1982: THE INCREDIBLE HULK SUMMER SPECIAL 1982 (Marvel UK)

Another Mighty Marvel UK seasonal one-shot: THE INCREDIBLE HULK SUMMER SPECIAL 1982, published alongside the second incarnation (launched in May) of the Green Goliath's weekly.

1980 - MARVEL UK SUMMER SPECIALS

This is a MARVEL UK House Ad for their SUMMER SPECIALS from 1980…

WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS was the first of three specials that raided Marvel's infrequently-seen Western back catalogue.  I've posted about these here.

The CAPTAIN BRITAIN SPECIAL drew from some of the later (possibly because they were originally published in black & white) CB solo strips from a few years earlier.  Dez Skinn dusted off a few more for the pages of HULK COMIC.

WARRIOR WOMEN was an unusually edgy entry starring Shanna and others.  Find the cover here.

YOUNG ROMANCE is one of the rarest Marvel Specials of the period and seldom resurfaces in the secondary market.  That's probably because Marvel's usual collectors and readers passed at the time.  It still spawned the similar YOUNG ROMANCE POCKET BOOK.

1983: STAR WARS SUMMER SPECIAL 1983 (Marvel UK)

A few weeks ago, whilst blogging about FINALLY getting hold of the elusive THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL SUMMER SPECIAL 1983, I mentioned how hard it is to track down a copy of this: the 1983 STAR WARS SUMMER SPECIAL.

Well, at the weekend, I finally tracked-down (completely by chance, whilst rummaging through a pile of Marvel UK SW comics) this battered copy.  I paid exactly half the sticker price.  

Despite being one of M-UK's top-sellers, and having published Summer and Winter Specials since 1979, this is the first time that Marvel had published a spin-off special (excluding the annuals, a fixture since Christmas 1978) from the weekly/ monthly.  Presumably this was down to a lack of surplus strip material to run.

This was published in the summer of 1983... the summer of RETURN OF THE JEDI.  Yet... it makes no effort to attach itself to the movie hype machine.  It feels very much like a late-out-the-stargate ESB spin-off.

Significantly (and this may explain why it exists at all: a second chance to recoup the origination costs), this collects four of the UK created strips originally created for the ESB/ SW MONTHLY.  Quite why these strips were ever needed in the first place (other than to give work to UK creators) remains something of a mystery as the monthly reprint schedule should have - for the most part - fixed the supply problems of old.  

This UK run of strips is known collectively as DEVILWORLDS (the title of one of the strips, not reprinted here) thanks to a two-issue reprint collection from Dark Horse Comics in 1996.  The long out-of-print limited series published the strips in colour for the first time.

Death Masque was omitted (presumably because of lack of space) from the DH editions, making this its only reprint.

Although Flight of the Falcon shares its name with a video game, there's no direct connection between the two.

Marvel UK published several more Summer, Winter and Christmas specials.

Originally published in:

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 157.

Originally published in:

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 156.

Originally published in:

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 151.

Originally published in:

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK 149.

1981: MARVEL UK SUMMER SPECIALS

Mystery solved!  Last week, I pondered the year of publication of Marvel UK's first one-shot STAR TREK SPECIAL.  The problem was: the copyright date was 1979 which clearly couldn't be right (the strips reprinted hadn't appeared in the States at that point but - more importantly - I knew Trek wasn't part of the roster of Summer '79 specials.  Online resources weren't much good either, giving other dates that didn't seem to make sense.

After a process of elimination, after considering the format, contents and cover price, I settled on 1981.

Over the weekend, I found this advert (from one of the Marvel weeklies) for the 1981 Summer Specials, which does - indeed - confirm that it did appear in 1981.  Hurrah!

A quick romp through the other offerings - 

CAPTAIN AMERICA - was a companion to the 1981-82 weekly, launched in February that year.

SPIDER-MAN - a web-slinging spin-off from the long-established weekly.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN - Spider-man's two-part MARVEL TEAM-UP with Britain's champion had already been serialised in the pages of Spidey's weekly (as the last hurrah before CB was dumped from the the cover-billing, and the contents, of the title) but it served as a useful warm-up act to CB's upcoming relaunch in the pages of MARVEL SUPERHEROES.

WESTERN GUNFIGHTERS - For some reason, M-UK seemed convinced that British kids were still interested in cowboys.  They churned-out three of these specials but never pushed their luck and tried a regular title.  

1979: TV HEROES SUMMER SPECIAL (Marvel UK)

Here's a relative rarity from the Skinn era of Marvel UK: the TV HEROES SUMMER SPECIAL, released as one of the eight initial offerings in the summer of 1979.

The TVH one-shot was, like several of the specials published that year, intended as a pilot to test the feasibility of an ongoing incarnation.  The MAD-inspired FRANTIC made the cut, as did (later in the year) the STAR HEROES and MARVEL SUPERHEROES winter specials.

TVH was unusual as it was an attempt to launch a TV-based companion to Dez Skinn's own STARBURST (which Marvel, of course, acquired when they acquired Skinn's services).  Unlike Starburst, TVH was not a rousing success and the idea was never heard from again.

The one-shot was a text-based affair with articles on a number of TV shows.  The colour was cover although the interior was black & white on cheap paper, a format that did little to enhance the reproduction of stills.

Skinn has later said that he was looking at establishing a raft of new launches with "heroes" in the title. 

1982: MARVEL UK SUMMER SPECIALS

Here's a House Ad for Marvel's 1982 UK Summer Specials.  Note how the advert, which ran across the UK range, demonstrates M-UK's legendary attention-to-detail by omitting a key word!

To - briefly - run through each:

DRACULA was a strangely-timed (wouldn't this sell better in the darker months of autumn or winter?) TOMB OF DRACULA reprint.  It appeared alongside Marvel's latest attempt at a regular horror title (following DRACULA LIVES and CHILLER POCKET BOOK), the long-forgotten MONSTER MONTHLY (8 issues in 1982). 

ROM I've covered this in its own posting but, just to note, despite a varied UK run, this is the SpaceKnight's only UK solo outing.

SPIDER-MAN was, of course, still appearing in his own weekly (currently in its SPIDER-MAN TV COMIC incarnation).  

THE INCREDIBLE HULK was currently appearing in his own weekly, the second within two years.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR appeared here several months before the launch of their own (albeit short-lived) weekly (their second UK solo title) and probably acted as a pilot for the new title.  

1983: THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL SUMMER SPECIAL

Is there something geeky you've been looking for for so long that you begin to doubt that it even exists?

I don't mean you've seen it but didn't buy it (from a Geek Fair dealer or on eBay but at a price you couldn't quite justify at that moment).  I mean you have NEVER seen it. Ever.  Not when it was first published and not in the intervening decades of trawling second-hand book shops, charity shops, comic book stores, geek fairs and anywhere else such goodies may occasionally be found stuffed in an unloved box in the corner).

This THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL SUMMER SPECIAL 1983 is one such item which I FINALLY tracked down and bought online last week.  It wasn't very expensive.  Nor does it seem to be particularly desirable.  It's just elusive.

Maybe Marvel printed less copies.  Maybe the distribution was particularly shoddy.  Maybe everyone who bought a copy loved it so much (unlikely) that it's never left their collection.

I knew the special existed thanks to this Summer 1983 House Ad which ran across the Marvel UK line, including in the specials featured.  Over time I've tracked down copies of each and ever one (with the exception of the STAR WARS one, and that's always going to be harder to find because it features some of Alan Moore's SW strips originally published in the monthly).  Even the SPIDER-MAN FUN BOOK (a compilation of puzzle pages and SPIDEY SUPER STORIES reprints, effectively a primer for the 1985 relaunch of THE SPIDER-MAN COMIC) proved easier to find.  And I doubt that flew off newsagents shelves at the time.

THE OFFICIAL COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE FOR GREAT BRITAIN also listed it.  But that wasn't a sure sign it was ever actually published.  Maybe they had just looked at the same advert I had and assumed it was out there.  Somewhere.

So elusive was the one-shot that I began to assume it had never been published.  Maybe Marvel had cold feet at the last moment.  Maybe distributors didn't want to carry it.  Maybe there was a problem at the printers and the presses never rolled.  Maybe it never left the warehouse and was still sitting somewhere, bundles of them turning more yellow with every passing year.

Periodically I would type the title into eBay and see if anything appeared.  It never did.  Until last week.  And now it's mine (ironically I nearly missed out on getting it again by forgetting to bid).

It's nothing particularly special although it is, in its own way, mildly historic.  It's the first MWOM (Marvel's first weekly, of course) published by Marvel UK since the ailing weekly was rebooted, by Dez Skinn, as MARVEL COMIC in early 1979 (the lineage of the weekly can actually be tracked all the way through the short-lived Marvel Comic to MARVEL SUPERHEROES and onto the second THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL.  But we'll get to that in a mo).  

It also roughly coincides with the launch of the second MWOM.  Exactly which appeared first is lost to the mists of time (they both officially appeared in June 1983) which means its unlikely that Marvel considered this a pilot for the new monthly.  But, despite appearing around the same time, there's nothing in the special to point people to the regular comic.

The choice of strips is also a little odd.  The Mighty Thor was a M-UK mainstay, bouncing from title-to-title. The special coincided with the launch of his own (short-lived) full-colour weekly.  The special even includes a time-sensitive house ad (the special would be on sale all summer) for the launch issues of both THOR and THE X-MEN.  The Incredible Hulk was something of a safe bet, with a strong mainstream media profile.  He also didn't have his own summer special that year.  Of course, he was also a mainstay of the original MWOM (as well as having two solo weeklies) so, maybe, Marvel were milking the nostalgia factor.  The strip, which dates all the way back to 1971, had almost certainly appeared in the original MWOM although I don't have the issues to hand.

The format is glossy cover and centre-spread with black-and-white interiors.  The back cover was the ubiquitous DOCTOR WHO/ CYBERMAN t-shirt advert which I've discussed in a previous post.  

The cover is an original piece by Gary Leach and also forms the glossy centre-spread poster.  One has to wonder what came first: the contents or the artwork.  If it's the latter, did Marvel pick strips that matched Leach's work?

None of this is intended to suggest that this is a valuable comic.  It might be rare but doesn't seem to be desirable.  It just eluded me for so long that I really wanted to see what was in it.  For me, it was an annoying gap in my knowledge of the Annex-of-Ideas output.

Mystery solved.

SUMMER SPECIALS 1983

Originally published in THE MIGHTY THOR 323 (September 1982)

Originally published in THE INCREDIBLE HULK 142 (August 1971)

1985: THE SUMMER OF '85: MARVEL UK'S SUMMER SPECIALS

It was the summer of 1985... and that meant one thing... Marvel's Summer Specials.  Any regular readers of Marvel's weeklies and monthlies couldn't avoid knowing about these six one-shots thanks to heavy and incessant plugging courtesy of the ubiquitous house-ad that ran (and ran) for months.

Make no mistake, these were pricy beasts, costing £1.20 each compared with under 30p for Marvel's regular weeklies (still a mix of colour and black & white interiors) and show that Marvel's thinking was heading towards "summer annuals" even through newsagents racked these with the regular comics rather than treating them as premium items.

M-UK had been foolin' around with the album format for a while but these, for the first time, boasted better printing and interior paper stock, accompanied by a price rise from 85p to £1.20.

Each special was 52-pages (including the card-stock covers), square-bound with full-colour interiors.  They were printed by Proost.

A further four Winter Specials were released in the same format later the same year, but these would be the last.  In 1986, Marvel returned to a more traditional format: releasing specials at far lower (and variable depending on the page count of each title) price points.  They more closely resembled normal comics, albeit with full-colour interiors and better paper stock than the weeklies.

The first Summer Specials from M-UK were introduced by Dez Skinn in the summer of 1979.  Prior to that, Marvel considered the occasionally widely distributed imports of US Treasury Editions and Marvel Super Special as being the equivalent.

THE A-TEAM SUMMER SPECIAL

US REPRINTS:

Diamonds are a thief's best friend (from US THE A-TEAM 1)

Who kidnapped Kuramoto? (from US THE A-TEAM 2)

NOTES:

The third issue of the US limited series appeared the following summer.

A TV tie-in strip also appeared in TV COMIC before transferring to LOOK IN.

DOCTOR WHO SUMMER SPECIAL CLASSIC

REPRINTS:

The Iron Legion (from US MARVEL PREMIERE 57-58)

K-9's finest hour

NOTES:

Although these strips originally appeared in black & white in DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY, these are the colour versions of the strips published in the US in MARVEL PREMIERE.

The oft-reprinted The Iron Legion had previously been reprinted, albeit in black & white, in the DOCTOR WHO SUMMER SPECIAL 1980.

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE SUMMER SPECIAL

US REPRINTS:

The key to Castle Grayskull (US MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 2)

Within these walls (US MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE 3)

NOTES:

Based on the Mattel action figures.

This appears to be the rarest of the 1985 specials: hard to find at the time and very rarely turning-up today.

These strips are reprinted from DC Comics, the first time (excluding the UK edition of the SUPERMAN/ SPIDER-MAN crossover) M-UK reprinted material from their US 'distinguished competition'.

The MOTU license then transferred to London Editions Magazines (LEM) who published a range of tie-ins.  

Marvel US, through its Star Comics imprint, launched a regular MOTU comic but the LEM license prevented UK editions with the exception of Marvel's adaptation of the live-action movie, which M-UK issued as an album-format one-shot.

SPIDER-MAN SUMMER SPECIAL

US REPRINTS:

With great power (US THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 254)

HOMETOWN BOY (US MARVEL TEAM-UP 145)

NOTES:

These contemporary reprints are an oddity, in their timing rather than their contents.  Plagued by falling sales, the regular Spider-man weekly had morphed into the juvenile THE SPIDER-MAN COMIC (reprints of the semi-educational SPIDEY SUPER STORIES alongside Star Comics fare like FRAGGLE ROCK), turning its back on its traditional contemporary US reprints... and the black costume.  Older readers were clearly meant to shift their loyalties to the just-launched MARVEL SUPERHERO SECRET WARS.

STAR WARS SUMMER SPECIAL

US REPRINTS:

Silent drifting (US STAR WARS 24)

Dark encounter (US STAR WARS 29)

R2-D2's Tales from the Databank

NOTES:

Both the Star Wars strips had previously been serialised, in black and white, in STAR WARS WEEKLY between 1978-80.

The Tales from the Databank was a vintage Lee/ Kirby three-page short of the sort frequently used as padding during the SWW era.

THE TRANSFORMERS SUMMER SPECIAL

US REPRINTS:

The Transformers (US THE TRANSFORMERS 1)

Power play! (US THE TRANSFORMERS 2)

NOTES:

Although not branded as such, this is the first of the long-running THE TRANSFORMERS COLLECTED COMICS specials.  The CC branding was adopted from the following special.  From issue 3, the album format and US reprints were abandoned in favour of UK reprints in a more traditional UK comic format.

These strips were previously serialised, in colour and black & white, in the regular Transformers fortnightly 1-4.

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