1981-82: CAPTAIN AMERICA WEEKLY PART.2

The second, and final, part of our look back at Captain America's 1981-82 UK weekly.

Things are about to go (a bit) glossy...

As with part one of this post, I'm missing a few issues so this (unfortunately) isn't a complete run of covers.  But it's close.

ISSUE 37

4 November 1981

Although it officially merges with this issue, MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE (briefly adding Daredevil) doesn't get a cover mention.

The "amazing 1st colour issue" splash is a tadge deceptive.  The only additional colour added with the relaunch was the glossy centre-spread plus the inside front and back covers (always black & white in the past, even with the original glossy covers), adding a whopping six pages of colour per issue (including the already-in-colour front and back covers).  The first "full colour" comics (and, even then, some of the pages were black & white + 1 colour and the rest frequently a murky mess) didn't arrive until 1983.

But, the return of the glossy covers did make Marvel's weeklies significantly more attractive than their IPC and DC Thomson rivals who would continue to use almost-newsprint for several more years.

The new format also cut the overall page count from 32 pages to a mere 24.  Despite the cut, the new format saw the price rise to 20p, a leap of 6p since the comic launched earlier the same year.

The free gift cardboard mask.

ISSUE 38

11 November 1981

ISSUE 40

25 November 1981

ISSUE 41

2 December 1981

ISSUE 43

16 December 1981

ISSUE 44

23 December 1981

ISSUE 46

6 June 1982

ISSUE 47

13 January 1981

ISSUE 48

20 January 1981

ISSUE 49

27 January 1981

A hammer in Hades... a pair of outrageous flairs in the fire!

ISSUE 50

3 February 1982

ISSUE 51

10 February 1982

ISSUE 52

17 February 1981

ISSUE 53

24 February 1981

ISSUE 54

3 March 1982

ISSUE 55

10 March 1981

ISSUE 56

17 March 1982

ISSUE 58

31 March 1982

ISSUE 59

7 April 1982

Cancellation announcement.

Oh the humiliation.  Marvel took the unusual step of cancelling the Cap's weekly but, despite being the star, not bothering to find him a home in another Marvel weekly.  Was it such a disaster that management didn't think it would transfer any new readers to another title?  

Thor took a temporary hiatus (his current strip was hastily wrapped-up by reviving the TITANS tradition of printing two US pages side-by-side on landscape orientated pages) before (briefly) powering back to his own weekly in 1983 (which he was soon forced to share with THE X-MEN).  Iron Man (who never nabbed his own weekly) was the sole survivor, rocketing into the pages of the about-to-launch THE INCREDIBLE HULK (volume 2) weekly.