Fifty years ago (yes, it really was that long ago) on the 8th March 1975, the company that would become known as Marvel UK expanded on its stable of 5 weekly titles by adding two more comics to its UK portfolio: "The Super-Heroes" (cover above) and "The Savage Sword of Conan" (cover below). While both titles were not that successful (Conan was a downright failure) I was initially pretty excited by their introduction as the Silver Surfer and Conan were (and still are) 2 of my all-time favourite comic book characters.
As was the case with most British comics the first issue (at least) always contained a free gift, in the case both titles this was a free poster (see below). The "Super-Heroes" comic initially featured reprints of the US Silver Surfer and X-Men strips and when the Silver Surfer reprints ran out (after issue 30), they were replaced by The Cat. Later issues of the title included Doc Savage, Giant Man, The Scarecrow, The Thing (from "Marvel Two-In-One"), Bloodstone, and Black Knight. I personally lost interest in the title after the Surfer tales ended as the revolving door of reprints (some looking very dated in 1975) were of little interest to me. The "Super-Heroes" comic only lasted for 50 issues before it merged with "Spider-Man Comics Weekly".
The "Savage Sword of Conan" reprinted the US tales from the colour "Conan the Barbarian" comic as well as "King Kull" strips. Despite containing some of the 1970's best illustrated and written comics, the title was not a success and was cancelled after just 18 issues on 5th July the same year. In a strange move by Marvel, they merged the Conan strip into the pages of the weekly "Avengers" title before Conan then moved into the pages of the "Mighty World of Marvel" weekly for a short time. Of course, you can't keep a barbarian down and Conan would eventually be resurrected as a successful monthly title in 1977.
Above the excellent free poster from the weekly "Savage Sword of Conan" by Neal Adams (the cover of issue 2 of the US "Savage Sword of Conan" magazine) - This was one of the few non-pop star ( Debbie Harry, Bowie, Velvet Underground etc) posters that I ever had on my bedroom wall as a teenager.
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