Tuesday 9 October 2012

1988: ADVENTURES OF THE GALAXY RANGERS (Marvel UK)


Here's one of Marvel UK's less-successful efforts, although it should be of great interest to collectors and animation fans, ADVENTURES OF THE GALAXY RANGERS.

It was based on the 65-episode animated series of the same name: a Western-in-space with shades of BRAVESTAR and even FIREFLY/ SERENITY. The show, now available on R1 DVD, is actually jolly good thanks to superior animation, high production standards and some good (for the genre) writing.  Unfortunately, the syndicated show didn't make much of an impression in the heavily-satuated US animation market, crowded-out by toy-based rivals.

Marvel UK clearly had high hopes for this comic.  The majority of the contents were UK-originated (collectors take note) but it was scuppered, I suspect, by some unsympathetic scheduling of the TV show.  As I recall, it appeared daily on Children's ITV in a holiday morning slot with little promotion.  That meant a deluge of episodes... and then nothing.

Marvel UK pulled the plug on this fortnightly after a mere 9 issues.  They presumably started making arrangements to roll it into the pages of THUNDERCATS as soon as the sales figures for issue one arrived.  The original strips (possibly on-the-shelf inventory already commissioned for the fortnightly) continued there for a while longer. 

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