07: Your All Time Favourite Comic: a Poll (category 7: Foreign Reprint titles)

Another category that may need expanding: Marvel UK alone could account for a couple of hundred titles! I've picked these particular ones based on either longevity or, paradoxically, the fact that they contained a fair amount of British originated material as well as the reprints. Please tell me if I've missed out your favourite.

For me: The Daredevils, arguably the finest superhero title Britain has ever produced. Although 'superhero title' hardly does it justice...

And this is where it gets tricky.

I think I must have read a few issues of all these at some point, but the ones I collected were Star Wars and Captain Britain. And I think I'll have to go with the latter because that one belonged to us. Mostly. Didn't it?

Sandhopper wrote:And this is where it gets tricky.

I think I must have read a few issues of all these at some point, but the ones I collected were Star Wars and Captain Britain. And I think I'll have to go with the latter because that one belonged to us. Mostly. Didn't it?

It did. Despite the early CB strips being written by American creators; the character himself was the creation of X-Men scribe Chris Claremont and the wonderful Herb Trimpe, with later chroniclers including Stan Lee's brother, Larry Lieber. But he was created for us!

I recently got into captain Britian threw some old comics I borrowed from a mate. May be a bit camp now but really are great and capture the era very well.

Hourglass wrote:I recently got into captain Britian threw some old comics I borrowed from a mate. May be a bit camp now but really are great and capture the era very well.

You're talking about the original series, right? I agree-but do yourself a favour and read some of Alan Moore's run from the early eighties, one of the best pieces of work the hairy Northamptonite ever wrote IMO...

I'm probably wrong here but it was the title with Spiderman in it. I remember my dad ironing a transfer of Steve Ditko's Spidey onto my T-shirt...

GBF wrote:I'm probably wrong here but it was the title with Spiderman in it. I remember my dad ironing a transfer of Steve Ditko's Spidey onto my T-shirt...

Spider-Man Comics Weekly.

...from 1966?

GBF wrote:...from 1966?

Hmm, no. In that case, it would have been Pow! A quick check, in fact, reveals that your iron on transfer was given away with issue #2. 1967, in fact.

...there you go then! I was 20 odd when Spidey weekly came out - so I doubt I'd be wearing a Spidey T-shirt even if my dad HAD ironed it on for me!!!

Hmm, my brother got one solitary issue of a Spider Man comic in the 90's, and so ended our relationship with reprinted foreign stuff (well apart from Tintin from the library).

It also had the first ever Spider Man story in it, which i thought was way better than the 'main' story.

felneymike wrote:Hmm, my brother got one solitary issue of a Spider Man comic in the 90's, and so ended our relationship with reprinted foreign stuff (well apart from Tintin from the library).

It also had the first ever Spider Man story in it, which i thought was way better than the 'main' story.

One of the more recent Panini reprint titles. They were a bit hit and miss at first, but have improved, though they concentrate too much on the more recent stuff to be of much interest to me.

tony ingram wrote:But he was created for us!

And appeared in the UK first, to be later reprinted by the US? At least in the beginning?

Sandhopper wrote:

tony ingram wrote:But he was created for us!

And appeared in the UK first, to be later reprinted by the US? At least in the beginning?

In fact, most of the early CB strips have never been reprinted in the US. The Alan Moore/Dave Thorpe/Alan Davis/Jamie Delano material yes, but beyond a truncated version of his origin being reprinted as a backup in Marvel Tales in the early eighties, none of the stories from the weekly comics have ever been seen over there. They were created in the US specifically for the British market.

Now, if you'd said Planet of the Apes-several of those strips first saw print in Britain and were later reprinted in the States. Likewise Doctor Who.

Well, I could easily have voted for most of these as I love all of the Marvel UK stuff.

Tony, you're right, 'The Daredevils' is a bright stellar shooting star of a mag that burned much too brightly to last very long. I loved it to bits, not only for the general 'atmosphere' of the mag and the text pieces, the sense of a comics community it created, the fantastic early work of Mr Moore on a character that I'd always loved, taking ol' CB off in completely new directions, but it also saw the first british reprints of Millers revolutionary work on my all time favourite, DD himself. As much as I love Lee/Romita's Spiderman, I'd was completely out of place in the earlier issues of this groundbreaking, revolutionary magazine.

Having, said that, I just had to vote for MWOM here. Why? Because it'll always have a place in my heart, I've got the complete run of weekly issues, and it just takes me back. It's the Big Daddy of Marvel UK and set the scene for many happy years to follow.

The complete run? Blimey, I thought I was doing well with about two thirds of it! It was a great title, I agree-and showcased pretty much every significant Marvel character at one time or another, not to mention the apes! I'm glad Panini are keeping the tradition of the name alive, even if I'd rather have the old weekly than the new monthly any day.

The Daredevils though, to me, was simply the best thing Marvel UK ever put out, and that's saying something when you consider some of their other titles, many of them often overlooked as a rule. Future Tense, Star wars Weekly, Savage Action and doctor Who were other particular favourites of mine...

...Spiderman Comics Weekly...the arrival of glossy covers in 1974...The Superheroes (loved this when the Thing/team up reprints started just as it was about to wind up)...being a Daredevil fan I just loved Marvel Super Adventure. Although a weekly, the tone of the Thomas/Colan DD run and the complex Kirby Black Panther suggested a more mature fare for a Marvel weekly at the time, more in tune with their monthlies rather than something like Marvel Action or Spiderman/Hulk Weekly. Like so many great titles, however, it's star burned brightly then faded.

I remember seeing Stan Lee on the telly being interviewed by (Granada) regional tv presenter Tony Wilson (the guy behind the Hacienda/Joy Division/factory records etc). He was plugging the launch of The Titans and the 'revolutionary' 'sideways' format. I rushed out to the shops and bought a copy there and then. Still got it, and the great Buscema poster.

Marvel Super Adventure was another good one, I agree. I did appreciate Miller's Daredevil, but those seventies tales were 'my' era as far as the scarlet swashbuckler was concerned. Black Widow, the mysterious Mr Kline, Death Stalker...

Of course, that's when DD still was the scarlet swashbuckler. Much as I like him, it seems DD is too gloomy to be buckling his swash much these days.

This is such a tough one to wrap my mind around since the topic is "Foreign Reprint titles" which I don't believe we normally got here in the states. (And probably some of the material originated on our side of the Atlantic.)

MajorHoy wrote:This is such a tough one to wrap my mind around since the topic is "Foreign Reprint titles" which I don't believe we normally got here in the states.

I know of at least one foreign reprint title currently being published in the US: the reprint of 2000 AD's Brass Sun.

I can't get into Brass Sun. Cool concept, but the artwork is distinctly un-zarjaz. They all look like shop window dummies.

Lucy McGough wrote:I can't get into Brass Sun. Cool concept, but the artwork is distinctly un-zarjaz. They all look like shop window dummies.

It took awhile for me to get into it, but it's grown on me.

If you like it I might give it another whirl.

tony ingram wrote:

Lucy McGough wrote:I can't get into Brass Sun. Cool concept, but the artwork is distinctly un-zarjaz. They all look like shop window dummies.

It took awhile for me to get into it, but it's grown on me.

Like mold?

No, it's actually worth checking out.