Alan Moores World Cup football comic strip

With the 2026 Football World Cup currently underway I thought it would be fun to take a look at some UK football comic strips. In order to make this more interesting for the many non footy fans out there, I thought I would start with a strange strip written by the legendary Alan Moore. Written in 1982, at a time when Moore was working in UK comics, this 3 page tongue-in-cheek strip appeared in the Marvel UK one shot "Not the World Cup". Its not one of his best but it is a fun tale nicely illustrated by the then Roy of the Rovers artist Barrie Mitchell ( above - cover to "Not the World Cup" by John Higgins).

For those interested Italy won the 1982 World Cup with England finishing 6th. Scotland as usual failed to get out of their tsection despite a good performance only losing 1 of their 3 games to Brazil. Next up my top 10 favourite UK football comic strips.

Favourite comics: Dr Strange #178 - Gene Colan, Tom Palmer, Roy Thomas

I first read the above Dr Strange tale in the UK Avengers weekly comic (issues 74-76) and was blown away by Colan and Palmers artwork which at the time was going from strength to strength. So when I saw an original US copy for sale at around 9 US dollars (£8 UK) during a recent holiday, I had to pick it up. The strip in colour is even better than the UK black and white version.

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Favourite comics: Super Heroes v Super Villians. Mighty Comics

As I mentioned in my very fist post the Mighty Comics Group (Archie Comics) published some of my favourite childhood comics. One of my favourite of their titles was the 1966 one off title " Super Heroes Versus Super Villains" which featured characters like Fly Man, the Web, Black Hood and the Shield. Looking at these comics again with adult eyes there is no doubt that these books were not classics but they were fun and were synonymous with the Silver age of comics. Written by Jerry Siegel with art by Paul Reinman,Frank Giacoia and Mike Sekowsky this books hearkens back to a more simple time, they were never going to compete with Marvel or DC's output but 6 year old me loved these comics.

I picked up the above comic during my recent trip to the US ( Cincinnati ). This issue featured reprints from the Mighty Comics title "the Adventures of the Fly/ Fly Man" from 1965. Next up from my US adventure Dr Strange by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.

Bring on the Back-Ups: Elongated Man by Neal Adams and Gardner Fox

I was surprised to find out that before Neal Adams started work on such iconic DC superhero comics as the Spectre, Batman, Green Lantern and Green Arrow he deubted (along with his work on Deadman) on an Elongated Man back-up tale in Detective Comics # 369 (September 1967). Since finding this out I have been searching for a copy of this comic and as luck would have it I came across a copy while visiting family in the USA. Although the cover was badly ripped the interior pages were complete and for only around £8 I snapped it up for excellent Neal Adams art on this his one and only Elongated Man story.

Below the cover to Detective Comics #369 - image from DC Fandom

Favourite comics: Superboy #182 - the first meeting of Superboy and Batman by Bob Brown , Murphy Anderson and Leo Dorfman

Superboy was a comic that I only really interested me when it featured the Legion of Super-Heroes however, there were the odd exceptions where the urge to pick up a copy of the boy of steels comic minus the Legion was overwhelming. One such issue was Superboy #182 featuring an intriguing cover by the great Nick Cardy in a story where Superboy uses a machine, a 'time-scope' that can see into the future, a DC staple in telling "what if" type tales back in the day. The added interest in this tale was that this story tells of the first meeting between Superboy and a young Batman,or rather the Executioner!

In addition to the above main story this issue also featured an "Album of Unsung Heroes" tale and a reprint of a Super-baby tale

Silver Surfer #1 ( Facsimile) - Stan Lee and John Buscema

Ever since I picked up my first Silver Surfer comic (issue 12) as a 10 year old in 1970 I have been a massive fan of the broody Sentinel of the Spaceways. So you can imagine my excitment to find out that Marvel will be publishing facsimile editions of the first 7 issues of his original series by Stan Lee and John Buscema. Today (Wednesday) I picked up the first issue (originally published in 1968) and I have to say that I was surprised to find out that it was such a thick book of around 50 pages of silvery fun. Although I have read these Surfer tales in various UK reprints its good to see these stories in full colour and in their original format.

In addition to the main 38 page Silver Surfer tale is a very nice 13 page Gene Colan\Stan Lee Watcher story which I seem to recall reading in a Marvel UK weekly many years ago.