Marvel UK
Marvel UK was an imprint of Marvel Comics formed in 1972 to reprint US-produced stories for the British weekly comic market. Marvel UK later produced original material by British creators such as Alan Moore, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Dillon, and Grant Morrison.
There were a number of editors in charge of overseeing the UK editions. Although based in the United States, Jenny Blake Isabella oversaw the establishment of Marvel UK. He was succeeded by UK-based editors Peter L. Skingley and then Matt Softly – both of whom were women who adopted male pen names for the job. They were then replaced by Neil Tennant, who later found fame with the pop group the Pet Shop Boys. Nick Laing succeeded him, but with a turbulent market and falling sales, Laing was let go and Dez Skinn took over. Paul Neary was editor in chief in 1995, when Marvel UK was shut down.
Panini Comics obtained the license to print Marvel material in 1995 and took over the UK office's remaining titles.
Publishing history
Predecessors
After World War II, the UK was intent on promoting homegrown publishers, and thus banned the direct importation of American periodicals, including comic books; that ban was lifted in 1959. The British company Thorpe & Porter became the sole UK distributor of both DC and Marvel comics. Thus it was that in the early 1960s brand-new American-printed copies of Fantastic Four #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, and countless others appeared in the UK. Alan Class Comics also reprinted select Marvel superhero stories during this period. Thorpe & Porter, however, went bankrupt in 1966 and was purchased by Independent News Distributors, the distribution arm of National Periodical Publications. As a result, T & P's output became almost exclusively reprints of DC titles.At that point, in early 1966, Odhams Press acquired the Marvel license, and reprints of American Marvel superhero material — including the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor, and the X-Men — began to be published in the UK in Odhams' Power Comics line of titles. Titles such as Wham!, Smash!, and Pow! featured a mix of Marvel reprints and original UK comics; while the titles Fantastic and Terrific were dominated by Marvel superhero stories. This arrangement lasted till March 1969, when the last Marvel strip was removed from Smash!.
Beginning about a year and a half later, from late November 1970 to late September 1971, reprints of Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer appeared in TV21, published by City Magazines. From that point, no Marvel titles were being regularly reprinted in the UK.
Origins: ''MWOM'' and ''Spider-Man Comics Weekly''
In 1972, seeing a gap in the popular weekly comics market of the UK, Marvel Comics formed their own British publishing arm, Marvel UK. Though publishing comics in the UK for a British audience, Marvel UK was under the editorial direction of Marvel's New York offices, overseen by the then 21-year-old American writer/editor Jenny Blake Isabella. Pippa Melling, a British former staffer at Odhams who was familiar with the adjustments needed to transform stories from the monthly American comics to the weekly British ones, was employed on a six-month contract to help set the whole thing up.Marvel UK started with The Mighty World of Marvel, which featured mainly black-and-white art with spot colouring. Originally the weekly comic was created by slicing up storylines from the monthly American versions of The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four.
A few months later Spider-Man Comics Weekly was released. Again this carried on reprinted American Spider-Man material originally started in MWOM, with the adventures of Thor starting as a back-up feature. The new title allowed an entire issue of the US The Amazing Spider-Man to be reprinted every week in the UK publication. Both of these initial series were huge successes and became the mainstays of the Marvel UK lineup; The Mighty World Of Marvel, in one form or another, was published continuously until 1984, while the Spider-Man weekly comic would continue until 1985.
Expansion: Skingley and Softly era
In 1973, the US-based editor Isabella was replaced by the UK-based Petra Skingley That year, Marvel UK launched The Avengers — starting with material from issue #4 of the US series which reintroduced Captain America. The new title introduced glossy covers around a smaller 36-page comic, down from the previous 40-page format of MWOM and Spider-Man Comics Weekly. Doctor Strange was the back-up feature. Glossy covers were to be a distinctive feature of Marvel UK weeklies until the "Marvel Revolution" in 1979. The other two titles also changed to this new format. In Spider-Man the decrease to 36 pages marked the reduction of Spider-Man material so that now only half a US issue was reproduced in the UK weekly, and Iron Man was added to the lineup.In 1974, two new weeklies were added that departed from the usual superhero fare. These were Dracula Lives! and Planet of the Apes, the latter reprinting material from the American black & white Marvel Monster Group brand. In 1976 Dracula Lives! was canceled and merged with Planet of the Apes as of issue #88. The Apes adventures lasted until 1977, the final months as a co-feature with the Hulk, in MWOM from issue #231. The non-superhero launches continued in March 1975 as Savage Sword of Conan was added as a weekly title.
Concurrently with Savage Sword of Conan, Marvel UK launched a new weekly title called The Super-Heroes. Although it originally starred popular characters like the Silver Surfer and the X-Men, The Super-Heroes eventually began reprinting stories starring such obscure characters as Doc Savage, Ant-Man, The Cat, Scarecrow, and Bloodstone. Maureen Softly. replaced Skingley as editor in late 1975.
Marvel UK's fifth superhero title, also debuting in 1975, was The Titans, which was notable for its use of a "landscape" orientation. Although this format allowed two pages of Marvel U.S. artwork to fit onto one Marvel UK page, reader reaction was mixed, as it made the text small and often difficult to read. The Titans featured well-known characters like Captain America, Captain Marvel, the Sub-Mariner, the Inhumans, and Nick Fury. With issue 27 the Fantastic Four were moved over from The Mighty World of Marvel to headline the title.
The Super-Heroes lasted fifty issues before being canceled in early 1976, at which point it was merged into Spider-Man Comics Weekly, which changed its title to Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes. At this point, the book also changed orientation to become a landscape-format comic like The Titans. Just six issues before the end of The Titans run, with issue 58 in November 1976, the Avengers had moved over from The Mighty World of Marvel to be its lead strip so that the Fantastic Four could join the line up of a new comic called Captain Britain. As with The Super-Heroes, on The Titans cancellation it was merged with Spider-Man weekly, becoming Super Spider-Man and the Titans.
Tennant and Laing era
Marvel UK began to establish itself as a major publisher of weekly comic titles under the direction of editor-in-chief Neil Tennant. Tennant was responsible for anglicising the dialogue of the comics to suit British readers, and for indicating where women needed to be redrawn "more decently" for the British editions.However, with the exception of some new covers drawn by Marvel Comics' American staff, no original material had yet been produced by Marvel UK. This changed in 1976 when Captain Britain Weekly was launched, featuring a hero created for the British market. Captain Britain Weekly featured new stories in colour as well as reprints of Nick Fury and Fantastic Four strips as backup. It was initially a success but eventually combined with Marvel UK's Spider-Man reprint title from #39.
It was Neil Tennant's suggestion to create an original British Marvel war comic to compete with titles such as Warlord and Battle Picture Weekly. While no original material was commissioned the concept of a war comic found fruition as Fury which ran from March to August 1977 before merging with MWOM. It reprinted Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders.
Tennant left in 1977 and was replaced by Nick Laing. In early 1978, Laing oversaw the launch of Marvel UK's Star Wars Weekly title, soon after the film was released in the UK. The weekly issues split the stories from the US monthly issues into smaller installments, and it usually took three weekly issues to complete a US monthly issue. In May 1980 the title became known as The Empire Strikes Back Weekly, and in November 1980 it transformed into a monthly publication. Marvel UK's Star Wars comic also published original Star Wars stories by British creators as well as reprinting the US comics material. Many, but not all, of these original British stories were reprinted in the 1990s by Dark Horse Comics. The format changed back to a weekly in June 1983 with the adaptation of Return of the Jedi, and remained so until its last issue in 1986. Prior to the Return of the Jedi comic, the strips in the UK Star Wars comics were printed in black and white, even those taken from the American color versions. The UK comics also reprinted several other supporting strips in each issue from other Marvel properties. While the comic was in a weekly format, the supporting strips often made up the bulk of each issue.