From August 1983: the final four (16-19) of MARVEL UK's ill-fated first colour weekly*: THE MIGHTY THOR. Undone by dated strips and (initially) dire print quality.
As the announcement made clear, Thor was swiftly folded in with THE X-MEN, Marvel's other experimental new weekly (also hindered by the same problems). Although, technically, the X-Men merged with Thor (the numbering carried on where Thor left off), it was treated as a merger of equals with both strips retaining equally billing on the masthead (and space inside) for the nineteen week run (prior to the merger with SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS). They even alternated covers.
It's taken me almost a year to complete this cover gallery. When I had to break away (because of work commitments) from the Blog for a while, this was one of the ongoing topics left hanging. And I forgot all about it when regular posting resumed. So here - finally - are the last few covers.
*CAPTAIN BRITAIN can technically stake that claim... but the centre section (housing the Fantastic Four) was in black & white.
nice to complete some unfinished business...as for the dire print quality....guilty m'lud...it was the irish printers who cocked it up !
ReplyDeleteYes. The official Annex of Ideas explanation, which I think I posted here at some point, was related to the weight/ thickness of the paper being used.
DeleteIn fairness, the first issue of THOR looked fine (apart from a page of out-of-register colour on the back page) but from Week Two onwards (and the first week of the delayed X-MEN) it was a disaster. Quite what changed in a week is unknown.
It does seem a poor show that Marvel and the printers didn't do better pre-launch quality control before pushing ahead with the new technology. It's noticeable that they didn't risk STAR WARS (although that was more to do with the timing of the release of the third film) or SPIDER-MAN before the colour process had bedded-in.