on the opening splash-page for Spider-Man made me check to see how much time we had covered compared to the US originals, our six months of Spider-Man equates to two years of his initial publication history. We may have been missing the colour, but in some ways we were spoiled by our weekly format playing rapid catch-up.
This week brings us another classic villain as Kraven the Hunter makes his debut. It really is fascinating to observe the difference between the early Spider-Man tales with the consistent creative team of Lee/Ditko and the shambles that was the initial development of the Hulk, with Stan and a revolving roster of artists. In the same length of time, Spider-Man has a very active supporting cast and a classic back catalogue of enemies, while Hulk is barely the same character issue to issue.
Kraven arrives in New York vowing to hunt down Spider-Man, which he makes a pretty good fist of in this three act tale, despite being out-classed by our hero. Class however, is not something displayed by Peter Parker as he navigates a love triangle (technically a love square with three women) of his own creation, and still has self pity to spare when he ends up alone. I am beginning to suspect that Gwen Stacy jumped.

The long touted mystery free gift is revealed to be a photograph, of what we still do not know.

Speaking of free gifts: note if you will the odd dash of red in our Thor splash page. That is where one young Stephen Lissenburgh was unable to resist the temptation of a chance to win a Spider-Man LP. Well Stephen, thanks to you filling out the competition coupon in this week's issue, I know where you live. I also know your mum or dad helped you with the answers, so if you won the Spider-Man record, it was a hollow victory.
That said, your joint act of vandalism and cheating was in no danger of destroying a classic Thor adventure, as this week we have a daft Thor vs gangsters tale. The only elements of this story worth mentioning are some surprising new powers for the god of thunder, as he displays hidden talents for high speed tailoring, telepathy and most unexpected of all, ventriloquism. If we don't see Chris Hemsworth doing a variety act in the next Thor movie I will be sorely disappointed.