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Marvel UK was an imprint of Marvel Comics formed in 1972 to reprint US produced stories for the British weekly comic market, though it later did produce original material by British creators such as Alan Moore , John Wagner , Dave Gibbons , Steve Dillon and Grant Morrison . It now forms part of Panini Comics . PUBLISHING HISTORY 1970s Reprints of American Marvel material had been published in the UK during the 1960s in Odhams Press titles such as '' Smash '', these titles featured a mix of reprint Marvel material ( such as the '' Fantastic Four '' ) and originally produced non-Marvel related work. This lasted till 1969 when the last superhero strip was removed from ''Smash'', leaving no Marvel titles being reprinted in the UK at all. Seeing a gap in the popular weekly comics market of the UK at the time, Marvel Comics formed their own British publishing arm. Starting with '' The Mighty World Of Marvel '' ( commonly shortened to ''MWOM'' ) in 1972 they started black and white ( though early issues of ''MWOM'' did feature some colour ) reprints of '' The Hulk '', '' Spider-Man '' and the '' Fantastic Four ''. As is the custom of British weekly titles, the first issue featured a free gift. ''MWOM #1'' featured a ''Hulk'' iron on t-shirt transfer. The title proved to be a huge success and a few months later '' Spider-Man Comics Weekly'' was released. Again this carried on reprinted American ''Spider-Man'' material originally started in ''MWOM''. The Spider-Man weekly comic would continue until 1985. During the next few years Marvel UK established themselves ( also during this time, Neil Tennant was employed as editor ) as a major publisher of weekly comic titles along with D.C Thomson and IPC . However, with the exception of some new covers drawn by Marvel Comics American staff, no original material had yet been produced. This changed in 1976 when '' Captain Britain Weekly'' was launched featuring a hero created for the British market by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe . ''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. Marvel UK had began publishing a weekly '' Star Wars '' title after the film was released in the UK in early 1978. By 1981 it had transformed into a monthly which also published original ''Star Wars'' stories by British creators, as well as reprinting American Marvel Comics material. Many, but not all, of these original British stories were reprinted in the 1990s by Dark Horse Comics . The Marvel UK ''Star Wars'' comic was published in various formats until 1986. Marvel UK had begun to weaken in this time and it was on a visit to the UK that Stan Lee headhunted Dez Skinn to revamp the ailing company. Giving Skinn freedom to do what he felt best and knowing Skinn had huge experience in British comic publishing, Lee saw Skinn as a British version of himself. Skinn even had his own catchprase in ''Dez Sez'' which was inspired by Stan Lee 's catchphrases from the 1960s. Skinn set out to change Marvel UK as he saw fit. The first major change he would bring was to have original material produced by British creators. Many of these creators had already worked with Skinn on his title, '' The House Of Hammer '' a few years earlier, plus some new young talent. The first title to show this mix was '' Hulk Weekly '' which started out with originally produced Hulk stories created by Steve Dillon , Paul Neary and John Stokes among others. Back up strips included reprints of ''Fantastic Four'' stories as well as originally produced '' Nick Fury '' material drawn by Steve Dillon , and '' Night Raven '' by Steve Parkhouse , David Lloyd and John Bolton . Also included was the '' Black Knight '', a minor Marvel character but revamped to take in Arthurian concepts as well as featuring the return of Captain Britain from comic book limbo. Skinn also revamped other titles such as '' MWOM '' and create further new titles in a bit to boost the company. Also published was his '' Starburst '' title which had been purchased when Skinn joined Marvel. Arguably his most important decision was to launch '' Doctor Who Weekly '' based on the BBC TV series. '' Doctor Who Weekly '' featured comic strips by John Wagner , Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons among many others, plus articles and features on the show itself. It proved a huge success and by now Skinn had transformed Marvel UK back to being a major publisher of not just weekly comics but monthly titles such as '' Starburst ''. 1980s Skinn was not happy with how creators were treated in regard to ownership of characters, so he left to form Quality Communications in 1981. One of his last acts was to give Captain Britain his own strip in the pages of '' MWOM '' as written by Dave Thorpe and drawn by Alan Davis . Thorpe left to be replaced by Alan Moore in one of his first major ongoing strips. By 1982 Marvel UK had almost completely stopped publishing weekly titles and moved mainly to monthly titles such as '' The Daredevils '' ( featuring Moore and Davis's ''Captain Britain'' ) and '' The Mighty World Of Marvel '', which by now was firmly established as a monthly title. However many of Marvel UK's titles wouldn't last long before being combined or cancelled outright due to poor sales. In January 1985 the first issue of '' Captain Britain Monthly'' appeared with its titular strip written by Jamie Delano and drawn by Alan Davis . This title lasted 14 issues before cancellation and would prove to be the last major new title for several years. However new material was still being produced such as '' Zoids '' strips ( written by Grant Morrison ) for '' Spider-Man and Zoids Weekly'', but not on the scale or diversity had been previously seen.. For the remainder of the 1980s the company published only a small handful of titles that appealed to superhero fans, but it had considerable success on the UK news stand with licensed titles such as The Real Ghostbusters, Thundercats, Transformers and many others. These all featured original strips as well as some US reprint. Transformers, in particular, was a major seller for Marvel UK. At it's height selling 200,000 copies a week. It's main writer, Simon Furman, would eventually take over the Marvel US version of the title as well, and continues to work on the franchise to this day, though it is no longer published by either branch of Marvel Comics. This series, running 332 issues, is regarded as the most important collection of Transformers fiction, on par with Stan Lee's runs on Spider-man and the Fantastic Four. And as such, remains one of Marvel UK's most important historical titles. It was Richard Starkings who first pushed for Marvel UK to publish its own US format comics, beginning with Dragon's Claws and '' Death's Head '' ( a spin off character from Marvel UK's '' Transformers '' title ). It was Steve White who launched the first critically-acclaimed volume of Knights Of Pendragon , written by Dan Abnett and John Tomlinson with art by Gary Erskine , which mixed superheroics and Arthurian myth. It also featured Captain Britain among many other Marvel Comics heroes such as Iron Man . '' The Sleeze Brothers '' was a creator-owned title by John Carnell and Andy Lanning. 1990s When Paul Neary became editor-in-chief at the company he launched a number of US format comics at the behest of Marvel US, beginning with '' Death's Head II '' (a recreation of Simon Furman 's cyborg bounty hunter). These titles were set in the existing Marvel Universe but with more of a focus on Science Fiction and magic rather than Marvel's usual superhero fare. Titles such as '' Warheads '' (wormhole hopping mercenaries), '' Motormouth And Killpower '' (streetwise girl and escaped genetically-modified super assassin hop around the universe having adventures) and a second volume of Knights Of Pendragon ,. These were all linked by plots featuring the organisation '' Mys-Tech '', a shadowy group of Faustians bent on world domination. Some of these titles were also reprinted in a monthly UK anthology '' Overkill ''. In the US, these comics were initially immensely successful with some issues being reprinted to keep up with demand, but too many titles were launched too quickly in a market which was already swamped by the early 1990s comics boom. By 1994 Marvel UK had ceased publishing in the US market and now only printing a handfull of reprint titles for the UK market as well as the long running '' Doctor Who Magazine ''. With the failure of its US titles the company's assets were bought by Panini Comics , who had been part of Marvel Europe , and had already been reprinting American material across Europe for several years. Casualties of the merger included editor-in-chief Paul Neary and Managing Director Vincent Conran . Conran now runs a books company, Bishop and Barncoat, in Cornwall. Thanks to this licensing deal reprints of American Marvel Comics material was once again published in the UK by Panini from the mid-1990s. Each book would contain approximately two or three Marvel US strips in one issue with possibly a 'classic' comic printed as a substitute for a comic in the current run, whilst being priced at a reasonable level. Initially the lineup consisted of only Astonishing Spider-Man and ''Essential X-Men'' and followed the continuity of the US comics, however it was approximately 2-3 years behind the current run in America. 2000s Since then Panini extended their line to include other characters within the Marvel Universe. ''Wolverine Unleashed'' was introduced in the late 90s following the success of the first two titles, in which Wolverine 's solo comic was reprinted. The comic ran for approx. 50 issues before it was renamed ''Wolverine & Gambit'' to allow reprints of the '' Gambit '' series, and subsequently ''Wolverine and Deadpool'' when the Gambit material had been exhausted and Deadpool was introduced as a replacement in 2004. ''Marvel Heroes Reborn'' was released in 1997, to introduce the new Heroes Reborn saga, and expand the range of characters in Marvel UK's lineup. It was initially published with only two strips (or 56 pages) but this was expanded to 76 pages (commonly 3 strips) from issue 17 onwards. Unfortunately, this title was short lived due to continuesly lagging sales, and was eventually cancelled in 2000. Later titles include ''Avengers United'', ''Fantastic Four Adventures'', ''Mighty World of Marvel'' as well as the introduction of the Ultimate Marvel imprint, consisting of ''Ultimate Spider-Man & X-Men'' (which was originally two titles, which merged since it was reprinting the stories too fast for Marvel US to print them) and ''Ultimate Fantastic Four'' (cancelled because of low sales, and because it was only a few issues behind the US title by the end). Alongside these mainly reprint titles, Panini continues to print '' Doctor Who Magazine '' which still features originally produced comics by British creators, something Panini do in their other titles. This includes the first new ''Captain Britain'' story by a British creative team in over a decade which was created by Jim Alexander , Jon Haward and John Stokes in '' Spectacular Spider-Man '' (UK version ) #114 published in March 2005. In March 2006, Marvel Entertainment and Panini S.p.A announced that they had renewed and expanded their publishing agreement under which Panini retains a master license for producing translated versions of Marvel comics for Europe and selected Latin American countries. The new agreement includes a major expansion of editorial projects in which Panini will originate new content under the creative supervision of Marvel. Comics trade news site icv2 reported that Panini will continue to develop its Spectacular Spider-Man and Marvel Rampage children's magazines and will also originate a third magazine aimed at younger readers and develop new short Marvel comic strip stories for syndication in newspapers and periodicals throughout its licensed territories. EXTERNAL LINKS
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