MARVEL UK – ANNIVERSARY ROLL CALL: MAY 2018

It was 35 years ago this month that Marvel UK brought The Mighty World of Marvel back to life as a partially full-colour monthly magazine, just one month after its first run had ended with #397 (May 1983), having long since become the monthly Marvel Superheroes, after its previous weekly reboot as Marvel Comic had failed to gain sufficient traction with readers.

While the contents of early issues of MWOM were welcome as a way to continue with stories taken from The Uncanny X-Men, who had been homeless since Marvel Superheroes had ended, the magazine really came into its own when The Daredevils merged into it with #7 (December 1983), bringing Captain Britain and the Night Raven text series into the mix. The magazine also introduced the feature Marvel Showcase, which brought several new names into mainstream comics including the team of Mike Collins and Mark Farmer, presenting fresh material by Kev Hopgood and Simon Jacob, amongst others.

MWOM (Volume 2) #12

When the magazine folded with #17 (October 1984), its final issue a slimmer all B&W affair, it was only Night Raven, Marvel Showcase and some of the text features that survived the transition into (deep breath) The Savage Sword of Conan, featuring The Mighty World of Marvel with #85 (November 1984). Fans of Captain Britain needn’t have fretted much, he was soon to return in his own magazine once more. The moment had been prepared for, but that’s a whole other story!

Meanwhile, and moving onwards five years, this also month marks the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of Action Force Monthly #1 in May 1988, a successful evolution from the weekly Action Force comic that had previously clocked up 50 issues until its cancellation in early February 1988. This became part of Marvel UK’s first clutch of three US format titles – the others were Death’s Head and Dragon’s Claws – to also go on sale in America. In this instance, US readers would get a customised edition of Action Force Monthly, resplendent with the title G.I. Joe Special Missions. This reflected the different names then being used for the toy ranges on both side of the Atlantic at that time.