Monday, 24 September 2012

1981: MARVEL UK SUMMER SPECIALS


Mystery solved!  Last week, I pondered the year of publication of Marvel UK's first one-shot STAR TREK SPECIAL.  The problem was: the copyright date was 1979 which clearly couldn't be right (the strips reprinted hadn't appeared in the States at that point but - more importantly - I knew Trek wasn't part of the roster of Summer '79 specials.  Online resources weren't much good either, giving other dates that didn't seem to make sense.

After a process of elimination, after considering the format, contents and cover price, I settled on 1981.

Over the weekend, I found this advert (from one of the Marvel weeklies) for the 1981 Summer Specials, which does - indeed - confirm that it did appear in 1981.  Hurrah!

A quick romp through the other offerings - 

CAPTAIN AMERICA - was a companion to the 1981-82 weekly, launched in February that year.

SPIDER-MAN - a web-slinging spin-off from the long-established weekly.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN - Spider-man's two-part MARVEL TEAM-UP with Britain's champion had already been serialised in the pages of Spidey's weekly (as the last hurrah before CB was dumped from the the cover-billing, and the contents, of the title) but it served as a useful warm-up act to CB's upcoming relaunch in the pages of MARVEL SUPERHEROES.

WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS - For some reason, M-UK seemed convinced that British kids were still interested in cowboys.  They churned-out three of these specials but never pushed their luck and tried a regular title.  

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