1981: THREE MARVEL UK TITLES THAT NEVER WERE (Probably)

From August 1981: Is this the British Bullpen's equivalent of Assistant Editors Month?  The week that some Ballpenner rashly announced three new titles... none of which actually appeared (unless you know otherwise).

WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS would have been the logical progression from the three Specials over the past couple of years... Although with Britain's youth fully immersed in the Star Age, its hard to imagine a long line forming at the newsagents to grab copies of creaky Marvel cowboy reprints.  

Did the SUPERTRONIC SPECIAL, dedicated to all-things-gizmo, ever surface?  I've certainly never seen a copy although, given its subject matter, it's unlikely to have had much appeal to collectors.  Computer and tech mags were a boom business in the Eighties but Marvel (at least in the UK... they had BLIP in the States) didn't capitalize.  

The impending TIME BANDITS one-shot may have been a reference to imported copies of the US Super Special Adaptation rather than a specific British edition.  But, either way, I don't think it happened.  The US adaptation came from the British creative team of Parkhouse and Lloyd but, ultimately, the only UK outing was as a back-up strip in the pages of RETURN OF THE JEDI weekly.  

This page also makes the bold statement that the much-missed glossy covers would not be making a comeback... but, of course, they did... within months.

This page appeared in MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE issue 15 (cover-dated 12 August 1981)... and probably the other weeklies as well.