From June 1986: the next four issues of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS weekly from MARVEL UK.
The big news this month was obviously the arrival of STAR WARS as the third feature, ending the long run of the UK title which launched back in February 1978. Wisely, and in a sign of the times, the masthead didn't become SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS FEATURING STAR WARS (or worse: RETURN OF THE JEDI) and even through the strip continued for a while, it didn't rate another cover.
The SW strip didn't pick up the US continuity from the ROTJ run (placed on indefinite hold for the final months of the run to clear the decks for another outing of the ROTJ movie adaptation from three years earlier) presumably because the continuity was now so far distant (partly because of strict Lucasfilm approvals which prevented Marvel doing anything much with the principle characters) that the menagerie of new supporting cast members and new races would have left casual readers bewildered.
Instead the British Bullpen opted to reprint the third and final US annual (just a double length comic book published outside the regular run rather than a fancy hardback in the British tradition) which presented a relatively self-contained story... with plenty of Darth. British readers of the 1985 annual, where it shared billing with the Ewoks, had already seen it... but it was unknown to the readers of the weeklies.
hard to believe there was a time when the mighty STAR WARS was folded into another on going title.
ReplyDeletedont you mean the 1985 annual ?