1985: MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS UK EDITION - PART ONE

Let the SECRET WARS super-powered slam-jam begin!


Slow Robot's ongoing celebration of (what would have been) Marvel UK's 40th anniversary (1972 - 2012) continues with MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS/ SECRET WARS II, which reprinted the two US limited series (originally 12 and 9 issues respectively, and A LOT of crossovers).

Secret Wars featured a lot of new, UK-commissioned, cover designs unseen elsewhere.  As well as the occasional UK-created strip.

VITAL STATISTICS

80 issues

27 April 1985 - 10 January 1987

TITLES

MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS (Issues 1-9)

SECRET WARS (10 - 19)
SECRET WARS FEATURING ZOIDS (20 - 26)
SECRET WARS (27 - 31)

SECRET WARS II (32 - 80)

FREQUENCY

Fortnightly (1 - 10)

Weekly (11 - 80)

ISSUE 1

27 April 1985

Reprints US MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS issue 1.

Free gift rub-down transfers loosely inserted into copies.

Card "War World" backdrop for transfers attached to centre pages.

ISSUE 1

Free transfers

ISSUE 2

11 May 1985

First "appearance" of Marvel UK's Secret Artist.

ALPHA FLIGHT back-up strip begins.  Reprints had previously been pencilled-in for CAPTAIN BRITAIN monthly pre-launch.

Free giant poster with spaces to attach sticker badges (free with issues 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11).

Free cover-mounted Captain America sticker badge.

Removing the cover-mounts usually resulted in tearing making undamaged copies with the gift removed hard to find.

Surplus sticker badges were also cover-mounted to SECRET WARS II issues 64 & 65, SPIDEY COMIC 653 and RETURN OF THE JEDI 123.

ISSUE 3

25 May 1985

Free Doctor Doom sticker badge.

ISSUE 4

8 June 1985

ISSUE 5

22 June 1985

Free Magneto sticker badge.

ISSUE 6

6 July 1985

ISSUE 7

20 July 1985

Free Wolverine sticker badge

ISSUE 8

3 August 1985

ISSUE 9

17 August 1985

Free Enchantress sticker badge.

ISSUE 10

7 September 1985

Title change to SECRET WARS.

Free cover-mounted Kellogg's Corn Flakes model airliner mini-kit.  Kits were also given away free with SPIDEY COMIC 652 and RETURN OF THE JEDI 114.

ISSUE 11

14 September 1985

First weekly issue.

Free Spider-man sticker badge (last in collection).

Ice Man limited series back-up strip, previously announced for SPIDER-MAN weekly, begins.

Alpha Flight continues.

ISSUE 12

21 September 1985

Free ZOIDS (insert 2) four-page insert.

ISSUE 13

28 September 1985

ISSUE 14

5 October 1985

ISSUE 15

12 October 1985