STARLOGGED - GEEK MEDIA AGAIN: May 2012

Thursday, 31 May 2012

1980: NORTHSTAR in FORCES IN COMBAT

To celebrate Northstar's engagement and upcoming wedding, here's an early (and rare) cover appearance of our headline-making hero from Marvel UK's FORCES IN COMBAT.

It's a reprint of Machine Man's encounter with Northstar and his Alpha Flight companions from US MACHINE MAN 18 (published stateside just a couple of months earlier with a December 1980 cover date).

His blonde hair isn't a M-UK mistake. He was incorrectly coloured on the cover and interior pages of the original US issue.

At this point, nobody knew quite how important Jean-Paul Beaubier would become in gay culture and pop culture.

Alpha Flight's ongoing series (launched in 1983) became a regular supporting feature in M-UK's MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS until being forced out by the page-devouring SECRET WARS II.

We'll have a full review of FORCES IN COMBAT soon.

1980: VALOUR and FUTURE TENSE LAUNCH ADVERT

In October 1980, Marvel UK launched two new weeklies: VALOUR and FUTURE TENSE.

The fantasy-themed VALOUR didn't last long whilst FUTURE TENSE (bouyed by two mergers including the luckless Valour) couldn't capture the imagination of the Star Wars generation for long (Marvel may have been their own worst enemy here: 1981 saw them also publishing DOCTOR WHO MONTHLY, STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK MONTHLY and, latterly, BLAKE'S 7 MONTHLY).

We'll have a full rundown on FUTURE TENSE SOON.

1985-86: CAPTAIN BRITAIN

After spending the late seventies in post-cancellation purgatory and the early eighties dodging closure (and the accountant's axe) by jumping from one ailing Marvel monthly to another, it finally looked like CB had found a permanent home in December 1984 (with a January 85 cover date) and the launch of his own monthly.

Inevitably, it was not to be and fourteen months later he was officially homeless. For a while. But what a ride.

- Since the cancellation of his own weekly, CB had appeared in SUPER SPIDER-MAN AND CAPTAIN BRITAIN, HULK COMIC (as a supporting character in the Black Knight strip), two all-reprint specials, MARVEL SUPERHEROES (with a new costume and, for the first time, a British creative team), THE DAREDEVILS and (the revived) THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL.

- CB's monthly was an all-British affair, a mixture of new strips and reprints (initially Night Raven and Abslom Daak) from the Marvel UK archive. However, in-house dummy editions featured a different line-up: alongside the new main strip, M-UK had planned to reprint John Bryne's Alpha Flight (which eventually appeared in MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS) and the cross-company X-MEN/ TEEN TITANS team-up (which didn't make it across the Atlantic).

- At first glance, CB monthly offered a less value-for-money package compared with its contemporaries. It boasted an overall reduced page-count and no colour interiors. INDIANA JONES (with no origination costs), in comparison, had more pages and more colour.

- The only free gift was (M-UK favourite) a giant poster in issue 11. If it was intended to boost sales, it didn't work.

- Marvel blamed cancellation on poor sales in the UK. Export copies to North American comic book stores apparently sold well despite the magazine-sized dimensions and black & white interiors.

- After cancellation, and a brief period in limbo, CB moved across to Marvel USA and became a founding member of the UK-based mutant team EXCALIBUR (by ex-Cap creators Claremont and Davis). M-UK reclaimed him for a supporting role in KNIGHTS OF PENDRAGON but, perhaps surprisingly, didn't make him a key part of the early-ninties expansion into North America. After the wholesale annihilation of the US-line (axed during the industry recession which followed the unsustainable boom years), M-UK Editor-in-Chief Paul Neary hatched plans to relaunch CB as a US-format limited series but the plans, and Neary, were canned when Panini took over responsibility for the British subsidery.

ISSUE 1

January 1985

ISSUE 2

February 1985

ISSUE 3

March 1985

ISSUE 4

April 1985

ISSUE 5

May 1985

ISSUE 6

June 1985

Front cover

ISSUE 6

Back cover

ISSUE 7

July 1985

ISSUE 8

August 1985

ISSUE 9

September 1985

ISSUE 10

October 1985

ISSUE 11

November 1985

ISSUE 12

December 1985

Price rises to 60p per issue.

ISSUE 13

January 1986

ISSUE 14

February 1986

Final issue

Editorial page

Farewell... for now.

Wednesday, 30 May 2012

1981: THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN BRITAIN HOUSE AD

After a stint as back-up feature in SUPER SPIDER-MAN weekly and a supporting character in the Black Knight strip in HULK COMIC, Captain Britain finally regained his own strip (with a new costume... and a new British creative team of David Thorpe and Alan Davis) in Marvel UK's MARVEL SUPERHEROES issue 377* (cover-dated September 1981).

*The monthly MARVEL SUPERHEROES retained the numbering of THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL and MARVEL COMIC. The first issue of MSH was actually 353.

V EPISODE REVIEW - EP5: THE SANCTION

THE SANCTION
Mike Donovan discovers his son Sean is, once again, a captive of the Visitors and a willing (albeit converted) participant in their Visitor Youth programme. His decision to rescue him from Diana
puts him against his alien trainer: Klaus.

CHARACTER NOTES

- It takes Robin Maxwell five episodes to make contact with the Resistance at Club Creole.

- Regardless of what Donovan says, he does give up trying to rescue Sean from the Visitors but it doesn't really matter as Diana looses interest in using him to get at Donovan.

GROUND FORCES

- The Visitor motorcycles have no alien markings.

SECURITY ALERT

- The Legation security is hopeless: a single, easily corrupted, guard on the main entrance and no internal patrols. Only Diana notices what Donovan is doing with a teenage boy.

- How is Diana and her guard able to reach Nathan Bates within Science Frontiers without him being alerted that she had arrived and on her way?

- The exterior wall of the Legation appears to consist of a low wall.

- Why don't the Visitors continue their pursuit of Kyle and Elizabeth or call renforcements?

HARDWARE

- When Klaus uses his whip to disable Donovan's van it makes a sound similar to alien hand guns. When he and Donovan fight, it makes a normal whip noise.

THE CULTURE SHOW

- What's with Klaus' scar, it must be cosmetic.

- Klaus' training exercise was a direct lift from the openning of the Bond movie From Russia With Love.

- Why doesn't the garot cut into the faux Diana's fake skin?

- Klaus stongly infers that Sean defeated an alien youth (“One of our own”) yet his blood is red, not green.

RED ALERT

- Klaus may be a relentless tracker... but he can't follow Donovan into an area where the Red Dust is still active.

JEDI MINDTRICKS

- Elizabeth uses her powers at the cinema lobby. The Manager is very heavy-handed with someone who seems to have mental health issues.

OBSERVATIONS
- Sean Donovan looks a little different. It's a different actor (Nick Katt) than in the mini-series (Eric Johnston).
- Despite all his efforts here, Donovan pretty-much forgets about his son again after this episode. True-to-form, the Visitors also make no further attempt to exploit the relationship either.

1976-77: CAPTAIN BRITAIN - PART TWO

The second and final part of our romp through Captain Britain's short-lived UK weekly sees the Red Skull and his Nazi-loving fascist followers continue to threaten the UK (but, don't worry, Captain America will bail us out. Hmmm), the end of colour interiors and - errr - cancellation.

ISSUE 20

23 February 1977

ISSUE 21

2 March 1977

ISSUE 22

9 March 1977

ISSUE 23

15 March 1977

Last colour format issue.

ISSUE 24

23 March 1977

First new-look (black and white with glossy cover) edition.

Free cardboard plane.

MARVEL TEAM-UP reprints added.

The Fantastic Four: "as seen on TV" cover splash refers to the FF animated series, which was being repeated on ITV in the UK.

ISSUE 25

30 March 1977

ISSUE 26

6 April 1977

ISSUE 27

13 April 1977

ISSUE 28

20 April 1977

ISSUE 29

27 April 1977

ISSUE 30

5 May 1977

ISSUE 31

11 May 1977

ISSUE 32

18 may 1977

ISSUE 33

25 May 1977

ISSUE 34

1 June 1977

ISSUE 35

8 June 1977

ISSUE 36

15 June 1977

ISSUE 37

22 June 1977

ISSUE 38

29 June 1977

ISSUE 39

6 July 1977

Final issue. Captain Britain continues in SUPER SPIDER-MAN AND CAPTAIN BRITAIN the following week.

SUPER SPIDER-MAN AND CAPTAIN BRITAIN

ISSUE 231

Title changes (to issue 253) to reflect the merger.

Tuesday, 29 May 2012

1976-77: CAPTAIN BRITAIN - PART ONE

CAPTAIN BRITAIN was something a bit special... A Marvel hero created specifically for the British market. Suddenly, the UK wasn't just a second-hand outlet for old US strips... we had our own hero.

Of course, the devil is in the detail. And, despite Marvel's best intentions, the end result was - errr - a little disappointing. Not least because Marvel's US-based talent (beginning with Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe) apparently had only a tenuous grasp of the UK, apparently gathered from a brief vacation, some old Hollywood movies (which probably never set foot off the California back lot) and some old photos in LIFE MAGAZINE.

- Although Marvel had produced new covers, splash pages and other artwork for the UK line since its inauguration, this was the first time that a brand-new character and strip (excluding Ape Slayer who was, technically, the first Marvel character created for the UK. See PLANET OF THE APES) had been produced specifically intended for the UK weeklies.

- CB was also the first Marvel weekly to run colour interiors. Each issue had 16 colour pages (including the cover), allowing two strips (Captain Britain and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D) to appear in colour. The third (perennial refugees The Fantastic Four) occupied the black & white pages at the centre of the comic. M-UK wouldn't revisit colour interiors for their weeklies until 1983, with varying degrees of success (the printing in WORZEL GUMMIDGE weekly worked whilst THE ORIGINAL X-MEN and THE MIGHTY THOR endured painful teething troubles).

- It cost 10p, a penny more than Marvel's other weeklies. CB was able to keep costs down by sacrificing the glossy covers, a mainstay of the UK line since their introduction in 1974.

- Stan Lee toured the UK, conducting radio, TV and press interviews, to coincide with the launch.

- Marvel presumably thought they were being very clever to incorporate a lion into CB's costume. Unfortunately, the US creators didn't know that the same symbol was printed on British eggs to denote their origin. Oops.

- Occasionally the CB strip ran to one extra page, pushing it into the black & white centre-section. Marvel, rather brazenly, dubbed these 'colour it yourself' pages. Cheeky. It's obvious that these extra pages were never coloured at the time of original production as the crudely coloured page in the CAPTAIN BRITAIN ANNUAL shows.

- The CB strips were always intended to be rerun in the United States, however only a very few ever appeared (as back-up strips) and the plan was swiftly abandoned. It would take Marvel US more than thirty years to finally release the whole run.

- Marvel eventually abandoned the colour printing (presumably the result of falling circulation and a lack of US reprints requiring coloured pages) and switched CB to their standard UK format (glossy covers and b&w interiors) from issue 24.

- Free gifts (all of the cardboard type beloved by M-UK) were a mask (issue 1), a boomerang (2) and plane (24).

- Marvel UK readers could mail away for a crudely constructed Captain Britain costume.

- Spin-off merchandise included jigsaw puzzles and the CAPTAIN BRITAIN ANNUAL (reprinting the main strip from the early issues of the weekly).

- CB's weekly, a victim of poor sales and higher-than-usual production costs, shuttered after only 39 issues, merging with SUPER SPIDER-MAN from issue 231. Surprisingly, the merged weekly continued to run new CB material (the only time, save the four-part Spider-man in the UK adventure in issues 607-610, that the usually all-reprint title ran new material in its history) until issue 247. Issues 248-253 replaced the specially created strips with reprints of US MARVEL TEAM-UP 65-66, pairing the Cap with Spider-man for his US debut. After 253, all CB material was dropped and the weekly's title reverted to SUPER SPIDER-MAN.

- Marvel seemed unsure what to do with CB after his MARVEL TEAM-UP appearance, leaving M-UK (now under the leadership of Dez Skinn) to incorporate him as a supporting character in the UK-originated Black Knight strip running in HULK COMIC. This led to his revitalised reappearance in MARVEL SUPERHEROES (from issue 377, September 1981) and a lengthly run (largely under the auspices of Alan Moore) through THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL (volume 2) and CAPTAIN BRITAIN monthly before a lengthy career in US comics.