STAY TUNED: THE OFFICIALLY AUTHORISED AVENGERS MAGAZINE ISSUE 1

From sometime in the 1980s: STAY TUNED, the officially authorised (TV) AVENGERS magazine (actually a fanzine) issue 1, published by ubiquitous Avengers go-to guy Dave Rogers.

1993: A GUIDE TO AVENGERLAND by ANTHONY and ANNETTE McKAY.

From March 1993: A GUIDE TO AVENGERLAND, a spin-off from TIME SCREEN magazine.

Avengerland, as the back cover explains, is that oh-so-familiar part of England in close proximity to London and - more importantly - Elstree studios.  That location and ease of access (plus: it gives a mix of rural and urban locations and productions can nip into North London if necesary) means that the area has been heavily featured in TV shows and films for decades.  They heavily featured in THE AVENGERS and the various 'action factory' ITC shows of the Sixties and Seventies.  Which is where this book comes in.

I love location spotting so this is the sort of publication that is right up my street.  Other books and publications along similiar lines have included a professionally published book dedicated to AVENGERS locations by Chris Bentley (which i have just looked up on Amazon... copies seem to go from around the 46 quid mark... which is nuts as I picked up my copy from Borders back in the day!), a fan-produced guide to DOCTOR WHO locations and a professionally published equivilant (priced today at a more reasonable 15 quid).  The latter two published before the series went back into production.

THE AVENGERS HMV STORE EXCLUSIVE VHS

From the video department of HMV: A store-exclusive AVENGERS VHS release.

Maybe they should have called this one the 'End of an era' edition as it marks two important turning points in the show's history: the switch to colour and - err - cancellation.

THE AVENGERS LUMIERE VHS VOLUME 1

From the VHS era: the first of what turned out to be a long run (including a few rather stylish boxsets and store exclusives) of THE AVENGERS tapes.  Lumiere went the extra mile with these releases by pairing strong episodes (initially from the Rigg era... one b&w and one colour), adding sleave notes and making the prints look as good as possible.

I'd seen - and enjoyed - the show back in the 1980s when CHANNEL FOUR had rerun it on a Sunday night but these tapes were the first chance I'd have to see it as an 'adult'.  And I really enjoyed it.  It soon became part of my (super expensive) tape-buying routine along with the other current or 'classic' releases of the era.  The economics of it all seem madness now... I wish i had found a cheaper hobby.    

BIZARRE, THE AVENGERS FANZINE, ISSUE 3

More AVENGERS fanzine action: issue three of the undated BIZARRE A5er.

1991: AVENGERS FANZINE BIZARRE ISSUE 2

From February 1991: the second issue of British AVENGERS TV fanzine BIZARRE.

THE AVENGERS FANZINE ON TARGET VOLUME 1, ISSUE 5

Mrs Peel, we're needed!

From sometime in the 1980s: ON TARGET, the AVENGERS (TV) fanzine, Volume 1 Issue 5.  Published by Dave Rogers.

There's no date that I can find anywhere inside this issue so I can't nail down exactly when it appeared.  Rogers continued to pump ount Avengers 'zines well into the 1990s, eventually running out of steam after the flawed-but-underated movie (which also saw him pen some officially licensed tie-ins).

This particular issue, the earliest I seem to have in my collection (I think I must have bought a stack from a dealer years ago), is yer standard A3 photocopied-with-colour-paper-cover affair.

I first discovered the show thanks to the Channel Four reruns early in the Eighties.  The rest of the household were less enthused so I had to watch them on my little b&w portable telly.  Kids today don't know how lucky they are.  I dabbled with a few episodes of THE NEW AVENGERS when ITV picked up the repeat rights as part of their new overnight services at the end of the decade.  But I really got back into the original show when they started releasing them on VHS tape early in the 1990s.

1990: BIZARRE ISSUE 1: THE AVENGERS, THE NEW AVENGERS AND THE PROFESSIONALS

From July 1990: the first issue of BIZARRE, a British AVENGERS (of the TV, not comics, variety) fanzine named after the show's last episode.

As the cover design suggests, it also devoted space to THE NEW AVENGERS and THE PROFESSIONALS: two Seventies action shows from the same creative stable.

1974: MARVEL UK GOES GLOSSY House Ad

From January 1974: Another Mighty Marvel UK landmark moment: glossy covers!

I always think of glossy covers and the defining feature of British Marvel.  They always helped the line standout when racked alongside the IPC and DCT weeklies and their (usually) bargain-basement production standards (of course, they were investing a lot more in originating new material rather than just recycling from the States).

So, it's easy to forget that in the early (and late) Seventies, Marvel's British weeklies had newsprint covers.  THE AVENGERS, their third launch (September 1973), was the first to dabble in the new format... and their two existing titles followed at the turn of the year.  

Glossy covers and 36-page interiors remained the default format (with a few exceptions: CAPTAIN BRITAIN sacrificed the glossy covers in favour of colour interior pages, FURY deliberately aped the low-fi formats of its war rivals and STAR WARS WEEKLY sliced four pages to make life easier for the pushed-for-filler Bullpen and to recoup the costs of the license) until the Marvel Revolution of 1979 tried to make Marvel's comics look the same as all the others.  

STAR WARS WEEKLY and DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY retained their glossy exteriors throughout the Revolution (because it allowed them to showcase stills to catch the attention of casual browsers) and shiny covers returned (coinciding with the start of the SPIDER-MAN live-action TV show in the UK) in late 1981.  

They remained, with the occasional exception (the experimental THE THING IS BIG BEN), throughout the rest of the history of the Annex of Ideas... although some formats were more glossy than others. 

1975: PLANET OF THE APES and STAR TREK ACTION FIGURES ADVERT

From 1975: More Palitoy goodness... PLANET OF THE APES and STAR TREK action figures.

This striking ad appeared in THE AVENGERS AND THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN (phew!) issue 95, 12 July 1975.  

This was the first combined issue, Savage Sword having floundered after only eighteen issues. 

The two franchises are currently crossing over again, courtesy of a new limited series from IDW and Boom. 

1976: ON SALE THIS MONTH: THE AVENGERS Weekly Issue 122 (Marvel UK)

On sale this week back in 1976: the 122nd issue of MARVEL UK's THE AVENGERS.

The three-strip line-up consisted of the titular super group, Doctor Strange and (thanks to the failure of his own weekly) Conan the Barbarian. 

1982: THE AVENGERS SPECIAL (Marvel UK)

This is a seldom-seen colour one-shot (Conan was the other) published by MARVEL UK in 1982.

THE AVENGERS reprinted the Vision-centric US issues 57 and 58.  

Despite the banner text, this is magazine-sized rather than one of the seventies tabloid-proportioned monsters.  

MARVEL COMICS INDEX ISSUE 3: THE AVENGERS

THE AVENGERS are under the spotlight in the third issue of the unofficial MARVEL COMICS INDEX.

AVENGER-CATS!

From yesterday's METRO newspaper:

26 April 2012

1975-76: THE AVENGERS AND THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN

With just days to go until THE AVENGERS assemble in cinemas, now seems a good time to wind back to 1975 and Marvel UK's THE AVENGERS AND SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN weekly.

The long-winded name was the result of the hasty cancellation of Conan's own weekly after a mere 18 weeks.  Surprisingly, the merger stuck for the remainder of the title's run, prominently featuring the subsumed title's name and star on covers, before transferring both strips to THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL.  Compare that with the demise of FORCES IN COMBAT, expunged from FUTURE TENSE with undue haste.

THE AVENGERS had already been through its martial arts obsession phase, which we'll get to eventually.

Details of SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN Volume 1 can be found here.

ISSUE 95

12 July 1975

ISSUE 96

19 July 1975

ISSUE 97

26 July 1975

ISSUE 98

2 August 1975

ISSUE 99

9 August 1975

ISSUE 100

16 August 1975

ISSUE 101

23 August 1975

ISSUE 102

30 August 1975

ISSUE 103

6 September 1975

ISSUE 104

13 August 1975

ISSUE 105

20 August 1975

ISSUE 106

27 September 1975

ISSUE 107

4 October 1975

ISSUE 108

11 October 1975

ISSUE 109

18 October 1975

ISSUE 110

25 October 1975

ISSUE 111

1 November 1975

ISSUE 112

8 November 1975

ISSUE 113

15 November 1975

ISSUE 114

22 November 1975

ISSUE 115

29 November 1975

ISSUE 116

6 December 1975

ISSUE 117

13 December 1975

ISSUE 118

20 December 1975

ISSUE 119

27 December 1975

ISSUE 120

3 January 1976

ISSUE 121

10 January 1976

ISSUE 122

17 January 1976

ISSUE 123

24 January 1976

ISSUE 124

31 January 1976

ISSUE 125

7 February 1976

ISSUE 126

14 February 1976

ISSUE 127

21 February 1976

ISSUE 128

28 February 1976

ISSUE 129

6 March 1976

ISSUE 130

13 March 1976

ISSUE 131

20 March 1976

ISSUE 132

27 March 1976

ISSUE 133

3 April 1976

ISSUE 134

10 April 1976

ISSUE 135

17 April 1976

ISSUE 136

24 April 1976

ISSUE 137

1 May 1976

ISSUE 138

8 May 1976

ISSUE 139

15 May 1976

ISSUE 140

22 May 1976

ISSUE 141

29 May 1976

ISSUE 142

5 June 1976

ISSUE 143

9 June 1976

ISSUE 148

14 July 1976

Final issue.

Merger announcement.