1980: DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS COVER GALLERY - PART ONE (Marvel UK)

Pinch! Punch! Happy Anniversary Month!  By the third week of November, there will be no escaping the fact that a certain Timelord (of no fixed abode) is celebrating his fiftieth.  I've got my tickets for the 3D cinema screening on the 23rd.  Hurrah.

I was toying with how STARLOGGED should mark the occasion and I've decided to run a COVER GALLERY for the DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS, spun-off from the Magazine/ Monthly from MARVEL UK.

The weekly launched in late 1979 and Dez Skinn wasted no time maximising his investment in new material by issuing the first "Collected Comics" (not that the term existed yet) the following summer.

The epic DWW opener THE IRON LEGION (Mills, Wagner and Gibbons), surely the MOST reprinted strip in the history of the programme, received a 'compilation repeat' alongside another outing for K-9's FINEST HOUR (from issue 12), superficial text features on the Daleks, Cybermen and the four Doctors-to-date.

Both of these strips would return - this time in colour - in 1985.

Marvel UK opened for business in 1972 but only published its first holiday specials, under the auspices of Skinn, the previous Summer.  Prior to that, the US Treasury Editions (frequently plugged in the weeklies) were seen as filling the gap.

- To Be Continued -