The first Christmas: Mighty World of Marvel #13 - Stan Lee sounds off!

In the UK Christmas editions of most comics usually contained festive themed stories and a snow-covered logo, this wasn’t quite the case with the first Christmas edition of the “Mighty World of Marvel” #13 ( week ending 30 December 1972 - cover by Jim Starlin and Joe Sinnott) which was more muted with only the cover banner proclaiming that there was “a special bullpen Christmas greeting” inside. Regardless of the lack of a snow filled cover my 12-year-old self was pretty excited anticipating what the “special” greeting would be, perhaps a new weekly Marvel comic. Sadly, it wasn’t news of new comic, that would appear a few short months later instead the message was to inform readers that there was a 128 page "Marvel" annual on sale (which we were already aware of with it already being Christmas week).

On the plus side this issue did feature 2 nicely illustrated Christmas themed illos of the Human Torch and The Thing to accompany Stans message.

Above the 1972 " Marvel" annual (cover from Marvel Wiki). The above cover was based on a Jack Kirby panel from "Incredible Hulk" #2 and was painted by James E McConnell. Strangely, the annual not only contained tales of the Hulk, Spider-Man and the FF, who were all featured in the weekly MWOM comic, but it also featured Conan the Barbarian a character that had not yet been introduced to UK readers.

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.

Milestones: Can it really be 50 years ago? - Mighty World Of Marvel Issue 1

As those of us of a certain age know as we grow older it can feel like time goes by faster and faster with each passing year. But as fast as the years may pass how can it be possible that on the 30 September 2022 it will have been 50 years since the first issue of the “Mighty World of Marvel” (MWOM) comic appeared on the shelves of newsagents up and down the land? Unbeknown to myself the first issue of MWOM had been advertised on British TV on Saturday 30 September 1972 with Stan himself providing the voice over. However, I missed this advert and it was only due to an unscheduled visit to my local R S McColl’s newsagent after school on Wednesday 4 October that I spied that iconic ”Marvel” logo and the specially drawn John Buscema cover poking out between some newspapers. I immediately purchased it.

Unlike most UK home grown weekly comics that contained around 32 pages the MWOM had 40 pages which housed three strips featuring the earliest adventures of the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man . In addition MWOM printed their stories with green spot colour and pale green paper (for a short time) and featured 5 pages of full colour art which was a major attraction for a UK comic as most were only printed in black and white.

The centre pages were a fanboy delight as they featured a special mneesage from Stan Lee and a teaser for the 'The World's Greatest Free Gift Offer' which required the reader to clip out coupons over an 11 week period. Although I was never going to mutilate my comics the free gift in this case was the excellent John Buscema illustrated poster below (Image from Marvel Wiki).

As was the practice with all new UK comics at the time the first 3 or so issues always featured a free gift. MWOM was no exception and issue 1 featured an amazing “Green-Skinned Monster T-Shirt Transfer" - issue 2 had a Spider-Man transfer and issue 3 featured a set of “fun” Marvel character stickers.

British reprints of Marvel comics were not new as these had appeared in Alan Class comics, and of course in the legendary Odhams comics of the 1960s in titles like Fantastic, Terrific, Wham!, Smash! and Pow! But now Marvel had set up shop in the UK and more exciting titles were to appear over the years including Spider-Man Comics Weekly, The Avengers, Planet of the Apes, Dracula Lives, Savage Sword of Conan, the Superheroes , the Titans and many more. Over the years since 1972 many of the items of my youth have been given away, lost, or binned but the first 30 issue of MWOM have always remained with me as an instant reminder of an exciting time when I was a 12 year old comic book fan - where did the time go?

Favourite comics: Avengers issue 88 – better late than never!

I first read the above story “The Summons of Psyklop” when it appeared in the Mighty World of Marvel (issue 123) comic back in February 1975. Due to the popularity of the Hulk at this time and with old Greenskin being the headline act in MWOM this story was presented in the UK as a Hulk strip when of course it had originally appeared in Avengers issue 88 some 4 years earlier in 1971. Ever since I read this story it has remained a firm favourite of mine and as such, I have been on the lookout for a copy of Avengers 88…..last week after a mere 47 years I eventually found a nice copy for £5!

The story was scripted by Roy Thomas from an 1,800-word synopsis by SF writer Harlan Ellison which would span Avenger issue 88 (the aforementioned “The Summons of Psyklop”) and the Incredible Hulk issue 140 (“The Brute… that shouted love.. at the heart of the Atom!”) another favourite comic of mine. Of course, when I first read this strip, it was the wonderfully exciting art of Sal Buscema and Jim Mooney that attracted me as to be honest I wasn’t aware of Harlan Ellison’s work as a SF Writer at that time.

The story itself was best summed up in the original Marvel checklist at the time as “A monster from beyond time and space – the final caging of the Hulk and the eeriest war of the Worlds this side of H. P. Lovecraft! Like weird! All I can add to this is that 15-year-old me loved the excitement of Sal’s art, the action, the daft villain, that ruddy massive monster statue and of course that creepy slug. Rereading this comic some 46 years later I was for an all to brief moment in time reverted to my 15-year-old former self, and that slug still got to me! Below are some of my favourite pages from a time when comics could be exciting, fun and a bit daft and yet still be taken (kinda) seriously:

And as for part two of this Harlan Ellison classic story arc, well that's a comic that will no doubt appear in another of my ramblings at some point.