STARLOGGED - GEEK MEDIA AGAIN: 1975: THE SUPER-HEROES

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

1975: THE SUPER-HEROES - PART ONE

Today, it's back to 1975, and Marvel UK's weekly anthology THE SUPER-HEROES.

Unlike M-UK's other weeklies to date, this feels like a particularly lacklustre effort pooling The X-Men and Fantastic Four supporting player Silver Surfer in solo action.

It should have been a does-what-it-says-on-the-cover action anthology but it really feels like Marvel New York had nothing much left in reserve for this one, making it largely forgotten today.

- THE SUPER-HEROES is not to be confused with the later monthly DC THE SUPERHEROES (from London Editions), MARVEL SUPERHEROES (the 1979-launched monthly successor to MARVEL COMIC) or even HEROES (the short-lived 1991 DC reprint weekly).
- The initial line-up was the Silver Surfer and The Uncanny X-Men. Reprints of Doc Savage were (briefly) added, from issue 23, to coincide with the campy George Pal flopbuster movie). Savage was replaced by long-forgotten Marvel heroine The Cat and Giant Man. Continuing the trend of distinctly also-rans, The Scarecrow joined from issue 41, followed by Bloodstone from 45. Marvel Two-in-One (The Thing's low key version of Marvel Team-Up) started the same issue, just in time for cancellation with issue 50.
- THE SUPER-HEROES merged with Spider-man to form the long-winded SUPER SPIDER-MAN AND THE SUPER-HEROES from issue 158 (21 February 1976). To accommodate the merger, Spider-man switched to the controversial landscape 'Titans Format'.