1989: COMICS SCENE MAGAZINE ISSUE 6

From February 1989: the relaunched US magazine COMICS SCENE kicks-off 'The year of the Bat' with a preview of the BATMAN movie.

The age of the superhero movie was about to begin...

1988: BATMAN MONTHLY ISSUE 1 (LONDON EDITIONS)

From 1988: the first issue of London Editions' BATMAN MONTHLY UK reprints. With free pin badge still just about attached. 

LE must have thought they were on pretty safe ground with this one. The Caped Crusader had always, along with Superman, enjoyed the highest profile of the DC heroes. That profile was particularly high thanks to what seemed like near-constant reruns of the 1960s TV show in the UK during the 1980s. 

The show popped up a lot across the ITV network, sometimes as a standalone programme and sometimes buried in a larger format like LWT's partially networked NIGHT NETWORK offering. 

Breakfast time operator TV-am had been using the show for a while as part of its weekend schedules, usually as part of the marathon kids show WIDE AWAKE CLUB. When a 24-hour ACTT technicians strike turned into a protracted lockout (followed by dismissal), the broadcaster used the Adam West show (along with FLIPPER, HAPPY DAYS and various already on the shelf animated series) to pad out their 6-9.25 schedule. 

Viewers liked the changes and ratings remained healthy. Although its perfectly possible audiences were just watching to see what technical mishap would strike next. With little or no technical staff left, it fell to management and non-union support staff to grapple with specialist broadcast technology. For months it looked like the station would fall off air at any moment. 

Then, of course, LE knew that the BATMAN movie was currently filming at Pinewood and was already generating some buzz. That anticipation exploded as the release date approached and the film's logo and merchandise became ubiquitous. 

LE were initially careful to select reprints which, whilst not as campy as the strip became in the sixties, weren't to far removed from the tone the general public expected from the character. Despite the mainstream press hype surrounding THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, this new launch was not the place to reprint it. 

As the UK public warmed to the darker tone of the cinematic Dark Knight over the next few years, the editors started to select darker and more contemporary strips to reprint. 

The heightened interest in the Bat Universe allowed LE to expand with a series of specials usually focused on one particular character. The SUPERMAN and BATMAN titles survived the expansions and contractions of the LE line (say hello, and goodbye, to HEROES, DC ACTION, ZONES and SHOCKWAVE) and the merger with Fleetway. The Supes book always looked the weaker and had its frequency reduced. Relaunches followed and both characters eventually found themselves sharing the same title. The writing was on the wall. 

1989: BATMAN MOVIE ADAPTATION (DC Comics)

From 1989: The done-in-one DC Comics adaptation of the BATMAN movie.

DC, unlike Marvel, didn't seem to embrace the idea of stretching adaptations out over multiple issues, either as part of the regular run or (as was the fashion in the Eighties and into the Nineties) as a limited series.  They preferred the one-shot format.  

This is the "floppy" edition.  There was also another, more upmarket, Bookshelf version in a better format and boasting an alternative cover. 

The back cover is the US print spot for the movie itself (which works particularly well as a stylish back cover illo as well) featuring the ubiquitous logo. 

Amidst all the perfectly stage managed hype, BBC TWO's THE LATE SHOW didn't an excellent episode dedicated to all-thing-bat.  I still have my off-air recording somewhere although, if I recalle correctly, atmospherics played merry hell with the signal that night.  Doh. 

1980: WH SMITH MATCHBOX AND CORGI TOYS ADVERT from LOOK-IN

From August 1980: A one-page WH SMITH (love the old 'box' logo... still on the doors of the Cardiff branch... and no doubt throughout the chain with notoriously threadbare carpets and weather-worn stores) advert promoting Corgi and Matchbox toys.

There's a lot of classics on show here, all of these were playground staples in the Star Age and I personally had (and may still have... tucked away in a loft somewhere) the Superman van (and a pink Charlie's Angels variation), the James Bond Lotus, the Wonder Woman buggy (containing a butch-looking WW whom my mum compared to a "Red Indian"), the Batmobile (hard to believe the TV show was already a decade old at this point but ownership of the toy was still a playtime prerequisite) and - best of all - the Supermobile (as plugged in the comic book itself) with spring-loaded "punching fists' feature. 

This advert appeared in a copy of LOOK-IN. 

1988: BATMAN UK Launch Ad (London Editions)

From July 1988: a launch ad for London Edition's UK reprints of BATMAN.

LE were already running a SUPERMAN comic (which is where this ad appeared) and smartly added Batman in anticipation of the 1989 Tim Burton movie.

The ad is deliberately evocative of the Sixties live-action series and sundry spin-offs.  It was still (thanks to near-constant reruns) the incarnation of Bats most familiar to the British public.  LE shifted the tone, and the selection of strips reprinted, over time to better reflect the tone of the movies and (presumably) the rising age demographic of the readership.  UK comics were also entering the "Dark Age" of the early 1990s. 

LE had past form with DC reprints: They published a series of Superman and Batman Pocket Books (unlike Marvel UK... there's were colour) in the late Seventies.  They then launched the black-and-white monthly SUPERHEROES in the early eighties and annuals based on various top level DC characters through sister company World Distributors.  Superheroes and the annuals both often featured new art commissions from British artists.  

SUPERMAN and BATMAN plugged the gap for superpowered fare left by Marvel UK's temporary retreat from the genre following the closure of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS.  The line expanded (and frequently contracted again soon after) with the launches of DC ACTION (plush reprints of the Teen Titans, Animal Man and the Creeper: see here for more), ZONES (classy reprints of Swamp Thing and others), SHOCKWAVE (Animal Man, Black Orchid and Hellblazer: see here for more) and HEROES (weekly reprints of The Legion and Brave and the Bold: see here for more).

London Editions, part of a larger European group, became Egmont and entered into a joint-venture with Robert Maxwell's Fleetway.  After his death, and the collapse of his smoke-and-mirrors empire, Egmont took full control of the Fleetway side of the business.  Superman (always the weaker of the two titles) faltered and eventually the two titles combined... and then shuttered altogether. 

1981: BATMAN DOES CHRISTMAS from THE SUPER HEROES (London Editions)

From December 1981: a UK-only Bryan Talbot festive-themed full colour piece from the back page of London Edition's THE SUPER HEROES (a UK black & white monthly dedicated to reprints of various DC strips of various vintages) volume 2, issue 3. 

1979: BATMAN CORGI TOYS ADVERT

 

The sixties West-and-Ward BATMAN TV show is finally (after years of wrangling and confusion over copyrights between 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers/ DC Comics) about to be released on DVD and BR disc.  Hurrah.  And bad news for convention bootleggers who have been taking advantage of the official void for years.  

To mark the occasion, here's a 1979 UK Corgi Toys advert for their line of vehicle spin-offs.  Yep, more than a decade after the TV show debuted on ABC in the States, the toys were still big business in the UK.  I certainly had the smaller version of the Batmobile and the Bat Boat (I believe they came in a car-boat-trailer combo set of some sort) and friends with better-resourced parents had the larger version with more action features (including the pop-out buzzsaw and rocket launcher).  

The TV show (and, latterly, the movie) had been mainstays of the British TV schedules for decades.  In the eighties, episodes turned-up on ITV (Anglia aired them on a Saturday lunchtime, although I don't know if that was regional or national scheduling), TV-am (ITV's national breakfast contractor) used them as part of their block of weekend early-morning kids programmes and - famously - as strike-breaking schedule-fillers during the prolonged and bitter technicians strike (unable to mount a full service, TV-am management loaded-up the VT machines and played whatever they had in the programme cupboard) and I'm sure the LWT-produced NIGHT NETWORK (a partially-networked, prerecorded overnight programme) also used reruns as part of its line-up.  

More recently, the show resurfaced on BBC FOUR. 

1982: THE ENCHANTED PALACE - MARVEL'S MISSING TV SHOW

Is this a missing Marvel TV show?

I found this April 1982 back issue of British screen trade magazine SCREEN INTERNATIONAL in a second-hand book store and whilst flicking through its pages, I spotted this two-page advert for THE ENCHANTED PALACE, a slice of US kid-vid I'd never heard of.

Over the years, I've become familiar with the bulk of Marvel's small-screen projects but I've never seen this referenced anywhere.  Even a quick Google search this morning reveals nothing relevant and it doesn't feature on either Adam West's nor Lou Ferrigno's IMDB entries.

It's a safe assumption that, despite this publicity, the show didn't drum-up enough pre-launch business (IE sales to local stations) to actually go into production.  Reading the advert, that's not entirely surprising.  It sounds pretty dire and pitched at very young (pre-school?) kids.  Another example of Marvel's eighties management willing to license their characters to almost any project, no matter how inappropriate.

But, it sounds like it might have been a fascinating small-screen collision of Marvel and DC heroes.  And any chance to see Adam West reprise BATMAN can't be sniffed at.  Ferrigno would have been just coming-off the Universal INCREDIBLE HULK TV show, which wrapped-up the same year.

The other stills look like Marvel loaned the producers the costumes that they used for personal appearances by Marvel characters (although I've not seen the slightly-rubbish Thing one before).

But - the big question is - was any of this actually shot?  Are they just publicity stills or were they taken whilst shooting a pilot episode?  Is there a lost Marvel (and DC) show out there somewhere?  Is there another chance to see West and Ferrigno in action?  If there was a pilot shot, did Ferrigno participate?  That still looks like ones I've seen before from the Universal show.  West, on the other hand, does conceivably look like he's on-set.

Anyone know anything?

4 APRIL 1982

1991: BATMAN/ JUDGE DREDD: JUDGEMENT ON GOTHAM INTERVIEW (Comics Interview)

Tharg has a new hardback collection of JUDGE DREDD's DC Comics crossovers coming out at the end of the month (collecting, according to Amazon, Judgement on Gotham, Vendetta on Gotham, The Ultimate Riddle, Die Laughing and Psycho Bikers vs. Mutants from Hell).  So, by way of a Starlogged tie-in, here's a couple of interviews with the Judgement on Gotham creative team (Alan Grant and Simon Bisley) from COMICS INTERVIEW.

I recall a lot of print publicity about this landmark team-up at the time (it became a best-seller for DC and Fleetway, thanks in part to the numerous editions published on both sides of the Atlantic) but this is the most detailed piece I've unearthed.

Now... If only the two publishers (or IDW, who are about to launch their own licensed JD title) would sort out a reprint of the two (long-forgotten) original JD comics (JUDGE DREDD and JUDGE DREDD: LEGENDS OF THE LAW) that DC hoped would bask in the afterglow of the 1995 Dredd movie (they closed after 18 and 13 issues respectively).