Make Mine Marvel UK!!!

Besides Four-Color Craic I blog and post scans on Facebook and the Facebook group: ‘Make Mine Marvel UK!!!’. I’m an Officer of the group and I'm proud to be a ‘Fearless Front-Facer and Real Fanatic One’.

‘Make Mine Marvel UK!!!’ is a group for fans of Marvel’s UK division. Fans can discuss their favourite titles from the Marvel UK beginnings in 1972 through to 1995 when Panini obtained the Marvel UK license to today’s releases from Panini.

Marvel Comics set up a British division in 1972 to publish a line of comics reprinting their early American material. The first comic to be introduced was, The Mighty World of Marvel in October 1972.

In addition to reprinting the American material, the UK series produced a number of original covers. Here's a sample from the Four-Color Craic collection but you can find more original UK material at the 'Make Mine Marvel UK!!!' Facebook group:

Mighty World of Marvel #22 [3 Mar 1973]
Cover: [Jim Starlin]
Mighty World of Marvel #38 [23 Jun 1973]
Cover: [Rich Buckler]

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #84 [21 Sep 1974]
Cover: Unknown member of the Marvel UK Bullpen

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #85 [28 Sep 1974]
Cover: Unknown member of the Marvel UK Bullpen

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #84 [21 Sep 1974] & #85 [28 Sep 1974]
Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #72 [May 1969] 20p ‘Rocked by the Shocker’ John Buscema (plot/layouts) Stan Lee (script) John Romita Sr/Jim Mooney (art)

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #93 [23 Nov 1974]
Cover: [Gil Kane] (possible inks by Frank Giacoia)

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #94 [30 Nov 1974]
Cover: [Gil Kane] (possible inks by Frank Giacoia)

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #93 [23 Nov 1974] & #94 [30 Nov 1974]
Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #77 [Oct 1969] 20p ‘In the Blaze of Battle’ John Buscema (plot/layouts) Stan Lee (script) Jim Mooney (art)

Marvel UK turned Killraven into Apeslayer. True story. Because Marvel UK where reprinting the successful Planet of the Apes on a weekly basis, they quickly ran out of new stories to publish.

Marvel UK’s solution was to take the series Killraven, which depicted a freedom fighter who fought Martians in a post-apocalyptic alternative future, and changed the Martians to Apes and Killraven to ‘Apeslayer’.

Planet of the Apes #23 [29 Mar 1975]
1^st appearance of the Apeslayer (Killraven)
Cover: possibly Mike Esposito

Planet of the Apes #28 [10 May 1975]
Cover: Herb Trimpe/[Altered by Marvel UK Bullpen]

The Avengers and the Savage Sword of Conan #109 [18 Oct 1975]
Cover: Unknown member/members of the Marvel UK Bullpen

Fury #6 [20 Apr 1977]
Cover: Carlos Ezquerra

Fury #14 [15 Jun 1977]
Cover: Carlos Ezquerra

Other than the covers no original material had yet been produced but by the mid 1970’s Marvel UK decided to create the first Marvel hero aimed specifically at the British market: Captain Britain. Captain Britain was created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe.

Captain Britain #1 [13 Oct 1976]
1st appearance and origin of Captain Britain
Cover: [Larry Lieber]/[Frank Giacoia]
8p ‘The Origin of Captain Britain’ Chris Claremont (script), Herb Trimpe (pencils), Fred Kida (inks), Marie Severin (colors), Irving Watanabe (letters).

Captain Britain #2 [20 Oct 1976]
Cover: [Larry Lieber]

The Avengers Treasury Edition [1982]
Cover: [Dave Gibbons]

Captain Britain #1 [vol II Jan 1985]
Cover: [Alan Davis]

Transformers #133 [3 Oct 1987]
Cover: Dave Gibbons

For more detailed information on Marvel UK visit the Wikipedia entry here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_UK