1980: FORCES IN COMBAT

FORCES IN COMBAT was Marvel UK's long-forgotten 1980-81 adventure weekly, a rare departure from the company's default superhero formula.

FiC is often grouped together with (the also long-overlooked) FURY as M-UK's other war weekly but, despite a long run of war-themed covers, the all-reprint line-up was a more diverse mix of strips, dabbling in science fiction, fantasy and horror.

FiC appeared in the "Skinn II" format: retaining the newsprint covers and interiors from Dez Skinn's January 1979 (partial) relaunch of the weeklies but abandoning his policy of reworking the original US artwork to cram in more panels per page.

The line-up of strips included FURY OF THE COMMANDOS, MASTERS OF KUNG FU, ROM THE SPACE KNIGHT, THE RAWHIDE KID, KULL, MACHINE MAN, WULF THE BRITON (a rare non-Marvel reprint, originally published in EXPRESS/ TV EXPRESS WEEKLY), WAR IS HELL (the memorable WWII horror series) and the humour strip I WAS ADOLF'S DOUBLE.

Issues 1-3 reinforced the perception of being a war weekly by giving away free stickers of tanks.

From issue 8 onwards, a conscious decision seems to have been made to make FiC appear to be a war weekly with a run of covers through to 21. The emphasis then switches to a fantasy theme (frequently featuring the Space Knight) for the rest of the run. It's probable Marvel management saw FiC's fluid formula as a way of testing the popularity of various genres, setting the way for the simultaneous launch of FUTURE TENSE (SF) and VALOUR (Fantasy).

This strategy was probably a mistake as it meant FiC was offering similar material to its newly-launched companions. For example, VALOUR had Conan whilst FiC had the very similar Kull. The market for such fantasy fare was presumably limited and Marvel did their best to split it across two weeklies. It's telling that both shuttered within a few weeks of each other in 1981.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN popped-up everywhere in the seventies and (early) eighties: in his own weekly and monthly (the latter ran concurrently with FiC), THE AVENGERS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL and THE MARVEL COMIC. Still to come were CONAN THE BARBARIAN POCKET BOOK and VALOUR.

MACHINE MAN would later become familiar to TRANSFORMERS fans as the original back-up strip for the 1984-launched fortnightly.

ROM THE SPACE KNIGHT continued his adventures in FUTURE TENSE (the only strip to survive the merger) and the early FiC material was rerun as a back-up strip in STAR WARS monthly.

MASTERS OF KUNG FU made its UK debut, at the height of the martial arts craze, in the pages of THE AVENGERS. In 1979, Dez Skinn craftily reworked reprints in MARVEL COMIC as The Specialists, a blatant "borrow" from LWT's THE PROFESSIONALS.

FORCES IN COMBAT merged with FUTURE TENSE... but only for one issue! Although Rom continued to appear until FT itself was canned but the FiC logo received cover billing for only one issue.