STARLOGGED - GEEK MEDIA AGAIN: CAPTAIN AMERICA

Showing posts with label CAPTAIN AMERICA. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 July 2016

1981: CAPTAIN AMERICA ISSUE 1 (MARVEL UK)

From February 1981: The first issue, and loosely inserted (all but guaranteed to fall out in the newsagents long before anyone had the chance to buy a copy) free sticker, of MARVEL UK's CAPTAIN AMERICA weekly.

I've cover the bulk of this run in posts long past but I had a few gaps in my collection, including this launch issue. I'd actually forgotten that I'd subsequently acquired a copy and was quite pleased to discover it whilst rummaging.

I planned to post this yesterday for the 4th of July holidays but - typically - the Wi-Fi stopped working so the plan was delayed by 24-hours. Better late than never.

CA wasn't an obvious choice for a British weekly back in 1981 (it would be a no-brainer today) but Marvel did their best to make it a success by abandoning their normal policy of running dusty reprints (or reprints or reprints by this point) in favour of a more contemporary line-up. Including the UK debut of the DAZZLER strip.

The other two strips were Iron Man and - ported across from the RAMPAGE - the Defenders.

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

1981: MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE PART 6 (Marvel UK)

From October 1981: the end is nigh... the final weeks of MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE.

Although it managed to outlive its companion MARVEL ACTION by sixteen issues, MSA didn't really fare much better and followed it into the pages of CAPTAIN AMERICA before the end of the year.

The merger, which saw Daredevil survive but the MSA brand immediately vanish without trace (the first 'merged' issue conspicuously didn't mention MSA anywhere on the cover), coincided with the return of glossy covers (banished from the superhero weeklies since the Marvel Revolution of early 1979) and it's possible that the Bullpen deemed MSA unworthy of the upgrade... or they believed that marginal sales wouldn't survive the increased cover price (a 5p jump to 20p a copy).

The CAPTAIN AMERICA weekly, which also included Thor from the Marvel Action merger, was also on borrowed time. This second merger, combined with the relaunch, pushed it into the following year but it was still cancelled in April.

The Black Panther didn't fare quite so well and the end of MSA marked the last regular outing of the character in the UK line.

Note the use of the word "newstand" in the half-page ad for the merger. It might have been common parlance in the States but barely used here in the UK.

BTW, for some reason I didn't scan the cover of issue 23. I'll add it next time I have a scanning sesh.

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

1981: DAZZLER HOUSE AD for CAPTAIN AMERICA Weekly (Marvel UK)

From 1981: DAZZLER gets a moment in the spotlight when MARVEL UK pick her out of the pack (which also included Iron Man and the Defenders) as a good reason why people might want to buy the new CAPTAIN AMERICA weekly.

This House Ad appeared in April.

Friday, 23 January 2015

1982: ALAN DAVIS WOLVERINE POSTER (Marvel UK)

From 1982: Alan Davis renders Wolverine for the centre-page spread in CAPTAIN AMERICA weekly issue 54 (3 March 1982).

Monday, 12 January 2015

1982: ON SALE THIS MONTH: CAPTAIN AMERICA Weekly Issue 47 (Marvel UK)

On sale this week back in early 1982: the 47th issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA from MARVEL UK.

This is from the final phase of the weekly: after the merger of MARVEL ACTION (which added Thor and the Fantastic Four) and MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE (which added Daredevil) and now adorned with glossy covers and centre-spreads.

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

1980: MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE WINTER SPECIAL (Marvel UK)

The MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE WINTER SPECIAL 1980 was a one-shot mix of The Defenders, vintage Sub-Mariner and Iron Fist.

Although none of the strips made the cut, the title was revived the following May for a new weekly featuring longer (compared with the existing pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap(ish) Dez Skinn philosophy) instalments of DAREDEVIL (shuffled from the just-dead MARVEL TEAM-UP) and Black Panther.

The weekly notched-up 26 issues before merging with CAPTAIN AMERICA.

Wednesday, 12 June 2013

1983: THE MIGHTY THOR by BOB WAKELIN (Marvel UK)

I must admit that I've never been much of a fan of THOR (to the extent that I had very low expectations of the film... and was very pleasantly surprised by how good it was) so I gave his 1983 colour weekly a wide berth. I still don't have many issues (mental note: I need to do something about that some day) but I stumbled across this lone issue in a charity shop at the weekend and was struck (ahem) by this impressive cover by British artist Bob Wakelin.

THE MIGHTY THOR earns a footnote in the history of the Annex of Ideas by being the first of the (initially disastrous) colour weeklies.

The Thunder God had been knocking around the British line since the dawn of Marvel UK (actually earlier: the sixties strips were part of the Power Comics line-up) but this was his first (and only) solo outing (CAPTAIN AMERICA took the back-up slot, a reversal of the final weeks of his own early-eighties weekly. See here for more).

The weekly survived 19 issues before absorbing fellow colour weekly THE X-MEN, which was launched two weeks later (it should have appeared a week later but there was a hold up at customs on its way from the Irish printers). THOR AND THE X-MEN (split half/half between reprints of Thor and sixties X-Men) survived another 19 weeks. The 39th issue was the last. Both strips continued briefly in (a rather packed) SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS. See here for more.

Friday, 8 February 2013

1981: "GENUINE BULLET LUCKY TALISMAN" AD (Marvel UK)

File under: What were they thinking?!?

From CAPTAIN AMERICA weekly (Marvel UK), December 1981.

Wednesday, 2 May 2012

1981-82: CAPTAIN AMERICA WEEKLY PART.2

The second, and final, part of our look back at Captain America's 1981-82 UK weekly.

Things are about to go (a bit) glossy...

As with part one of this post, I'm missing a few issues so this (unfortunately) isn't a complete run of covers. But it's close.

ISSUE 37

4 November 1981

Although it officially merges with this issue, MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE (briefly adding Daredevil) doesn't get a cover mention.

The "amazing 1st colour issue" splash is a tadge deceptive. The only additional colour added with the relaunch was the glossy centre-spread plus the inside front and back covers (always black & white in the past, even with the original glossy covers), adding a whopping six pages of colour per issue (including the already-in-colour front and back covers). The first "full colour" comics (and, even then, some of the pages were black & white + 1 colour and the rest frequently a murky mess) didn't arrive until 1983.

But, the return of the glossy covers did make Marvel's weeklies significantly more attractive than their IPC and DC Thomson rivals who would continue to use almost-newsprint for several more years.

The new format also cut the overall page count from 32 pages to a mere 24. Despite the cut, the new format saw the price rise to 20p, a leap of 6p since the comic launched earlier the same year.

The free gift cardboard mask.

ISSUE 38

11 November 1981

ISSUE 40

25 November 1981

ISSUE 41

2 December 1981

ISSUE 43

16 December 1981

ISSUE 44

23 December 1981

ISSUE 46

6 June 1982

ISSUE 47

13 January 1981

ISSUE 48

20 January 1981

ISSUE 49

27 January 1981

A hammer in Hades... a pair of outrageous flairs in the fire!

ISSUE 50

3 February 1982

ISSUE 51

10 February 1982

ISSUE 52

17 February 1981

ISSUE 53

24 February 1981

ISSUE 54

3 March 1982

ISSUE 55

10 March 1981

ISSUE 56

17 March 1982

ISSUE 58

31 March 1982

ISSUE 59

7 April 1982

Cancellation announcement.

Oh the humiliation. Marvel took the unusual step of cancelling the Cap's weekly but, despite being the star, not bothering to find him a home in another Marvel weekly. Was it such a disaster that management didn't think it would transfer any new readers to another title?

Thor took a temporary hiatus (his current strip was hastily wrapped-up by reviving the TITANS tradition of printing two US pages side-by-side on landscape orientated pages) before (briefly) powering back to his own weekly in 1983 (which he was soon forced to share with THE X-MEN). Iron Man (who never nabbed his own weekly) was the sole survivor, rocketing into the pages of the about-to-launch THE INCREDIBLE HULK (volume 2) weekly.

1981: CAPTAIN AMERICA WEEKLY - PART ONE

In February 1981, Marvel UK launched their most patriotic British periodical to date: CAPTAIN AMERICA. Hmmm.

Published in what we call the "Skinn II" format, CA retained the almost-newsprint-quality non-glossy covers and black and white interiors but didn't partake in Dez Skinn's old habit of reformatting the existing US pages of age to squeeze more panels per-page and more strips per-issue.

Captain America is one of those rare comics which actually got better over its run. The line-up of strips benefited from two mergers and the glossy covers (and new glossy centre-spreads) returned from issue 37.

The initial four strip line-up offered two must-reads (contemporary Cap. Am. and Iron Man reprints) alongside two make-weights: The Defenders (ex of RAMPAGE) and Dazzler. Really.

The demise of MARVEL ACTION added Thor and The Fantastic Four, allowing The Defenders to bow out and squeezing all the other strips to increase the overall line-up from four to five.

Bigger changes accompanied the merger of MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURES. Daredevil joined the line-up and glossy covers reinstated (coinciding with Spider-man relaunching as SPIDER-MAN TV COMIC to capitalise on the live-action TV show and the opportunity to publish glossy stills from the show as well as new-launch SCOOBY DOO).

The Captain's final months were obviously being used to test the popularity of Thor with the Thunder God being prominently featured and securing several cover slots, including the final issue. Marvel management must have already been looking ahead to their 1983 launches and the coming of the colour weeklies.

Unfortunately, I'm missing several issues (including the first. Doh!) so this isn't a complete run of covers. But it's pretty comprehensive.

ISSUE 2

March 1981

ISSUE 5

25 March 1981

ISSUE 6

1 April 1981

ISSUE 7

8 April 1981

ISSUE 8

15 April 1981

ISSUE 9

22 April 1981

ISSUE 10

29 April 1981

ISSUE 11

6 May 1981

- Best - Cover - Ever -

ISSUE 13

20 May 1981

The cover price rises a penny to 15p. And then drops back to 14p the following week. Issue 13: unlucky for some!

ISSUE 14

27 May 1981

ISSUE 15

3 June 1981

ISSUE 16

10 June 1981

ISSUE 17

17 June 1981

ISSUE 18

24 June 1981

ISSUE 19

1 July 1981

ISSUE 20

8 July 1981

ISSUE 21

15 July 1981

MARVEL ACTION merges (don't be misled by the masthead which implies that it's the reverse situation), adding Thor and the Fantastic Four. The Defenders fail to make the cut.

The cover splash may boast "The best of two comics for the price of one" but that's not entirely true, the price sneaks up a penny to 15p!