1983: SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS CHRISTMAS COVER (Marvel UK)

From 1983: More festive web-slinging from the Annex of Ideas!  The specially-commissioned cover for MARVEL UK's SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS (the then-current incarnation of the long-running weekly) issue 564.

1983: SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS WINTER SPECIAL (Marvel UK)

Another seasonal Spidey one-shot from MARVEL UK: The SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS WINTER SPECIAL from 1983.

The title, of course, is derived from the Marvel Productions animated series which made its' NBC debut in 1981 but took another two years to hit BBC ONE's schedules.  The regular Spider-man weekly adopted the TV tie-in title (despite not having contents that matched the format of the show) between issues 553 (12 October 1983) and 578 (4 April 1984).  This Winter Special appeared during this period.

The main reprint, lurking behind a nice uncredited new cover, is a reprint from US MARVEL TEAM-UP ANNUAL 6 featuring the Web Slinger, the New Mutants and Cloak and Dagger.

Deprived of much in the way of TV tie-in material (Marvel New York only adapted one episode of the Amazing Friends TV show), Marvel UK tried to justify the title by running an extended batch of Team-Up strips featuring, yup, Spider-man's amazing friends.  Crafty.

I can't be certain but this may well be the first appearance of The New Mutants in an M-UK title.  

1984: NBC SATURDAY MORNING TV PRINT ADVERT

Here's an example of what used to be an annual tradition: the appearance of adverts hawking the US Fall Saturday Morning schedules on the three US networks, published in US comic books.

For British readers, these were early indicators of what we *might* see on UK screens over the following few years. The BBC and ITV had strict limits on the amount of imported cartoons they could show so - if the shows crossed the Atlantic at all - it might be more than a year before they hit British screens.

At this time, the networks and Saturday mornings were still the main place to find kid-vid.  Cable was starting to make inroads but their children's offering was often limited or restarted to off-network reruns.    Weekday afternoons were generally given over to shows aimed at adults (soaps, audience shows and gameshows) although syndicators were starting to make inroads with off-network (and often toy-related) fare like HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, THE TRANSFORMERS, G.I. JOE and numerous wannabes.  

Someone slap me if I'm wrong but I don't think any of the traditional broadcast networks offer a kids schedule on Saturdays anymore. 24-7 (or thereabouts) cable has made it a redundant (and far less commercially viable) proposition. 

This particular ad is from Marvel comics dated December 1984.  Thanks to the three-months-ahead cover dates used on comics at the time, this would have gone on sale September/ October time... just in time for the start of the new season.  By the time sea freight copies reached British newsagents it probably WAS December!

NBC was the top-rated network in both primetime and Saturday morning at this point (thanks to the runaway success of - of all things - THE SMURFS) so the big spending network splashed out for the centre pages of Marvel's December editions.  This originally appeared as a double-page spread but my scanner isn't large enough so I've chopped it into two single pages.

1988: MARVEL ACTION UNIVERSE OPENING TITLES

Here's the opening titles for Marvel's 1988-91 syndicated programming block MARVEL ACTION UNIVERSE, followed by the titles for one of its constituent parts: SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS (originally aired on NBC in 1981).

The anthology, not to be confused with the later MARVEL ACTION HOUR, was never seen in the UK.

1983: SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS AT MARVEL UK

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has been released in British cinemas this week so Slow-Robot is looking back to another "amazing" Spidey screen project: the SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS animated series.

The Saturday morning cartoon, an early entry from Marvel Productions, premiered on NBC in 1981.  It was conceived as a rival to the well-established SUPER FRIENDS series, featuring DC's A-list characters, which had aired on ABC since 1973.  So blatant was the intention that Marvel's series had the working title 'Spider Friends'.

The show, a regular Marvel Team-Up featuring Iceman and Firestar, took two years to reach the UK, finally arriving in the autumn of 1983.  Marvel UK were primed to capitalise, and changed the name of their long-running weekly to coincide with the BBC ONE premiere.

Unfortunately for Redan Place, Marvel US had done very little to tie-in with the TV show.  Their only direct tie-in was a December 1981 one-shot adaptation of the opening TV episode: Triumph of the Green Goblin (the TV episode itself borrowed heavily from the Revenge of the Green Goblin instalment of the 1981 syndicated Spider-man cartoon).

Marvel UK serialised this one-off across issues 553-555 of the weekly, running it alongside their continuing in-continuity US reprints.  With the TV tie-in material exhausted, the weekly dropped all elements directly related to the TV show but retained the title (tenuously justified by various other heroes appearing in Marvel Team-Up reprints).

The relaunch was accompanied with a run of free gifts (see House Ads below), all of which had been previously announced in the Bullpen Bulletins page as being the launch gifts for another, untitled and ultimately unpublished, weekly.

Ice Man DID start making regular appearances from issue 567 (18 January 1984) by virtue of the failure of THOR AND THE X-MEN (cancelled after 39 issues) and the absorption of both strips as Spider-man supporting features.

The Amazing Friends title was abandoned after issue 578 (4 April 1984), reverting to simply SPIDER-MAN.  It was also used on the 1983 SPIDER-MAN WINTER SPECIAL although, again, the contents had no connection with the TV show.

Surprisingly, Marvel UK never attempted to capitalise on the TV show by reissuing the Triumph adaptation as a special or annual.  It eventually resurfaced in the MARVEL SUPERHEROES ANNUAL 1989.

The 1984 ICEMAN limited series was initially announced as an upcoming reprint in SPIDER-MAN but eventually appeared in MARVEL SUPER-HEROES SECRET WARS.

The 1986 FIRESTAR four issue limited series, placing the TV-created character into the Marvel Universe proper, was never reprinted by Marvel UK.

Marvel New York did create two further contemporary Amazing Friends adventures although both only appeared as regional promotions in free newspaper inserts.  One of which, Danger in Denver (inserted in a 1983 edition of the DENVER POST) promoting a Denver department store, subsequently appeared in Marvel UK's THE SPIDER-MAN COMIC issues 634-635 (May 1985), the first of the new format for younger readers.  The relative limited distribution of this story makes it fairly rare although the reproduction in the weekly (apparently taken from actual copies of the US original) is fairly poor.

The other insert (with the DALLAS TIMES HERALD) promoted, of all things, a performance of the ballet The Nutcracker by the Dallas Ballet.  Marvel UK, unsurprisingly, passed.

As an aside, Marvel bundled reruns of Amazing Friends into their syndicated MARVEL ACTION UNIVERSE animation package (also featuring ROBOCOP, DINO-RIDERS, DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH, THE INCREDIBLE HULK and SPIDER-WOMAN) in 1988, leading to a further reprinting of the Triumph of the Green Goblin adaptation as a MARVEL ACTION UNIVERSE tie-in.

SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS

553

12 October 1983

554

19 October 1983

555

26 October 1983

SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS - UK HOUSE ADS

THE SPIDER-MAN COMIC

634

4 May 1985

1984: MARVEL PRODUCTIONS IN 1984/85

COMICS FEATURE 33

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1985

Throughout the 1980s, Marvel's West Coast animation off-shoot MARVEL PRODUCTIONS was responsible for many familiar animated series (and several long-forgotten).  The studio was previously DePatie-Freleng (of PINK PANTHER fame) and was acquired by Marvel in 1980 to spearhead their expansion into areas seen as being more 'future-proof' than the core comics business.

Stan Lee, of course, departed Marvel's New York offices to relocate to California to become MP's creative director, chief pitch-man and sometime TV show narrator.

Principally created to exploit Marvel's own creations (the company's remit always included live-action film, TV and theatre but it never seemed to expand out of animation), it enjoyed its greatest success in partnership with Hasbro's marketing agency Sunbow as a producer of toy-based animation.

Former Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter (dismissed from Marvel mid-decade.  More on that from Slow Robot in future) has claimed in his excellent blog that Marvel Productions only appeared profitable because the accountants budgeted the shows on the assumption that Marvel would enjoy a regular revenue stream from reruns and, eventually, go into profit once the initial costs of making the shows was covered.  But, according to Shooter, Marvel's deals were on a work-for-hire basis and the company had no profit participation.  So, if Marvel didn't cover all its costs up-front (and Shooter claims they didn't), they had no further income to push them into profit.

With no apologies for running a second Marvel-themed COMICS FEATURE article so soon, Slow Robot presents this excellent article from early 1985 (which would have been penned sometime in 1984).  Some notes follow.

SLOW ROBOT NOTES:

SPIDER FRIENDS (which sounds awfully like DC's rival, and more successful SUPER FRIENDS) was the working title for SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS.  Heatwave, obviously, became Firestar.

MEATBALL AND SPAGHETTI really did exist although it appears to have never run in the UK.  Here's the title sequence:

THE TRANSFORMERS.  According to Jim Shooter's blog (here again), Marvel Productions had a very different plan for how to realise the Robots in Disguise.  Hasbro opted to use the ideas concocted by the comics creatives across all media.  The pitch artwork shown below the box artwork presumably reflected MP's thinking (with kids as 'pilots').

PANDOMONIUM appears to have never gone into production.

MUFFY IN CAR AND CABLE.  The Transformer-a-like Bumblebee-wannabe, which has something of the GOBOTS about it, never happened.

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS.  The artwork contains a few differences in design and colouring compared to the finished series, which ran on CBS and BBC ONE.  And never had an official first or last episode.

The pitch artwork for IRON MAN, ANT MAN and (new creations) THE MONSTRESS and THE ALIENS didn't sell.

HOWARD THE DUCK never became an animated hero but did become an infamous George Lucas live-action mis-fire.

HULK HOUND and TEEN HULK, unsurprisingly, went nowhere.  

DAREDEVIL AND LIGHTNING THE SUPERDOG did sell to ABC after Mark Evanier wrote a series bible and pilot script.  But according to his account, an executive at Marvel Productions pissed-off someone at ABC and the project was swiftly dumped.

And, finally, here is the memorable MARVEL PRODUCTIONS logo that appeared (unless the BBC faded it too soon or cut it off) at the end of their shows after Marvel were acquired by New World Entertainment in 1985.  It contains similar design elements to New World's own logo.