Fantastic #1 (11 February 1967)

This would eventually consist of five weekly titles (Wham!, Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic and Terrific). Whilst the first three of these titles featured traditional British comic book strips with only a small amount of Marvel material as backup feature (again reproduced in black and white and serialized in weekly instalments), Fantastic and Terrific were more magazine-like in style and featured mainly Marvel content [2].

Fantastic #1 was published on 11 February 1967 in a decisively different style than its predecessors and, in fact, any traditional British comic book. Fantastic featured a whole barrage of Marvel superheroes in the form of Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men as its main content, supplemented by an only minimal amount of traditional British material. Terrific, which followed in April 1967, introduced more Marvel characters as the Sub-Mariner, Dr Strange, Thor (again) and Captain America ruled its pages [3].

Both the message and the intention of this new comic book were crystal clear: forget those Marvel reprints from a few years back which were handled by others - this is the real deal from Mighty Marvel. As such, the comic's title was, of course, programmatic, and to further accentuate its authenticity, issue #1 contained an editorial from Stan Lee who gave a basic recap for the uninitiated reader of the Marvel philosophy and the company's interactive and highly personal concept of communication with its readership:

"As a mad Marvelite, you're more than just a reader - you're a friend! So drop me a line soon as you can, I'll be waiting, hear?" [5]

The very same double-page editorial also greeted readers with a blurb stating "Congratulations! You've entered the Mighty Marvel Age of Comics and the excitement is just beginning!"

Mighty World of Marvel #1 launched Marvel's own UK imprint on 30 September 1972

Mighty World of Marvel #5 featuring a Jim Starlin cover (4 November 1972)

Previous British comics featuring Marvel material had simply reprinted original US covers or used paste-ups almost without exception, but the weekly publication schedule of Mighty World of Marvel with multiple featured heroes and serialized content (material from one US issue would be run over three to four UK reprint issues) immediately caused a shortage of US cover artwork and also required new splash pages. As a consequence, a variety of artists working for Marvel in New York were called into service to provide new cover images for the British weeklies.

Mighty World of Marvel quickly proved to be the huge success Marvel no doubt had hoped for, and little more than four months later Marvel UK made its next move to increase its share of the British market by launching their second weekly on February 10th 1973.

Mighty World of Marvel #9 featuring a Jim Starlin cover (2 December 1972)

Mighty World of Marvel #46 introduced the Avengers
(18 August 1973)

Just under a year after the launch of MWOM, Marvel UK was thus able to expand its range of weeklies to three when the Avengers received their own title mag in September 1973 - only a month after having made their debut in the pages of Mighty World of Marvel. Clearly, Marvel UK's motor was running in high gear.

The Avengers also introduced a new production format - unlike MWOM and Spider-Man Comics Weekly the title featured glossy covers with all black & white content only (although by this time the other two comics were also losing their spot colour interiors). The back up strip for The Avengers was Doctor Strange, whilst the previously 20 page strong Spidey stories were about to be halved to accommodate reprints of Iron Man in Spider-Man Comics Weekly .

Avengers #1 brought the number of Marvel UK weeklies to three
(22 September 1973)

Click to see the entire Bullpen Bulletin from Avengers #61
(16 November 1974)

"What I always tried to do with Marvel was to make it seem like a club, like an inner group that we knew about and the outside world wasn't even aware of. If you read Marvel you were on the inside, you were hip, and it was sort of an exclusive thing, limited just to Marvel readers. And I tried to talk to the readers as if they were friends, not readers, so that not only - hopefully - did they enjoy the stories, but they enjoyed being part of the Marvel mystique if you might say, and I'm probably making it sound much more profound than it really was, but that's the way I looked at it. I wanted people to be aware of Marvel, and I wanted people to know about the mysticism and the magic and marvelness of Marvel, and they say that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door, but the world will only do that if it knows the mousetrap exists, and I didn't want us to be doing these books in a vacuum, because you know comic books had no advertising budget, no promotion. There were no ads on television, on the radio, in newspapers - you just printed your comic book and it was out there, and I was sort of like Joan of Arc, I was on a crusade, a mission, to let the world know about the marvelous world of Marvel. So in that sense, I guess I was a little bit of a huckster." [10]

Mighty World of Marvel #258 (September 1977)

The cover from Mighty World of Marvel #258 (September 1977), for example, makes use of three different sources: an illustration extracted from the cover of Tomb of Dracula #50, an illustration extracted from a Defenders panel page, and the well-known 1960s style "string of heads", taken from Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos # 12 but arranged in a new order.

As opposed to this approach, the cover from Mighty World of Marvel #276 (January 1978) was pencilled by Pablo Marcos especially for that issue. The editorial headings clearly mark the art as being for a "British Book" and there's even an instruction that this is to be reduced to 83% of its original size in the final printing process.

Original art by Pablo Marcos for the cover of Mighty World of Marvel #276 (January 1978)

Splash page for a Conan story reprinted in Mighty World of Marvel #210 (6 October 1976)

Splash page for a Hulk story reprinted in Mighty World of Marvel #210 (6 October 1976)

Splash page for a Dr Strange story reprinted in Avengers #64
(7 December 1974)

Splash page for an Avengers story reprinted in Avengers #65
(14 December 1974)

Splash page for an Avengers story reprinted in Avengers #69
(11 January 1975)

The artists in charge of the material produced especially for Marvel's UK reprint line were mentioned in various editorial bullpen bulletins:

"Adorable ED HANNIGAN and Mischievous MIKE ESPOSITO, long time workers on these books, have been teaming up on covers drawn especially for the British editions of THE PLANET OF THE APES!" [12]

Splash page for a Daredevil story reprinted in Mighty World of Marvel #210
(6 October 1976)

"And while we're on the subjects of covers, we might as well throw in the name of PABLO MARCOS, who's been doing most of our DRACULA LIVES frontispieces!" [13]

On special occasions, even some of Marvel's most acknowledged artists would contribute to the production of Marvel UK:

"Since we're on the subject of Spider-Man, we might as well bring up the name of the greatest Spidey illustrator marvel ever had - Jazzy JOHNNY ROMITA! This is a warning to all true Marvelites that they should haunt their newsstands in search of the 100th issue of our favourite web-slinger's mag - 'cause we managed to steal the Jazzy One away from his spot as Art Director of our whole darn line so he could take time out to do us a commemorative cover!" [14]

The official Marvel UK editorial charge in 1974/75 - still based in New York - rested with Jimmy Salicrup for covers and David Cohen for interiors - both extremely young members of Marvel's staff which later on would continue to pursue careers as comic book editors without, however, becoming truly big household names.

"What about Jumpin' JIMMY SALICRUP who produces the covers for these mags? Ever since I mentioned to him that I'd drop all you Marvel-mad people out there a line or two about him, he's gone into hiding under the draughting table in the corner of the office (...) Did you know that he's been working at madcap Marvel since he was only fifteen? And he's only seventeen now! Sheesh, the way we're hiring younger and younger people these days, in a few years Marvel's going to be a nursery!" [15]

"We told you a bit about Jumpin' JIMMY SALICRUP who coordiantes and produces the covers for these British Marvels. This time around we want to say a word about his counterpart on the inside [...] Dauntless DAVE COHEN, who, Snappy SCOTT EDELMAN reminded me to mention, resembles CHARLTON HESTON with dark hair. Everytime he walks down Madison Avenue, the crows part like water, or so we've heard." [16]

By mid-1974, the success of Marvel UK's three weeklies had the powers in charge look to further expansion, and this move would - at the height of the popularity and importance of the horror and fantasy genres for the US market - almost inevitably point to additional material which would complement the so far superhero-only publications. The move happened on 26 October 1974 when two new weeklies were launched simultaneously: Dracula Lives! and Planet of the Apes.

Marvel's most successful venture into the realm of horror was the introduction of Dracula, the lord of vampires created by Bram Stoker in his classic 1897 novel, to the ranks of Marvel's characters through his own title, Tomb of Dracula in April 1972 (the extension to the vampire count's name was necessary for Marvel to be able to copyright the title). The book ran for a total of 70 issues in the US before cancellation came in August 1979 after the longest run of any Bronze Age Marvel horror genre title. In essence, Tomb of Dracula broke new grounds: Penciller Gene Colan and writer Marv Wolfman achieved a quality of storytelling which was not only in the best vein of the classic gothic vampire stories but also added its very own stamp of originality and thematic momentum, weaving an ongoing saga which plotted the vampire count against the group of vampire hunters and others who sought to put an end to his existence.