1984: BARON IRONBLOOD MASK HOUSE AD (IPC)

This is the IPC house ad, published in weeklies dated 6 October 1984, promoting the BARON IRONBLOOD cardboard mask giveaway in the following week's copies of EAGLE AND SCREAM!, TIGER and (of course) BATTLE ACTION FORCE.

I'm sure the giveaway was bankrolled by Palitoy as a way of drumming-up a bit of extra business for the toys in the crucial pre-Christmas sales period.

The mask, which (sadly) I no longer have (despite having at least two at the time: I was a regular reader of both Eagle and BAF), was a flimsy cardboard affair which, when elastic was added, made you look (a bit) like Action Force's bucket-headed villain.  Why anyone at Palitoy thought the Ned Kelly look was a good one is beyond me (although the mighty Hasbro made a similar blunder with G.I. JOE: Cobra Commander first appeared with a tea towel as a disguise).

The top of the page is a plug for the third of the (new) EAGLE ANNUALS.  Click here for a full rundown. It's weird to think that, by 1984, it had already become a Birthday/ Christmas tradition.  

1984: EAGLE OCTOBER ISSUES (IPC)

Here's a cover gallery for the four issues of EAGLE AND SCREAM! with October 1984 cover dates. The highlight of the month was, undoubtably, the cardboard BARON IRONBLOOD mask inserted into the 13th October issue.  Now you too could look like the bucket-headed bane of Action Force's life!

1980: STAR TREK US MONTHLY (Marvel Comics)

In this post: Spock... the Barbarian!

I surprised myself when I realised that, despite having been posting geek artefacts from yesteryear for over a year, I'd never got around to posting the covers to Marvel's ill-fated STAR TREK US monthly comic book.  So I'm correcting that oversight, in two posts, starting... now.

This eighteen issue run has a reputation, not entirely undeserved, of being pretty poor stuff.  Which - of course - means that it has a certain charm.  

Blessed with the unexpected success of STAR WARS, the House of Ideas actively snapped-up as many of the late seventies Wars wannabes as possible and this formed part of their trinity of tie-ins along with Star Wars and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.  

Marvel's legal guys sold the (ever changing) creative team a pup by only signing a licensing deal that covered THE MOTION PICTURE and left the two TV incarnations strictly off-limits.  TMP didn't exactly contain many plot points worthy of further exploration, leaving Marvel to cobble together a succession of (mostly single issue) stories that read like poor third season instalments of the TV show.  So - in that sense - they got it right.  

These are generally better than the old Gold Key issues (familiar to British readers thanks to the STAR TREK ANNUALS) because at least you get the impression that the writers and artists have at least watched the TV show, even if they don't really know how to interpret it.  

Marvel surrendered the license after 18 issues despite knowing that a second movie was on the horizon.  Presumably sales were so poor that Marvel felt a second movie would do little to reverse the trend.  It's also possible that paramount were offering the second movie as a separate license and Marvel didn't see the value in renegotiating.  After a hiatus, DC picked-up the rights (which now included all the screen incarnations to date) and did a much better job of it.  

The eighteen issue run, all set in the period after TMP and generally regarded by fans as being the beginnings of a second five year mission, was reprinted in the UK in FUTURE TENSE weekly/ monthly and in two one-shot holiday specials.  

After being out-of-print for decades (but relatively easy to find in the back issue boxes), IDW reissued the entire run in one welcome omnibus edition.  It's worth a look.  

Marvel's movie adaptation first appeared as a glossy Marvel Super Special (see here for a complete run) before being rerun as the first three issues of the monthly book.  In the UK, it appeared in the STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE ANNUAL (Marvel/ Grandreams) and Future Tense. 

For more about FUTURE TENSE: go here and here.

For the Marvel UK STAR TREK SPECIALS: click here and here.

ISSUE 1

April 1980

ISSUE 2

May 1980

ISSUE 3

June 1980

ISSUE 4

July 1980

ISSUE 5

August 1980

ISSUE 6

September 1980

ISSUE 7

October 1980

ISSUE 8

November 1980

ISSUE 9

December 1980

ISSUE 10

January 1981

- TO BE CONCLUDED - 

1994: MARVEL HEROES AND VILLAINS... IN THE FLESH (Marvel UK)

Who were these masked miscreants? 

This motley assembly of masked Marvels appeared as a full page photo-poster in THE EXPLOITS OF SPIDER-MAN issue 18 (cover-dated 9 February 1994) and - presumably - shows the entire contents of Arundel House's dressing-up box.

I assume it was taken on the roof of the Annex of Ideas, as previously seen in the Spider-man photo-strip that I posted way-back-when last year (here).  

For some reason my eye is particularly drawn to Wolverine.

Marvel UK used these costumes for a number of personal appearances around this time.  I posted a video of their appearance in the London Lord Mayor's Show here and I have some more scans, again from The Exploits of Spider-man, still to post.

I immediately assumed these were Marvel UK staffers of the period but - equally - they could have been models hired for the day.  Does anybody recognise anyone from this rouges gallery?

1978: TALES OF TERROR (Portman Distribution)

TALES OF TERROR, alongside CASTLE OF HORROR (see previous post), was the other title reprinting Marvel's scare-fare from the US 'mature readers' (years before the description became part of common parlance) magazine line.  Both were made possible by a mix-up in Marvel's hallowed halls which allowed interloper Portman Distribution to license reprints, circumventing Marvel UK.

Five issues appeared monthly in 1978 before the deal was unravelled, apparently following complaints from the Annex of Ideas.

1994: THE 'REAL' DEATH'S HEAD II (Marvel UK)

This impressive full-page pic, nicely showcasing Marvel UK's DEATH'S HEAD II costume (used for publicity purposes and public appearances), appeared in THE EXPLOITS OF SPIDER-MAN issue 17, cover-dated 12 January 1994.

I think it was snapped very close to their Arundel House HQ.

I wonder what ever happened to it?

1995: METAMORPH II (Fanzine)

METAMORPH II was the successor to SHADOWSPHERE from the same editor and stable of writers.  Unsurprisingly, in followed pretty much the same formula in terms of subjects covered, writing style and format.

The first issue appeared early in 1995 with subsequent issues appearing roughly quarterly until (at least) Autumn 1997.  The final two issues tampered with the format slightly and appeared as two specials, devoted to women in SF and British telefantasy.

I've posted the covers for each along with the SHE-WOLF OF LONDON (love that show!) episode guide that appeared in the first issue (Shadowsphere and Metamorph II were pretty much the only magazines, amateur or professional, to give the long-forgotten Anglo-American show any serious coverage) as a sampler of the contents.  

ISSUE 1

Winter 1995

ISSUE 2

Spring 1995

ISSUE 3

Summer 1995

ISSUE 4

October 1995

ISSUE 5

Spring 1996

ISSUE 6

Summer 1996

ISSUE 6 SUPPLEMENT

ISSUE 7

Autumn 1996

ISSUE 8 - KINKY BOOTS AND SKIMPY SUITS

Spring 1997

ISSUE 9 - FLYING THE FLAG

Autumn 1997

1978: CASTLE OF HORROR (Portman NOT Marvel UK)

CASTLE OF HORROR, along with its companion TALES OF TERROR (a future post folks), is one of the great oddities of the Starlogged years: regular UK format comic magazines reprinting Marvel material... but not actually published by Marvel UK themselves.

These fall into the gap between the cancellation of the weekly DRACULA LIVES! (the Tomb of Dracula reprints continued in PLANET OF THE APES, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL and MARVEL COMIC) and the launch of CHILLER POCKET BOOK which utilised much of the same material from Marvel's US colour comics (Dracula, Man Thing, Werewolf By Night, Ghost Rider and others).

Launched in 1978, these two magazine-format monthlies were published by Croydon-based Portman Distribution and reprinted, under license, material from Marvel's US line of black & white horror magazines (Vampire Tales and Tales of the Zombie).  They were initially overseen by Alan McKenzie (latterly of Marvel UK proper).

I stumbled across these titles by accident in the back issue bins and its taken me a while to piece together a full collection and any background information.

I initially assumed that Marvel UK had contracted-out the work because they either felt uncomfortable with the material or they felt it was insufficiently lucrative to bother with (not that it ever stopped the Annex of Ideas reprinting a host of other short-lived duds).  Reading McKenzie's website, it seems that the licensing deal was done directly with the States and it took the UK operation a while to spot what was going on.  Once they belatedly cottoned on, they complained to head office and the deal was immediately terminated.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only time throughout the history of Marvel UK (excluding annuals and other books) that Marvel material was licensed-out to another publisher.

That explains why neither ran past five issues although, typically, Marvel UK didn't launch in-house replacements until the short-lived MONSTER MONTHLY, capitalising on the horror movie boom (and replacing Chiller which sunk along with the survivors of the Pocket Books line in 1982), early the next decade.

1993: SHADOWSPHERE (Fanzine)

SHADOWSPHERE was a nineties British fanzine dedicated to (as the byline suggests) 'cult media', published by the delightfully-named. Zach Farquharson-Waugh.

I was reading this during my first year at university and I really enjoyed it.  I loved the quality of the writing and also the diversity and broad mix of the contents.  It also helped that it was a really nicely put together package, the layouts were clear and crisp and the print and paper quality high.  I still periodically return to them for another flick.  

After a hiatus, it returned as METAMORPH 2 with a similar look and editorial remit.  I'll post those covers in the near future.

I never saw this for sale in any shops, I always ordered my copy by sending a cheque in the post.  I wasn't a subscriber so I imagine I responded to adverts in TV ZONE or DREAMWATCH.

Posted below are the four issues I have along with a sample article, about the brilliant VIRTUAL MURDER, by way of a sampler.  

I suspect the cover to the fourth issue lost some detail in the printing process... but it's still jolly eye-catching.

1984: BUCKAROO BANZAI PRINT AD

Here's a text-heavy US print ad (published in Marvel comics - and possibly elsewhere - in October 1984) for the cult movie (and, to my mind, acquired taste) BUCKAROO BANZAI.

The "major Marvel comic" turned out to be the usual (for the time) movie adaptation double offering in glossy Super Special magazine format (issue 33) and two-issue limited series.