This limited run repurposed the material that also appeared in the MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL magazine issue 19 (which also used that Howard Chaykin cover) and marked the first time that Marvel had chronicled a 007 adventure (they followed up with OCTOPUSSY, from the Marvel UK team). Marvel had apparently been minded to use this as a launching point for an ongoing James Bond series but a deal couldn't be struck with Eon and the proposal faltered.
UK readers belatedly saw this as one of the movie back-up strips during the first year of RETURN OF THE JEDI weekly.
According to this week's Comics Should Be Good (on comicbookresources.com), Frank Miller was likely considered as illustrator. Details are vague, so I wonder if that might have seen a Miller-penned Bond ongoing?
ReplyDeleteInteresting. A bit like when Alan Moore almost wrote ACTION FORCE. Apparently.
ReplyDeleteAlan Moore on Action Force? I'm intrigued. It seems AF was well after Moore's time at Marvel UK (unless it was during its IPC incarnation, maybe?).
DeleteGrant Morrison did a few stories for AF, of course.
ACTION FORCE was announced as a Marvel weekly prior to IPC getting the rights... And Moore was mentioned in one of the zines as the writer. The deal must have fallen through (after Palitoy had issued early trade promotions - posted previously here - that touted the Marvel tie-up.
DeletePick of the week and a must for all starloggers is HE-MAN AND SHE-RA : A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE ANIMATED ADVENTURES.
ReplyDeleteA very hefty, pricey and impressive tome.
Yes. It's a very nice book. More substantial than I imagined. And it looks a great read.
ReplyDeleteI also grabbed the new DK book MARVEL: ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING YOU NEED YO KNOW... which is a nice all-ages read with a great cover.
Passed on the updated STAR WARS CHRONOLOGY (bringing it up to date to this year) and the new ALIENS set photography book.
They've been out for a week or so now but the two volume hardback oral history of STAR TREK are must-reads.
Oddly, the first two volumes of BEST OF STAR WARS MAGAZINE don't seem to have hit stores but are available online. Disappointingly, Titan haven't looked very hard into the archives. Presumably because the magazine used to be different dimensions and maybe because they don't have the original page layouts (if they were done in some long lost software package).
The new Future-published Horror mag is also out. I grabbed a copy but not had a chance to look at it yet.
COMIC BOOK FEVER didn't reach the UK. And BACK ISSUE is late as well.