Marvel UK

Beginnings of Marvel UK
Marvel UK was the British division of Marvel Comics, founded in 1972, initially to reprint material originally published by Marvel US. Its first ongoing title was The Mighty World of Marvel, which ran 329 issues from 7th October 1972-17th January 1979 before becoming 'Marvel Comic', and later 'Marvel Superheroes'. Spider-Man Comics Weekly followed on 17th February 1973 (Spider-Man having been earlier introduced in MWOM), and from there, Marvel UK published a host of titles both weekly and monthly, including The Titans, The Superheroes, Avengers, Dracula Lives, The Complete Fantastic Four, the popular and long running Star Wars Weekly/Monthly, Doctor Who Weekly (later Doctor Who Magazine), Savage Sword of Conan, Captain America, Planet of the Apes, Fury, Forces in Combat, Future Tense (originally a weekly, later a monthly), Valour, Marvel Action, Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Super Adventure and Transformers. During the period from 1975-1977, Neil Tennant was employed as Marvel UK's London Editor (much of the work was actually done in New York) Anglicizing dialogue and pointing out where artwork needed to be altered for the (at that time) generally rather younger British market (since Marvel UK tended to reprint material fairly indiscriminately from both the mainstream superhero comics and the more adult black & white magazines, nudity sometimes reared its ugly head!). Sadly, he failed to find much success in the industry, and eventually went on to a presumably rather less fulfilling career as some sort of singer.

UK Originated Material
Though for the first few years of the company's existence it was restricted to US reprints (aside from Apeslayer, which we don't talk about), in October 1976, Marvel UK got its first original character (albeit one created in America, specifically for the British market) in Captain Britain, who starred in 39 issues of his own title before moving into the pages of Spider-Man, and from 1979, under new editorial director Dez Skinn (who was hand picked by Stan Lee to run the franchise), they began publishing UK originated material in titles such as Doctor Who Weekly and Hulk Comic (the latter featuring British versions of American characters such as the Hulk, Nick Fury, Ant Man and the Black Knight alongside Captain Britain and the British created Night Raven) as well as reprints.

Expansion in the 80s
The eighties also marked the launch of a line of digest sized 'Pocket Books' including Chiller (a horror anthology), Marvel Classics Comics and Star Heroes (a sci-fi anthology, which was later turned over to the X-Men) and a move towards more monthly titles (including Rampage (also originally a weekly), Blockbuster, Savage Action, Future Tense, Frantic, the TV tie-in Blake's 7, Dez Skinn's movie magazine, Starburst, The Daredevils and, a couple of years later, Indiana Jones (starring the then popular movie hero ), since the weekly line which it had founded on was faltering somewhat largely thanks to the increased availablity of the US monthlies which the weeklies were reprinting from. Another move intended to give the company a larger market share was an attempt to woo younger readers with titles such as Rupert (starring classic childrens character Rupert the Bear), Scooby Doo & His TV Friends and Worzel Gummidge (the latter actually featuring first in a monthly and then a weekly) but none of them were notably successful. The early eighties also saw the introduction of short humour strips by Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett into the letters pages of many of both the weekly and monthly titles, including Hulk the Menace, Jet Lagg and the long running Doctor Who?; these strips were all nominally set on Earth 33 1/3. Later addittions to the weekly line included Thor, X-Men (these two later combined to become Thor and X-Men), Incredible Hulk, Big Ben, The Real Ghostbusters, Action Force, Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars (which later became Secret Wars II), Thundercats and the Marvel Bumper Comic, and there were also a handful of US format monthlies launched in the late eighties including Death's Head, Dragon's Claws, Knights of Pendragon, Sleeze Brothers and another Action Force title. The short lived Strip! magazine attempted to cater to an older and supposedly more sophisticated audience.

Marvel UK's 90s Line
In the nineties, Marvel would attempt to cash in on that market with a range of monthly titles in the US format, sold in comic shops in both the UK and the US and reprinted in the high street in Britain in the monthly magazine Overkill. Titles in the range included Death's Head II, Motormouth, Hell's Angel, Warheads, Digitek, Black Axe and Dark Guard. They also published Doctor Who Classic Comics, which reprinted both Marvel Doctor Who strips and earlier Doctor Who material originally published in TV Comic and elsewhere, and continued to publish licenced material such as Star Trek: The Next Generation. Marvel UK was eventually sold to Panini UK in 1996 and they continue to publish several monthly 'Collectors Editions' under that name, as well as trade paperback collections of old Marvel UK material (including five volumes reprinting every original UK appearance of Captain Britain, as well as Death's Head and Doctor Who). For several years, Panini also published new material based on the Marvel characters in titles such as Marvel Heroes and Spectacular Spider-Man, but this practice was halted by an edict from the Disney Corporation after they bought Marvel Comics (Disney decreed that all Marvel based strip material must originate in America). Panini also continue to publish Doctor Who magazine, though the Marvel UK logo was dropped from it when Marvel's licence with the BBC to publish Doctor Who related material ran out at the end of 1999.

Marvel UK Publications