1980: ROM House Ad (Marvel Comics)

This is a Marvel New York House Ad, from August 1980, for the recently-launched ROM SPACEKNIGHT comic (based, of course, soon-to-be-defunct not-much-action figure.

1980: BUCK ROGERS Toy Ad

The BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY TV series, unsurprisingly, spawned a line of STAR WARS-scaled action figures and here is a advert for them from a US comic cover-dated June 1980.

All the figures came from the show's movie/ pilot... including Draco who, in Larson's final theatrical and TV cut, barely featured but was obviously intended to play a far larger part judging by the merchandising.  

Unfortunately, the various DVD releases (no BR unfortunately) of the movie and TV show comes sans deleted scenes (unlike the copiously endowed BATTLESTAR GALACTICA release… coming soon to UK BR.  Hurrah!) so we've not had a chance to find out.  

The LORD OF THE RINGS figures, unlike Twiki, ring no bells...

1985: 2000AD MONTHLY (US) Issue 1 (Eagle Comics)

This stunning Brian Bolland cover launched the US edition of 2000AD MONTHLY (not to be confused with the, also reprint-diven, UK BEST OF 2000AD MONTHLY which allowed IPC to plunder its own vaults), a 'spin-off' from Eagle Comics' successful Judge Dredd title.

Unsurprisingly, a serialised reprint of JD's Cursed Earth encounter with The Black Plague topped the bill to attract readers to what was otherwise something of an unknown quantity.  Previous attempts to ship copies of the original weekly across the Atlantic hadn't met with much success although they do seem to have piqued the interest of US publishers who promptly snapped-up the services of the Art and Script Droids.  

The remaining two strips, all published in colour and reformatted to remove the tell-tale UK chapter breaks, were DR and Quinch Go Straight and Strontium Dog in Death's Head (no relation).

This was the first of a six issue run, cover-dated April 1985.  The title returned as an ongoing series, once again under Eagle Comics' auspices, the following year and survived, albeit retooled, the transfer to Quality Comics.

1993: THE INCOMPLETE DEATH'S HEAD House Ad (Marvel UK)

The original DEATH'S HEAD was hardly favour-of-the-month with Paul Neary (hence his swift despatch in the first issue of the DEATH'S HEAD II limited series) but, under pressure to get more DH-branded books onto the shelves whilst the character was red hot (to use the WIZARD MAGAZINE parlance), he conceded to a twelve-issue rerun of the original's post-TRANSFORMERS (the rights to which, Marvel had already conceded) adventures.  DOCTOR WHO readers take note: his encounters with the Time Lord were amongst the reprints.  

Rather than simply rehash the originals, the series also used a brand-new linking sequence (which normally appeared as bookends to each reprint) which also allowed for the sales-boosting incorporation of appearances by his successor.  Each issue also had a newly-comissioned cover.

This is a THE INCOMPLETE DEATH'S HEAD House Ad, published in the US GENESIS 92 books, from February 1993, trumpeting the launch of the series.  

Ironically, the year-long run meant that the finale appeared just before the GENESIS IMPLOSION sunk the whole shebang.  

The original DH strips have been reprinted in trade paperback form by Panini but the DHII-era wraparound have never been reprinted.  

1986: FAILED UNIVERSE (Blackthorne Publishing)

Welcome to: THE FAILED UNIVERSE!

This spoof of Marvel's new-fangled, and ill-fated, NEW UNIVERSE was published by Blackthorne (purveyors of multiple 3D and how-to-draw type comics) in December 1986.

The pages above are a smattering of the contents and not the full issue.

There were initially eight books in Jim Shooter's NEW UNIVERSE ("the world outside your window") line (latterly reduced as the dead weight was ditched and - eventually - shuttered all together) which was intended to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Marvel Universe by launching another one.  

Of the eight, only two of the strips popped-up in the MARVEL UK books: Shooter's own STAR BRAND (one of the better books in a highly variable line) was briefly given the third-feature slot in SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS (no single story hung onto the slot for long, six strips appeared in only 51 issues), possibly to ensure their boss remained enamoured to the London operation.  

THE TRANSFORMERS, perennially in search of giant robot-related back-up strips (until ACTION FORCE and THE VISIONARIES became the default second-feaure), dabbled with SPITFIRE AND THE TROUBLESHOOTERS for a while.  

For some reason, M-UK passed on KICKERS INC.  I can't imagine why...

What makes this, for me, even more amusing is that my local comic store (naming no names) drastically (and inexplicably) over-ordered on this one and they had tons of copies which, unfortunately for them, never seemed to shift.  Every week I'd pop it for my weekly pocket money-powered fix of geeky things… and every week the shelf would have (pretty much) the same number of copies sitting there.  This earned the comic the unfortunate moniker 'FAILED Failed Universe'.

It became a waiting game to see how long it would be before the store owner conceded defeat and shifted the unsold stack to the bargain boxes (25p in those far away days) and - sure enough - it was reduced!  

1991: ALIEN NATION: THE FIRSTCOMERS (Adventure Comics)

ALIEN NATION: THE FIRSTCOMERS was the next four-issue story arc published by Adventure Comics cover-dated May-August 1991.

Once again, the black & white series was based on the premise of the movie/ TV show but featured a storyline entirely unrelated to the characters featured in both screen incarnations.  

It was never collected into trade paperback form and has never been reprinted.  

1990: ABSLOM DAAK: DALEK KILLER GRAPHIC NOVEL House Ad (Marvel UK)

A 1990 MARVEL UK House Ad supporting the publication of the ABSLOM DAAK: DALEK KILLER Graphic Novel, which reprinted his appearances-to-date from DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY/ MONTHLY/ MAGAZINE as well as a new text story and some nifty hardware cutaways.

1986: JUDGE DREDD: THE EARLY CASES Issue 1 (Eagle Comics)

The first issue (of a six issue "mega series" spin-off from EAGLE COMICS' main JUDGE DREDD US-format colour monthly) of JUDGE DREDD: THE EARLY CASES from February 1986.

This was a vehicle for some of the earlier still-finding-its-feet JD strips that Eagle (a joint-venture between IPC and Titan Books) had skipped, in favour of more confident and commercial fare, when they launched the regular book.

Behind the stunning new Bolland cover (how did he get away with that?) is a colorised/ reformatted reprint of The Heavy Metal Wars from, of course, 2000AD.

1979: MICRONAUTS/ SHOGUN WARRIORS/ BATTLESTAR Subscription Ad (Marvel)

A tsunami of late-seventies Marvel licensed goodies: a tripple-whammy of THE SHOGUN WARRIORS, THE MICRONAUTS and (free!) leftover copies of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA edition of MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL, featuring the Bullpen's first (and not entirely accurate) first crack at adapting the movie/ Saga Of A Star World pilot (Larson was busy editing and refining as he went… and Marvel just couldn't keep up with the changes coming out of the Universal cutting room).  

This appeared in US comics cover-dated July 1979.  

1990: DEATH'S HEAD: THE BODY IN QUESTION Graphic Novel (Marvel UK)

DEATH'S HEAD: THE BODY IN QUESTION was an October 1990 original, full colour, graphic novel published by MARVEL UK which also turned-out to be the last significant hurrah of the the original Freelance Peacekeeper before he was dispatched by his successor at the beginning of GENESIS 92.

This Simon Furman/ Geoff Senior collaboration was also serialised in the pages of STRIP, M-UK's ill-fated anthology pitched at the booming (at least if you believed the mainstream media, not-so-much according to the sales figures) market for comics-for-grown-ups.  

Apparently Furman was working on a four-issue DH limited series when Paul Neary returned to the Annex of Ideas.  Neary was no fan of DH (he publicly stuck the knife in during an interview published in COMIC WORLD here) but, because it was already planned, couldn't abandon the project entirely… so he handed it over to a new creative team to be 'retooled' for the new decade.

THE BODY IN QUESTION is included in Panini's compilation of DH's non-Transformers adventures.