1986: MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS UK STICKER ALBUM

From 1986: The MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS STICKER ALBUM.

Buyers of MARVEL UK's 1986 weeklies will be familiar with this one... the (empty) album came bagged with copies of SECRET WARS II issue 66, SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS issue 31 and TRANSFORMERS issue 81.  All cover-dated 4 October.  So, if you were a True Believer, there was a good chance you ended up with three of the things!

The following week's issues all included a packet of stickers to help fuel the addiction.

The timing of this one seemed a bit weird back-in-the-day.  MARVEL UK was deep into the sprawling SECRET WARS II saga (the weekly switched storylines, and title, from issue 32) and the original Battle World romp seemed a little like ancient history.

Secret Wars - probably because it lacked the support of an animated series (although this album did briefly spark playground rumours that one was on its way) - never became the same mass marketing event in the UK that it was in the States... but we did get some spin-off merchandising, including the Mattel action figures that sparked it all.

As for the album itself: it basically takes the Jim Shooter-created premise of the original limited series and fleshes it out with more events, as illustrated in the not-seen-in-the-comics page below.  Maybe Shooter should get more credit for creating a scenario where - in theory - the heroes and villains could encounter an unlimited number of new threats and challenges.  Much like the we're-on-a-quest SF shows of the 1970s.  Except they never seemed to last long.

The artwork is uncredited throughout.  The panels are not lifted directly from the comics so I assume they were probably done by one (or maybe a team) of jobbing artists somewhere.  It must have kept them busy for a while... which may explain the relatively late launch.

The events of the sequel are - possibly because it was something of a sprawling mess - ignored.

The giveaway didn't seem to have much of an impact on my peers.  Unlike the TRANSFORMERS album given away earlier in the year, no one I knew (including me) bothered with this one.  Maybe it's because superheroes weren't quite as cool in the mid-eighties or maybe it lacked the all-important shiney cards (a gimmick nicked from football sticker collecting).  The art - whilst cool - couldn't compete with actual animation stills as seen in the TF collection.

Marvel Productions did - btw - punt the idea of a Secret Wars animated series to the US broadcasters but couldn't find any takers.

This isn't one of the three albums I ended up with that week.  All are now long-gone.  I found a completed copy (result!) in a store and couldn't pass up the chance to finally own it.

1987: MARVEL UK ANNOUNCES THE CLOSURE OF SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS

From February 1987: MARVEL UK announce the impending closure of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS one week after announcing that the ZOIDS strip would be spun off into a solo title.

1987: MARVEL UK ANNOUNCE THE LAUNCH OF ZOIDS MONTHLY

From February 1987: Marvel UK announces the impending launch of the new ZOIDS monthly in the pages of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS issue 49.

1987: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 49-51 (MARVEL UK)

From February 1987: the end of an era... The last issues of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS and the end of a (near) continuous British run for the Web Slinger stretching back to 1972 (and, indeed, earlier).

SPIDER-MAN had, unsurprisingly, been one of the "big three" (along with the Hulk and the Fantastic Four) which launched THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL back in 1973. Six months later, he graduated to his own weekly which - through numerous title and format changes - ran for 666 issues until December 1985 (although many would say it ended when it morphed into the unloved juvenile THE SPIDER-MAN COMIC earlier in the year).

After a three-month hiatus, Spidey returned to anchor this new weekly, sharing his billing with Tomy's ZOIDS toys. A sign of the times.

SM&Z was an attractive weekly read with two strong title strips and a rotating third slot which flip-flopped between experimenting with new strips and providing a last resting place for one-time top sellers which had fallen on hard times.

However, because the contemporary Spider-man strips were readily available through imports sold in comic book stores and newsagents, the real attation was the originated Zoids strip. From humble beginnings as a promotional insert across the range, it had established itself in a brief pre-Christmas run in SECRET WARS.

The next stage of evolution was to have been to spin the strip off into its own standalone monthly which could be sold on both sides of the Atlantic. However, don't bother searching the 50p boxes for back issues... something changed at the last minute and Marvel abandoned the plan (and, presumably not coincidentally, scrapped the run of Collected Comics specials as well) leaving the completed first issue to languish in a Bullpen filing cabinet.

Such was the dire state of superhero publishing at the time that Marvel felt that a solo Spidey title simply could not survive. The cancellation of the weekly, after less than a year, not only marked the end of an era for one character but also ended, for several years, any ongoing superhero comics published by the British Bullpen. They simply no longer fitted with a publishing plan governed by licensed properties. It's telling that the anthology THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC only occasionally flirted with superheroes and, when it did, it was to pilot the appeal of the Green Goliath ahead of the launch of THE INCREDIBLE HULK PRESENTS. That weekly lasted a mere twelve issues.

London Editions renewed their association with DC Comics and stepped in with a range of titles anchored by BATMAN and SUPERMAN. Some ran for years, some only months, but the line did enjoy reasonable success.

Marvel waited until 1990 to launch the bumper-sized four-weekly THE COMPLETE SPIDER-MAN which found its niche by cramming together the ongoing US books in a
value-for-money precursor to today's COLLECTOR'S EDITION range (launched, in the dying days of Marvel UK, in 1995).

Spider-man had made his official UK comics debut in the pages of Odham's POW weekly, beginning with the first issue, in January 1967. The strip also appeared in the dying days of TV21 towards the end of the decade.

1987: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 44-48 (MARVEL UK)

From January 1987: New Year: New Merger as SECRET WARS II folds into SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS as the (fairly) long-running weekly (nee fortnightly) succumbed to MARVEL UK's traditional First Quarter deck clearing, it wouldn't be the last.

Marvel had already spread the Christmas cheer by bumping up the cover price by 5p at the end of the previous year. Bah humbug.

The first issue of the New Year was also the first to boast cover prices for North America, Quite how extensive the distribution was, and whether US readers embraced a weekly where two-thirds of the contents were serialized reprints, albeit better presented, is unclear.

The brief run of STRIKEFORCE: MORITURI reprints bowed out in issue 45 in order to make way for the merger of SECRET WARS II the following week. The second title with the initials SW to be absorbed. The joy of the SWII enterprise was that Marvel could keep the weekly going for as long as sales allowed by simply slipping in more non-core reprints in between the main issues and official crossovers. Once sales began to nudge cancellation point, they could simply ditch the less relevant stuff and rush full tilt to the climax.

Issue 80 of SECRET WARS II reprinted the end of the official limited series, leaving SM&Z to pick up the coda that, although badged as SWII herein, actually appeared in an issues of THE AVENGERS in the States.

Readers didn't realise it at the time but SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS was about to follow its companion into cancellation...

1987: STAR BRAND LETTER IN SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS (MARVEL UK)

From January 1987: Whatever happened to the Star Brand?

Regular readers of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS probably weren't that shocked to see another change in back-up strips when Star Brand was jettisoned after a brief run. After all, they had already seen three other strips fill the "third slot: and also extended periods where the Spidey strip was extended to fill out the extra pages.

But Nic Cooper cared enough to fire off a letter to the London Bullpen... And received a pretty mature and sensible response. This harkens back to the Seventies when Marvel's editors still gave detailed (and occasionally verbose) responses to the points readers raised.

If Nic, or anyone else, still wants to know what happened next: Marvel have just published a trade paperback reprinting the first ten or so issues along with some supplementary material from MARVEL AGE MAGAZINE. But shop around as this isn't the first time the early issues have been collected in book form so you may be satisfied with an earlier outing... which might also be cheaper. A second volume, collecting the post-Shooter installments of what should have been the New Universe's headline series, is due in July and will feature previously unreprinted material from the end of the run.

This page originally appeared in SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS issue 44.

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 40-44 (MARVEL UK)

From December 1986: The final four issues of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS weekly for the year.

It may be coincidence but its interesting that the bulk of the covers were devoted to the Web Head despite appearing in the run-up to Christmas and the peak period for toy sales. Could it have been that the British Bullpen were testing the appeal of Spider-man whilst formulating plans for splitting the title to allow the ZOIDS to go solo in 1987?

The Spider-man strip was also a crossover with concurrent issues of SECRET WARS II.

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS 35 - 39 (MARVEL UK)

From November 1986: A bumper month for MARVEL UK's SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS weekly.

The Spidey strip continued the crossover with SECRET WARS II which kicked-off the previous month. A canny, and fairly unusual, way of cross promoting the two weeklies by encouraging the readers of one to sample the other. That combined readership, however, must still have been pretty small as both titles were defunct within the next couple of months. The crossover fan between issues 33 and 36.

Other things happening in an eventful month: the STAR BRAND strip bowed out after a brief run in issue 37. If you want to know what happened next Marvel have just reissued the first ten issues as a trade paperback collection. The British Bullpen did eventually explain why they curtailed the run... and I'll post that sometime soon. Redan Place's commitment to the New Universe was transitory at best and they dropped this and SPITFIRE AND THE TROUBLESHOOTERS (in THE TFANSFORMERS) pretty promptly.

The following week marked the arrival of STRIKEFORCE: MORITURI, another non-core US strip presumably deemed self-contained enough to work well for a British audience.

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 31-34 (MARVEL UK)

From October 1986: the next four issues (31-34) of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS, published by MARVEL UK.

Twas the month for gifting with no less then three issues including some form of crowd-pleasing bonus. The biggie came at the start of the month: the MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS STICKER ALBUM. This loose adaptation of Shooter's first series felt a little like ancient history at this point considering Marvel UK were deep into the sequel. But it was still a welcome surprise.

It also sparked playground rumours that a SECRET WARS movie, TV show or animation was imminent. We associated sticker albums with screen properties and assumed this was a similar venture. It wasn't. Instead it featured new uncredited art. It seems that Marvel Productions were trying to pitch an animated Secret Wars series but either the superhero adverse networks nixed the idea or soft sales of the toy line deterred Mattel from investing the cash required to get a show into first-run syndication.

Issue 32 followed with, as tradition dictated, more stickers for the album as a second hit to get kids addicted to the new collecting habit. More stickers were, of course, available from local pushers - err - newsagents.

Although it sparked a fair bit of debate, the free album didn't translate into a playground collecting frenzy and I don't remember anyone persevering beyond the freebies. Maybe we were a little too old for that sort of thing... or maybe superheroes really did need a movie or TV show to really snag our interest.

Tomy, with both eyes fixed on the crucial Christmas toy season, pitched in with a ZOIDS poster the following week.

October closed out with a UK cover featuring the heroes of all three strips. The only time that STAR BRAND snatched the cover slot and a special rare Zoids cover that didn't actually feature any of the toys.

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 27-30 (MARVEL UK)

From September 1986: the next four issues of MARVEL UK weekly SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS.

The first three issues of the month continued to publish just the two titular strips with the extra pages freed up by dropping the third feature allocated to the Spidey reprints. The Zoids strip, with its weekly deadlines and higher origination costs, was restricted to its traditional page count. 

Issue 30 boasted both a revised cover design (possibly intended to make the masthead less unwieldy, although the size and prominence of the toy logo looks locked and possibly contractual, leaving Spider-man to suffer the shrinkage) and the return of the third strip. 

The cynic in me suspects that STAR BRAND was selected because it just happened to be written by Jim Shooter, the US Editor In Chief who was a recurring visitor to the British Bullpen during his period at the top. What better way to keep the New York office happy than to reprint Shooter's strips? The concurrent SECRET WARS II was also one of his. 

It also demonstrated, along with the SPITFIRE AND THE TROUBLESHOOTERS strip in THE TRANSFORMERS, that the British Bullpen were backing the NEW UNIVERSE. The new publishing line contracted and then collapsed soon after Shooter was shown the door by Marvel's new corporate owners (New World) and Marvel UK dropped both strips as soon as it looked dignified to do so. 

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 22-26 (MARVEL UK)

From August 1986: a bumper month of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS.

Issue 22 quietly marked the end of an era. Eight years after the launch of STAR WARS WEEKLY (in February 1978), the last Marvel UK SW reprint (the serialized rerun of the 1983 US annual) appeared herein. The spin-off Ewoks and Droids strips continued to appear (the former in their own monthly, the latter in Specials and the pages of THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC) but, for Luke and co, their saga stopped here. 

Marvel didn't rush to fill the gap and, for the rest of the month, simply extended the Spidey strip by the requisite number of pages. 

The 24th issue did, however, feature the results of a Tomy toy promotion as a bonus third booking. Participants had been asked to pick up a Marvel produced leaflet in toy stores and conclude a brief story by revealing a new Zoid design. The winner appeared here but never in the main strip. 

Issue 26 joined in Marvel's 25th anniversary celebrations (pegged to the publication of Fantastic Four issue 1, in the States, in 1961). The celebratory US border design was adopted here (and on SECRET WARS II) with the crucial addition of Captain Britain and Megan to fill the gap left for the barcode box in the original US design (British weeklies were still a barcode-free zone). The reworked US cover also, inadvertently, teased Venom... several years before the character was even conceived. Good going British Bullpen. 

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 18-21 (MARVEL UK)

From July 1986: issues 18 - 21 of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS weekly from MARVEL UK. 

It's a stable three-strip line-up this month with the STAR WARS story continuing alongside the two titular mainstays. 

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 14 - 17 (MARVEL UK)

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. 

1987: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 9-13 (MARVEL UK)

From 1987: the May issues (a five week month!) of MARVEL UK's SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS weekly.

The two title strips (one originated, one reprinted) continued throughout. The Fantastic Four reprints, occupying the flexible third slot, bowed out with issue 11 and the vacant pages were given over to an extended allocation of Spidey pages whilst the British Bullpen shuffled their line to prepare for the next merger. 

BTW: Can you still say "Ghettoblaster"? The hardware must seem positively antique to today's MP3/ Bluetooth speakers generation. 

Next week... June. 

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 5 - 8 (MARVEL UK)

From April 1986: issues 5-8 of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS, published by the Annex of Ideas: MARVEL UK.

The British Bullpen had clearly paid whatever debt they had with the makers of the SECTAURS toys (although adverts for the toy line continued to appear sporadically throughout the entire run of the title) allowing Marvel to switch the third strip to their first choice (as announced in the final issue of the original Spidey run the previous December) the Fantastic Four. 

The FF reprints hailed, I think, from issues 272 and 273 of the American run, an odd superheroes-SF-cowboys amalgam from the John Byrne run. Whether this was a deliberate choice to appease distributors convinced that superheroes wouldn't sell is unclear but its certainly an atypical choice to kick off with. As things turned outt, this was the only run of FF strips to appear. 

The free gift attached to the cover of the fifth issue (in addition to the loosely inserted Zoids sticker inside) seems to have varied depending on where the copy was purchased. My copy had a little moulded Spidey which was supposed to sit atop your pencil (by ramming the blunt end up his Spider-butt. Matron!) but I'm pretty sure I saw other copies with another gift attached. Maybe Marvel couldn't secure enough stock to meet the demands of the entire print run...?

Next week: May!