1991: DC HEROES Weekly

Monday, 28 May 2012

1991: DC HEROES Weekly

Dial "H" for Heroes, dial "C" for cancelled.

This is a blink-and-you-missed-it (and, judging by its hasty cancellation, pretty much everyone did) DC-centric weekly from those guys at London Editions Magazines (LEM). And, like many of their other offerings (DC ACTION, ZONES and SHOCKWAVE) it couldn't even muster an official last issue, quietly vanishing without trace after only two months.

- Each issue reprinted, under license, THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, THE LEGION OF SUPER HEROES and BLUE DEVIL.

- Heroes was pitched at a younger audience than the rest of LEM's DC line: more of an "all-ages" title.

- The Brave and the Bold allowed Heroes to showcase a second DC hero alongside Batman without the complicated continuity of the mainstream Batman titles. Marvel UK used the Spider-man-centric Marvel Team Up reprints in the same way.

- Issues one to three came with free cover-mounted postcards (reproduced below) showcasing famous DC covers.

- Batman, already the star of his own UK title (as well as the quarterly BATMAN PRESENTS), was (of course) flavour of the month thanks to the feature film series.

- The Flash, teamed with Batman in issues 4-6, had recently starred in his own live-action TV series (unseen in the UK at this point). Issue 4 features a competition to win the pilot episode on VHS. The TV series, very much in the Batman movie style, ran (ahem) for a single season.

- The weekly was cancelled after only 8 weeks, presumably as soon as the sales figures for the first issue became available. The decision was so hasty that the contents of the ninth issue (replacing Blue Devil with the Green Arrow) were announced, as usual, in the eighth.

- Issues 9-13 were certainly planned... and announced in the usual Definitely Collectable (geddit?) column for May 1991. Amongst the unseen highlights: The debut of the Green Arrow and Black Canary (issues 9-10) followed by Firestorm (from 12), a Batman/ I-Vampire team-up (issues 10-12) and Batman/ Scalp Hunter (from 13). Issue 13 was billed as "not a bad issue, really" although we only have editor Martin Gray's word for it.

- In common with other LEM titles (don't they know collectors like to catalogue these things?), there's no cover dates on any of the issues so we've used on-sale dates.

- SHOCKWAVE, also launched in 1991 (replacing the defunct ZONES and DC ACTION, albeit in a cheaper format) also shuttered around the same time without warning. BATMAN, SUPERMAN and BATMAN PRESENTS all continued.