Marvel UK 1985-86 (Part 1)

Back in 1985-86 Marvel fans in Britain and Ireland who didn't have regular access to the American editions, were catered for by two weekly reprint titles Spider-Man and Zoids, and Secret Wars (2). It is a fun nostalgic experience now years later looking back on these editions. Spider-Man had to share his 24 page mag with the Zoids, a little remembered toy line created by Tomy, that featured mechanical dinosaurs on the planet Zoidstar (the people behind Hasbro's Transformers could sleep easy.) It also featured artwork by the great Kev Hopgood & Ron Smith among others and claimed the distinction of publishing Grant Morrison's first professional work in comics.
 As good as that strip was it was the Spider-man strip that I really waited to read every week. This was a great era for Spider-man, Tom Defalco was doing a bang up job writing the strip and the underated Ron Frenz was producing some amazing artwork.

Sineater! Notice how the credits are missing (bottom)

   
This was the era of the alien costume saga, the Hobgoblin and the Death of Jean DeWollf (Sineater) sagas. That might give some indication of why these mags are so memorable (a decade later Marvel UK had 100 page mammoth monthly comic out entitled 'The Exploits of Spider-Man' which chronicled the Ben Reilly saga and Spider-Man 2099 :-(  ) . The Spider-man strip usually was issued in weekly installments of 6-13 pages, but it was a weekly so we, as readers, were drip-fed our dose of Spider-man.

Marvel UK celebrates Marvels 25th 

Marvel UK version on right, original on left. Notice the difference in vibrancy.

                                                                                                                                                                                   The pages were larger than the American editions and glossy so the colours really shone and the bigger pages did the artwork more justice. To my 9-year-old mind they were simply amazing.
       Looking back Marvel UK had an awful habit of cutting panels and pages from these mags. They were notorious for it. Case in point point the last page of the Sineater saga, the start of a budding bromance between Matt Murdock and Parker is cut by a blurb for the next issue...

I'll never forget the Death of Jean DeWolff story from the Spectacular Spider-man, it brought a level of grit and realism to Spider-man that was missing in his main US title 'Amazing'.
But that's a different post.
     Spider-man and Zoids ran for one year only (51 issues) and its final Spider-man panel has got to be one of the most depressing ways to to finish up a strip I've ever witnessed. Of course these were the days before Parker married a super-model, released a best-selling coffee-table book and joined the Avengers, so art imitating life back then, Peter Parker had a whole host of worries, his ailing aunt, money, where the rent was going to come from etc. Here's that final panel in all it's 'slit-my-wrists now' glory.
   

Final panels from Spider-man (Spider-Man and Zoids)

Spider-man would return in late 1990 in the Complete Spider-Man a 100-page reprint title that kicked of with the Todd McFarlane story,Torment. Spidey, Marvel's flagship character and the rest of the superheroes did a vanishing act for nearly 4 years from Marvel UK's presses. Beat that Onslaught!!!! The editorial thinking being that the British public had minimal interest in superheroes. Action Force(G.I. Joe), The Real Ghostbusters,Transformers and the Thundercats were the order of the day. The Punisher got a weekly title in '89 that featured Frank Miller's Daredevil and Transformers had an Iron Man back up strip reprinted from Amazing Spider-Man annual 20. That was it. It was a sad time for many young fans...

Spidey returns!!!

For anyone out there that desires a more in depth look at these  fondly remembered pieces of ephemera, look no further than    

http://stevegoble.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/spider-man-and-zoids.html

Steve Goble is a man who has done a painstaking job detailing these mags and the little idiosynchrocies of the Marvel UK bullpen in presenting these reprints. With no desire for reward or recognition he has painstakingly detailed almost every story in this series and cross referenced it with it's original US counterpart in terms of continuity. It is a wry and humorous look but historically rock-solid. A major Spider-fan, there is a wealth of great posts there. Stay tuned for part 2 as I take a look at Marvel UK's treatment of the Secret Wars.