Savage Sword of Conan

The Marvel UK version of Savage Sword of Conan (there was a pre-existing Marvel US title of the same name) was first launched as a weekly on 8th March 1975, reprinting American Conan and King Kull strips. It was not a notable success and was cancelled after just 18 issues on 5th July the same year, with the Conan strip (rather oddly) being moved into the pages of The Avengers, and from there into the Mighty World of Marvel weekly for a short time. The Conan strip, which was taken from US Marvel's regular colour monthly (though these reprints were in black & white) later appeared intermittently in issues of Marvel Comic and Valour, and the sulky Cimmerian also featured in his own Pocket Book, but in November 1977, Marvel UK relaunched Savage Sword of Conan as a 52 page monthly magazine, effectively duplicating the format of the title's US counterpart, and reprinting strips from that counterpart. The monthly version, like the American original, was aimed at an older age group than the strips seen in the weeklies (and the regular US colour title) and was often extremely violent, also frequently featuring a level of (mostly female) nudity which would not have been acceptable in the weeklies. In addittion to Conan, SSOC also featured occasional reprints of King Kull, woman warrior Red Sonja, and sometimes Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane. With issue #85, in another unusual move, the title absorbed the failed Mighty World of Marvel monthly, inheriting the X-Men spinoff limited series 'Magik' and a text serial featuring Night Raven. The magazine (which had gained some colour pages in its last few issues following the merger with MWOM) was cancelled with issue #93 in July 1985.