Milestones: The Avengers (UK) issue 1 - 50 years ago this month, no way!!

It's hard enough for me to reconcile the fact that many of my favourite comics were first published 10, 20 or even 30 years ago, so you can imagine just how jarring it is when you realise that some of those comics first appeared on sale 50 years ago, as is the case with the UK’s “Avengers” weekly comic which hit the newsagents shelves week ending 22 September 1973. This was the third weekly title to be published by what would become Marvel UK and was the first to feature a US style glossy cover along with a drop in the page count from 40 to 32 black and white pages. The comic itself was relatively successful and featured many characters that shared the Avengers title, most notably “Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu” from issue 28 (March 1974). With issue 95 the Avengers merged with the short lived “Savage Sword of Conan“ weekly comic and with issue 148 (July 1976) the Avengers title itself ceased publication when it merged with the "Mighty World of Marvel" (issue 199).

Just a few weeks prior to being launched into their own title the Avengers had appeared in issues 46,47 and 48 of the “Mighty World of Marvel” (covers shown at bottom of page) which covered the teams origin story. This meant that the first issue of the new British weekly comic started with the Lee/Kirby classic tale “Captain America joins the Avengers” from the fourth issue of the US Avengers comic which may have been confusing to new readers who might not have heard of the Avengers or read their origin tale in the MWOM prior to purchasing the new weekly title.

The Avengers were joined by the excellent Lee/Ditko Dr Strange strip starting with his origin tale from "Strange Tales" # 115.

As was the norm with most British comics the first few issues were accompanied by a free gift. The first issue of the Avengers came with a set of 4 small, but beautifully illustrated stickers featuring various Marvel characters. These stickers (2 shown above) were painted by Lopez Espi and were eventually released as series of 6 poster.

Avengers Weekly issue 2.

With issue 2 readers were promised “The greatest gift ever offered” what we were presented with was a rather different affair, a flat cardboard gun! (picture from E-bay)

Above.The first (Marvel UK) appearance of the Avengers from the "Mighty World of Marvel" issues 46, 47 and 48.

Above: The Avengers and Dr Strange appeared in UK comics long before the fist issue of the "Avengers" weekly in September 1973. In particular, both charaters appeared in the Odhams title "Terrific" from 1967.