Clarifying the Timeline of Revolutionary War in the Marvel Universe.

Hi folks,

In my last blog article I went into quite some detail over the first issue of Revolutionary War and how it fitted into Marvel continuity. In particular trying to place the Battle of London Bridge may have occurred, and asking if (as it seemed) Killpower had gotten trapped on the other side of a portal how could he have taken part in the events of Captain Britain & MI13.

Well, on that issue thread we were lucky enough for series co-creator Andy Lanning to have dropped by and clarified a few things about the course of events we are seeing in Revolutionary War. And as it turns out I had the order of events a little skewif in terms of quite where they fit.

I've asked Andy if he'd be okay why my posting his comments up for the rest of you to easier find, and he's said he's okay with that. So here, in his own words, is how things fit.

Wotcha Mark,

Just thought I'd pop in and clarify the confusion about the timeline in Revolutionary War.

I've noticed a few comments about when it is set and probable continuity errors regarding Killpower.
This is a problem facing most creators when dealing with long running continuity in any established comic universe. We had to make a call early on as to when this story was set and how it slotted into on-going story continuity.

I've always tried to respect continuity as much as possible- out of respect for previous creators and for the fans who have been reading a title for a long time.

Sometimes this can be difficult; especially when you want to bring in new readers who may be put off because of the weight of established continuity as well as dealing with the complete illogical nature of story time verses real time.

So, bearing in mind all the above, here’s our approach for revolutionary War:

It’s been 20 years since the last Marvel UK title was published in 1994.

The last time we saw any Marvel UK characters was in Paul Cornell’s excellent Captain Britain & MI13 series which was published in 2008-2009. That’s 5 years ago, real time.

Death’s Head II and other characters have popped up recently in Iron Man and other Marvel titles but MI13 was the last time we saw anything that could be considered ‘Marvel UK’ continuity.

In the Marvel Universe story continuity the events in MI13 were during and after the Skrull Invasion. There’s been a lot of Events in the MU since then but no real sense of how long has passed since the Invasion and now. Just that time has passed because of the changes to various characters in the MU.
We took it that at most 5 years has passed in the MU since the events in MI13 and the start of RW (because this is fact based on real time) but were careful not to be specific as it may cause problems down the line and we want to keep our options open should we get the chance to tell more stories in the MUK Universe (one of which would almost certainly be revisiting the events surrounding the fall of MYSTECH).

During those years, the Battle for London Bridge has taken place and MYSTECH have been defeated, setting the scene for the story we’re telling and the changes in the characters when we meet them now.

It may not be ideal but it’s the best we have and, more importantly, allows us to once and for all establish that the events and characters from Marvel UK take place in the bigger Marvel Universe.
Hope this clears things up.

Thanks for all the support and kind comments

Hope you keep enjoying the story and fingers crossed we get enough buzz from it to do some more in the future!

Cheers
Andy

I hope that helps clear a few things up for folks.

So basically, think of Captain Britain & MI13, with its guest appearances of Motormouth, Killpower, Death's Head, Digitek and Dark Angel as the last Marvel UK story. The flashbacks you are seeing from the Battle of London Bridge happen a while AFTER that. Mys-Tech are taken down, S.H.I.E.L.D. take some element of control, characters get trapped in another dimension, but all some time after that series had concluded.

So, yes, Killpower may well be trapped in another dimension. We'll just have to wait an see... ;)

And I do agree with Andy on this. Story time vs Real Time is a very difficult to balance to strike up. Probably even more so in recent years. Since the end of Secret Invasion really the incredible flow of storylines, crossover Events and status quo changes at Marvel has been much higher than the preceding ten years of comics. With the bulk of Marvel's books also double shipping these past two years that also adds complexity to situation.

Try logically putting a time scale on something like 'Dark Reign' - the period after Secret Invasion where Norman Osborn was given full control of S.H.I.E.L.D., closed it down and replaced it with his own organisation - for example. That period of Marvel status quo lasted for just over a year in publishing time, but even with all the tie-in issues (and there were many) you could probably only truly account for a months worth of actual 'events' in panel. Osborn was clearly in charge for much longer than that, which just kind of shows that any attempts to formulaically measure such things in terms of Real Time is a pretty pointless exercise.

Does it effect the story? No. All you need to know is that Mys-Tech have been gone a long time, and they were defeated a while after Captain Britain & MI13 wrapped.

But, I suppose, for those who absolutely need to place the Battle of London Bridge in amongst all those Marvel status quo periods? Here goes...

Captain Britain & MI13 started during Secret Invasion but wrapped during Dark Reign. Dark Reign ended with Siege, which then began the period of focus upon Heroes coming back, getting together and winning the day named 'The Heroic Age'.

Now it is purely my own opinion here, but a day where all the heroes of Marvel UK got together, in one co-ordinated attack, and took down their greatest enemies once and for all? Well does that just sound in step with the Heroic Age, now? :) It even roughly fits time wise too.

So there you go. No new issue out this week, but I'll be posting up a summary for Revolutionary War: Dark Angel in the week.

Hopefully I'll see you then.

A bit of Early 90s Nostalgia...

Following on from all this recent talk about Revolutionary War, and a mini Marvel UK revival, I thought I'd post up this video which former Marvel UK editor Tim Quinn recently linked to on the Make Mine Marvel UK Facebook page.

Back in 1993, while Marvel UK was flourishing in that boom of the Imprint Years, they took part in that year's London Lord Mayor's Show.

For the benefit of readers from outside of the UK, the Lord Mayor's Show is annual street parade - pageantry, procession and floats, mostly with a very British theme. You know how Marvel usually have a float or blimp for the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade? Kind of like that. Only here in the UK we had a big truck with St Paul's Cathedral on it's side, explosions, Killpower and Spidey on the front.

Not only that, but a good number of Marvel UK staffers dressed up to cosplay marvel characters on it's roof! They even posed for this photo. Can you work out who is playing who? Really, because I'd love to know :) :

And yes. That's even a Death's Head II costume. It came complete with a gun arm, which sadly isn't visible in this picture. Quinn describes how that came about:

Once upon a time there was tons of money sloshing around at Marvel UK so we pushed the boat out and had one of the guys who created the Batman movie costume in the Eighties put this magnificent beast together. I used to take him walks round London.

It really is quite impressive.

The float itself can be seen in the YouTube clip below. Granted, it's not *the* most graceful of vehicles, but there really is something quite impressive about seeing Marvel UK shown on this kind of stage:





The other side of the float, featuring Motormouth, Nelson's Column and what appears to be a sly dig at Westminster, can be seen here:

This is the era of Marvel UK I probably most identify with. Just as I was hitting the point in my teens where I was able to form more discerning tastes about my reading habits. I bought into the Imprint Years, and Marvel UK's running absolutely parallel with the US comics, absolutely. Wholesale. So I couldn't pass up the opportunity to share this. It's timing, with the buzz starting to build about Revolutionary War, seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

In other news this week, some of you might like to check out this Death's Head article over at Newsarama. They seem to posting what I was posting up about earlier in the year, that Death's Head seems to be turning up in so many places recently that it all should be building up towards something.

I certainly hope so.

But you know me. :) After the past couple of years I try not to hope *too* much.

It does all seem quite promising, though.

I will leave you with the final line from that article, courtesy of DH supremo Simon Furman:

“Who knows… maybe he'd warrant a little mini-series of his own?” Furman asks. “Deadpool vs Death's Head, anyone?”

To which (in a Death's Head fashion which cannot be ignored) the only answer should be "Yes". ;)

Until next time

Mark
(Sword)

First glimpse of Marvel UK's return in Revolutionary War.

So, as most of you are probably aware by now, the many properties of Marvel UK are going to be making a US market comeback this coming January, in a series named 'Revolutionary War' to be written by Andy Lanning and Alan Cowsill.

If not? Well, now you do.

We'd heard a little about what it might entail, and that a number of artists would be attached to the series, but so far we'd not actually *seen* anything from it. Well, it is only September.

But last night Stephen Wacker, Marvel editor and editor for the series, posted the following little glimpse on Twitter...

 

 

 

Bless you, Mr Wacker. And yes, it really IS happening. It certainly looks like prospective cover art, and while I cannot say for certain who is responsible for it the art style certainly looks like it might be by Mark Brooks.

 

Let's have closer look shall we...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I think we can certainly say, with little question, that we're looking at Death's Head II (Minion), in the centre there. And to the right of him are the unmistakable 'Hot-Knives' of Pete Wisdom.

 

I feel pretty sure that bottom left is Dark Angel's mask and hair. But what else?

 

Somebody in armour top left? Knights of Pendragon? Who does that purple fabric belong to?

 

May the speculation commence!

 

Either way it's a really nice image. And if this is the kind of production values we might be looking at for Revolutionary War I really hope it grabs people's attention.

 

Let me know what you think, guys. I'm really psyched for this series. Spread the word.

 

Mark

Infinity: The Hunt and a few Bits & Bobs.

Hi folks,

Sorry that it's been a while since my last posts. Life has been getting in the way a bit.

But I thought I'd pop on this evening to tell you about a book that's coming out today (Wednesday 11th September) which may be of interest to long term Captain Britain and Marvel UK fans.

Marvel is back into Event Season again, right now. 'Infinity' kicked off a few weeks back, and while Captain Britain himself doesn't sound likely to be playing any part in it somebody close too him certainly seems to be.

This is the cover to Infinity: The Hunt #1, which came out today.

 

 

Take note of the blond at top left, wearing a suspiciously familiar green bodysuit...

 

Yes. That's Meggan Braddock (who does keep on getting booted back to that costume, doesn't she?). And if any further confirmation of it actually being Meggan were required you'll find it on page 1 of the Preview currently up at CBR.

 

 

 

 

 

And it's called the 'CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS'. Inspired by the 80s series of the same name.

 

Meggan's appearance here, alongside Wolverine (the Jean Grey School), Hank Pym (Avengers Academy) and She-Hulk (Future Foundation), is as a representative of Braddock Academy - the school for British teen heroes, which her and Captain Britain have been running of late.

 

Braddock Academy was first mentioned in the pages of Avengers Arena, in which several of its students have been kidnapped and pitted against each other by Arcade, in his new version of Murderworld. Another student, Magic Boots Mel, turned up the pages of an Age of Ultron tie-in issue of Avengers Assemble. This third appearance will no doubt showcase even more of the Academy's student body. Has to make you wonder if Marvel doesn't have some kind of long term plan for them.

 

Infinity: The Hunt is going to be a limited series of four issues. And while the Contest of Champions aspect is going to be the main focus it will apparently be disrupted by Thanos' grand plans for Earth, as detailed in the main Infinity series. The Solicit is as follows:

 

 

Written by Matt Kindt, art by Steven Sanders, cover by Slava Pasarin.

 

* Hank Pym, Wolverine, and She-Hulk bring the students of the Marvel Universe together to announce a new Contest of Champions!

* This Contest of Champions pits the super students of schools all over the Marvel U (including some you've never seen before) against each other.

* However, the Contest is interrupted when Thanos' forces descend on Earth. What do they have to do with the young heroes?

 

 

Matt Kindt I'm not so familiar with, but Steve Sanders you may remember from Kieron Gillen's S.W.O.R.D. ongoing series, a few years back. While it seems a little bit of an odd premise for a tie-in series (and I find myself trying to remember if Wolverine is still supposed to be on Earth in Infinity proper) it may prove quite interesting.

 

Infinity: The Hunt #1 is out today.

 

 

In other news I just thought that some of you might like to take a look over the following...

 

I'm often asked by readers of this blog, and visitors to the Captain Britain & MI13 thread on CBR's forums, as to where people might find a full list of books from the Marvel UK 90s imprint. Well over at Down the Tubes former Marvel UK editor John Freeman has been putting together a list of all the Imprint Years projects from Marvel UK - including a number of those which never quite made it put into print before the closure.

 

You can find the list here. It's pretty extensive, and includes a few interesting hints towards where Marvel UK might have gone had it not closed. For those of you looking to fill holes in your collection, but not knowing what you should be looking for, this may also come in very handy.



 

And finally, I've had another Blog post up over Weekly Geek Speak's website. This time a lengthy post on the subject of Crossovers. You can find that article here. So if you're inclined, drop in over there too.

 

Until next time.

 

Mark

(Sword)

Missed Marvel UK creators at Cons this year? This may help.

Two things that I have regretted this year, whilst moving house and working ridiculous hours, is that I haven't been able to get out to as many Cons as I'd initially planned. Especially this year, when I knew that in at least two instances there was going to be appearances made by certain Marvel UK creators whom I have not yet had a chance to meet. Firstly, I'd seen fliers stating that Captain Britain creator Chris Claremont was going to be at Bristol Comics Expo. Now even in this day and age, that was a pretty big deal. How often does he come to the UK, these days? I had to make that. It was in May. I could do that...

Yeah. I failed to make Bristol...

I'd also been hearing really good things about Sci-Fi London. I'd been hearing names like Gary Erskine (Artist on Knights of Pendragon and Warheads), Dez Skinn (Former Head Editor of Marvel UK, in the 70s), John Freeman (Former Group Editor of Marvel UK, editor on Doctor Who Weekly, and writer on the Real Ghostbusters comic), Simon Furman (Creator of Death's Head and UK Transformers legend),  and Dan Abnett (Death's Head II and Knights of Pendragon). There was word of a proper Marvel UK Panel! How could I miss that?

Yeah. That was in May, too. Didn't make that either...

Luckily for me (And if you missed them, for you also) there is some consolation here. Alex Fitch presents a weekly radio show about comics, on London's Resonance 104.4 FM, by the name of Panel Borders. Not being a London resident I can't pick it up live, but Alex does also put out his shows as Podcasts. And in recent times there have actually been several of those which will probably be of quite a bit of interest to regular readers.

For one, Alex managed to get an interview with Chris Claremont at Bristol. You can find that one HERE.
It's quite an interesting interview. A little guarded from Claremont, but it does touch on his British roots, Captain Britain, and also his continuing want to work with Alan Davis. Well worth a listen. Many of you might have read interviews with Claremont before, but hearing him actually speaking, certainly for me, adds a different dimension to some of his past interview comments. Take a listen.

Alex also chaired the Marvel UK panel at Sci-Fi London! And therefore the whole panel has been recorded, split into two Podcasts, available HERE and HERE. It's a really good panel, which discusses Marvel UK right across the three decades of its existence. One very interesting dimension discussed here though, and which I don't tend to cover as much on this Blog, is Marvel UK's licensed titles from the 1980s. I don't tend to cover those as much, because their characters are not so transferable into the present, and aren't strictly speaking the property of Marvel UK. But it cannot be denied that titles like Transformers, Thundercats and even The Real Ghostbusters, were huge sellers. Certainly larger sellers than the vast majority of titles in the modern American market, that's for sure. I cannot recommend listening to this panel enough.

Other Podcasts available from the Archive, which you might be interested in from a Marvel UK standpoint, include, a great spotlight on Captain Britain, from last year, which includes interviews with both Paul Cornell and Alan Davis, interviews with David Lloyd (Artist on V for Vendetta, ad Night Raven),  Mark Buckingham (Mortigan Goth: Immortalis, Marvelman and Fables) and another interview with Paul Cornell and David Hine which technicaly is rooted in their work for DC, but is also worth a listen.

So, that's three days and four Blogs. I'm getting there guys, but please bear with me... :)

And now... the Cocktails.

Hullo again,

Some of you will remember that at New Years' I promised to post up some photos of some of our mighty Marvel UK Cocktails. It was fully my intention to have these posted up within the first week of 2009. Sadly, there were a few technical complications in getting that done. Probably Resolution #1 for 2009 should be 'Buy more reliable Tech'.

Resolution #2 should also probably be not to drink enough of said cocktails that I believe it's a really great idea to pose for a photo with my Little Black Book of Cocktails...



Yeah. You won't be seeing any more of those. There were photos taken across the evening, but the problem with road-testing all of these wondrous creations was that having started around 6pm by the time I reached 10pm I was rather ridiculously inebriated. And while I had thought it would be a great idea to document the evening in photo detail, at the time, this was clearly the expressed wishes of a drunken lunatic.

Sober Mark has right of veto.

I just thank God I didn't Blog while drunk...

Anyway, here in their many multi-coloured glories are some of the It Came From Darkmoor Marvel UK Cocktails.

First up, The Dragon's Claw:



This one actually tastes quite sweet. It's the banana Bols to blame for that. But after taking this photo we really didn't think we'd done justice in showing just how GREEN it really is. So, enter a makeshift cyclorama (That's my theatre roots showing...) and we get a clearer picture:



Now that's suitably green. I finally picked up my copy of the Dragon's Claws trade of Christmas. I'm on a real kick for that series, right now. And for Death's Head, too. Speaking of which:



One Death's Head. I'm sure you'll agree that when I said it looked like fluid directly leached from out of a cyborg, I wasn't far wrong...

And here's a shot 'As close to a Death's Head without your eyes getting wet'.



Why the hell I insisted in taking this photo, I don't know. Hannah was doing most of these (Hence the lack of quite so much blur) but this is one I insisted doing myself!

And of course one Death's Head deserves another...



And, of course, a Death's Head 3.0. For the ladies.



I've just realised that photo how difficult it is to display scale in that last one. I assure you it IS a half pint (Plastic) glass.

And now onto the Doctor Who themed Sonic Screwdriver. Han's been doing this one for a couple of years. It really is alarmingly blue:



But again this photo didn't really do it justice. So a second attempt was in order:



Alarming, huh? Almost radioactive in appearance.

Closer to the other end of the spectrum, in terms of colour, we have the Black Axe.



This one again is in a half pint, due to the amount of spirits in it. It's certainly not unpleasant. But has an initial kick to it not uncommon with the flavour of accidentally consuming some of your other half's somebody hairspray as it hangs in the air, if not mixed well.

Otherwise, it's quite sound. I'm a great believer in the use of Blavod. Contrary to popular belief it does not taste of aniseed or siumilar. It's colouring is black but it does not have any effect on the flavour, which is very much that of a clean crisp taste of vodka.

One more from the list for you:



Now this is a Dark Angel. But dear god, we made several attempts at trying to get this on camera. Basically, the dash of grenadine creates a swirly of deeper red within the orange of the WKD. But by the time we had the camera ready, it had kind of sunk in. Each time.

This was the nearest we got, in this kind of sunrise effect. You'll have to take our word for it.

These two other cocktails were not on the list:

This was Hannah's 'Skrull Invasion' as a tribute to Paul Cornell's The Guns of Avalon storyline in Captain Britain and MI13.



It was actually quite a clever and potent mix of spirits from what I recall, and took forever to get a mix which would actually appear almost entirely undetectable to the eye.

And this was Felicity's 'Tangerine'



Which I believe was buck's fizz based. The problem was, that by the time we'd reached this point of the evening the recipes for these were not jotted down in the book, but elsewhere. So I can't actually tell you with any certainty as to what was in them. I'll try to track those recipes down, and post them up another time.

So that was my New Years'. I hope you all had most excellent New Years' of your own. I know that some of you did attempt a couple of these yourselves, and were inspired to attempt your own also. Please do let me know how those went.

In other news, today is new comics day in America, and we are only hours away from its companion day in the UK. A quick reminder that Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's Nova #21 is out. I haven't gone on a lot about this series, I have to admit, but it genuinely is a great read. I'd very much recommend picking the book up if you aren't already. Abnett and Lanning were both very involved with Marvel UK, and the way they made the Marvel Space titles their own over the past couple of years has been great.

And while we're on the subject of books you should be picking up, I was very genuinely serious with my post from the weekend. We're two weeks off CAP WEDNESDAY, the release of Captain Britain & MI13 #10.

Pencil it in the diary. February the 11th 2009.

There's been a lot of positive talk about the book on message boards these past few days. Marvel speaking out about the title, and the promo poster that Newsarama put up last week for #10 has got a few people interested in finding out more, it seems. Which is a great start.

Spread the word, people. The more people who know about the book the better. Don't just go out there spamming message boards - nobody likes that. But strike up a conversation. Get talking about the cast, the stories, the creative team. Strike up a dialogue and make your case. One of the best things about this series has been just how close the fans seem to feel to it. I think that Paul Cornell offering his own blog up as a letters page certainly helps with that.

Pay him a visit at: http://paulcornell.blogspot.com/

I want to find you chatting out there on this here Interweb. Or who knows? You might find me.

Until the next time, folks.

Mark Out.

Tom Brevoort on the possibility of another Marvel UK?

A little bit of a midweek update for you.

Firstly, you may have noticed a few costmetic changes on site, in the last few days. There's been a couple of logo changes, for a start, and a bit of a resort of tags. You can now also search the blog via a keyword search, at the top of the right hand site of the page. But probably the new function I am most pleased with is the Recent Comments field I've added to the right hand panel. This little widget allows blog visitors to see what's being most recently discussed. We've a lot of stuff on here now, and I'd hate to think that people wouldn't want to comment on an older entry, purely because they don't think anybody will see their comments. Now they will. Right onthe front page too.

Make use of these new functions, and let me know what you think.

So, oto the main focus of today's blog. In the last couple of years things have started to look a good deal rosier for British Characters in the Marvel Universe. We’ve had Wisdom, Union Jack and Spitfire turning up in the pages of Captain America, Union Jack's own limited series, and more recently a return for Clan Destine and New Excalibur giving way to Captain Britain & MI:13. It’s actually looking pretty good. Room for improvement, of course, but looking good nonetheless. If you’re like me, though, you’ll actually be wondering what the official word on the British characters might be, at Marvel. What do the people who call the shots think about those properties, or the concept of some more British produced Marvel material? Well, recently Tom Brevoort, Executive Editor at Marvel Comics, was asked a similar question over at his blog. For those of you unaware of who tom is, he’s a long standing editor, who’s been with Marvel since the late 80s, and regularly takes readers’ questions on his Marvel.com based blog.

(He has previously spoken out against at the adoption of the term ‘Earth 616’ at Marvel during the 1980s – and how he wishes people would stop that – but I won’t hold it against him).

Last month, a poster going by the name of ukdavew, asked Tom the following:

Posted by ukdavew on 2008-03-28 07:47:46: What's the current
thought within Marvel to the possibilities of expanding into new markets by
publishing more comics about non-American heroes? I grew up reading Marvel UK
titles such as Motormouth and Killpower, Captain Britain, Knights of Pendragon
and I see it as a real shame that kids today don't have the same choice. There's
the Panini comics (aimed at younger kids) or the more "typical" American faire.

So, in essence ukdavew is one of us – a Marvel UK fanatic of the early 90s. More power to him.

For those of you outside of the UK the Panini Comics he is referring to are primarily reprints of US titles, from both Marvel and from DC comics. They mostly reprint three US books per issue, monthly. It’s the format that seems to sell best in the UK, and indeed sells incredibly well. But the only real new material they put out is the Spectacular Spider-man comic, which certainly aims itself at the younger reader in presentational style.

But what of Tom’s view on it?

Tom Brevoort: I think these are two different questions. In the past, Marvel has been in the forefront of creating characters of different nationalities and different
backgrounds and making them important in the Marvel Universe. They haven't all
become major players, but a number of them have. However, I don't think this
does all that much to expand the market in other countries--while everybody
likes to have heroes they can directly relate to, I think that, in general, the
publishers in, say, India are more interested in publishing SPIDER-MAN than
MARVEL-HERO-FROM-INDIA. Marvel UK was a valiant attempt, but a relatively
short-lived one that came about in a marketplace that was very flush, and that
died out when that same marketplace began to contract. But we're now doing some
cross-publishing with Soleil, so you never know what might grow out of that if
things go well.

By ‘relatively short-lived’ I’m assuming he’s only referring to the imprint years…

Admittedly, he’s probably right. The reprint market is bustling right now, and by and large I don’t think any of us would be under the illusion that say a new line of Marvel UK titles would outsell the X-Men books, even here in the UK. But it certainly sounds to me that Brevoort, at least, is not totally against the idea. Even if he does appear to making that rather annoying assumption, which many Americans seem to have, that Britain is really that close to mainland Europe. Culturally we don’t seem to interact as closely I think some people stateside seem to believe we do.

The Soleil deal referred to here was announced back in January. Soleil are a French comics publisher, responsible for titles such as Sky Doll and Universal War One. The deal itself will allow both parties to reprint parts of each other’s material in their respective countries, which is simple enough. But more interestingly it appears to have started a bit of an artist and writer exchange between the two companies. A number of Marvel creators will be going over to France to create some new material for Soleil. We’re not quite talking about the creation of a Marvel Francais, here, but this could actually prove quite interesting.

For more info on Marvel’s deal with Soleil, go here:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=144451

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=131487

Thanks to Steven Carr for mailing me about that one. It’s actually got me thinking a bit about Marvel UK, as it was, and wondering what people might think about the concept of a British imprint in the current comic book climate. Would it succeed? What kind of conditions would have to be in place in order for it to do so? Is there even a need for it, or is a few British properties turning up in mainstream Marvel enough?

I’ll turn that one over to you…

Tom Brevoort’s blog “Blah Blah Blog” can be found at: http://www.marvel.com/blogs/

From Cents to Pence - Rob Kirby to chart the history of Marvel UK

As announced by Simon Williams, over at the Make Mine Marvel UK!!! Facebook group, this week, there are plans afoot for the publishing of a written history of all things Marvel UK. Rob Kirby is the guy who's been piecing stuff together over the past couple of years, and while 'Marvel: From Cents to Pence – The Definitive Guide to Marvel’s British Comics 1951-2007,' to give it its full title, does not have a release date (as of yet) Simon assures us that work is complete on the text itself and its indices.

The book will apparently be published in hardback and as 'A Quality Guide' - the first in a new imprint of books from Dez Skinn's long-running publishing company. Dez was, of course, a former Editorial Director of Marvel UK, as well as being in charge of Warrior magazine in the 80s (V for Vendetta, Miracleman) - so if ever there were a right company for job...

Kirby promises that:

the first half of Marvel: From Cents to Pence will contain a copiously
illustrated 26 chapter history of Marvel’s activities in the UK, and is chock
full of surprising revelations, candid admissions, rib-tickling anecdotes, and
unexpected connections to the American side of Marvel’s many publishing
activities (thanks, in no small part, to much exclusive commentary by many of
the editors, writers and artists to have worked on the UK comics on both sides
of the big pond over the years). That leaves the latter half of the book to
dedicated to indices that, character by character, dissect in painstaking detail
almost every story ever printed by Marvel in Britain since 1972.

The book will also cover the post imprint days we live in now, and Panini's role in Marvel's distribution here in the UK, and will include breakdowns of pretty much everything Marvel UK ever put out; from US reprints to full ‘Printographies’ of every creator to have produced original material, which appeared here in print first, in the UK.

I have to say that this sounds really promising. I think that for every Marvel UK fanboy out there, regardless of age, there's always been a little bit of resentment at the lack of recognition given to some of the great work done for Marvel UK. Seeing it both discussed and recorded in print will hopefully remind a few people just how much was done over here.

And, as I keep reminding people, the term "Earth 616" originated here, long before the rest of the Marvel Universe embraced it.

Like I say, no finite details yet, but I'll spread the word as soon as I hear more. And for more details, if you've got access to Facebook, you can find the full item posted up on the Make Mine Marvel UK!!! group. They're a friendly bunch, and you can find them here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5511398398

Been a bit busy this week, but with any luck the the long-promised piece I've been working on about the current state of Captain Britain should be up by the weekend.

In the meantime, as always, feel free to comment on this blog post, or anything else regarding Britain within Marvel. Have you been reading the new Clan Destine? What are your thoughts on the announcement of the new Captain Britain & MI:13 series? Does anybody know what format Wild Angels was published in Italy?

Folks, it's over to you. ;-)

Not Dead Yet: Newsarama talks to Ed Hammond on the status of UK published Marvel titles.

Hi all. 

Back in 1995, after Marvel US closed down the Marvel UK imprint, the company to whom the rights for reprinting US market Marvel material fell to for the UK was Panini. That’s right. Panini. The same Italian company which UK readers probably know better for making Sticker Albums and trading cards. Anybody who's walked into a WH Smith in recent years (or any other Newsagent in the UK) will know that they currently do a really good trade in those reprints. They’ve even reprinted some DC Comics material. 

But it has all been reprints. Not new work. 

Bar one.

Spectacular Spider-Man began life as a series based up the 1990s Spider-man animated series, originally screened on Fox Kids in the US. It re-told the episodes from that series in panel form. And I have to admit that I didn’t really give it a look myself, for that reason. But when the animated series came to an end, something interesting happened. They started producing new material themselves...

It started with the first UK written Captain Britain story in a decade, and has now led to an ongoing run of new material. Granted, it isn't set in mainstream continuity like Marvel UK used to be, but it is a start.

Ed Hammond, editor of Panini UK as it is now, has done an interview with Newsarama about where they are at, right now. It's all quite interesting, and more importantly will hopefully give American readers a bit of a clearer picture of the market in the UK. The artwork certainly looks pretty good.

Check it out:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=139190

News Item: Alan Davis talks to Newsarama about The NEW Clan Destine

As many of you may know The Clan Destine, Alan Davis' mid-90s comic book series about a dysfunctional family of superbeings, was originally conceived as a project for the Marvel UK imprint. Sadly, due to Marvel UK’s closure, that did not cone to pass. It eventually saw print stateside, through Marvel US, but what was also originally planned as an ongoing series (which I understand Davis had already thought through some twenty issues of continuity to feature) eventually came to only an 8 issue series, and an X-Men crossover. A great shame.

Despite having remained a fondly remembered property for the select few, the book probably has been broadly forgotten by the many. If you’ve heard something rumbling under that name of late? It is probably because earlier this year, when Marvel Comics announced that Alan Davis had signed a new contract with them, a publicised part of that deal was the announcement of a new Clan Destine series. 

It's been a long time coming, but finally Clan Destine #1 has been solicited for February 2008, to be accompanied by a hardcover reprint of the original series. Now, that really is a bonus! Make a space on your bookshelf. 

But what can we expect from the series? What have the Clan been up to since we last saw them? Alan Davis has done an interview with the guys over at Newsarama, in which he gives people a bit more info.

By the sound of it, at least in part, it’s going to carry on right from where the first series left off. But also by the sound of it, we have a twist of the modern to add to the nostalgia. The Clan have always strived to keep itself hidden away from the world, and their centuries-long lives kept out of the public eye. But now? The world of today, and modern day technology, may no longer make that as possible as once it was.


For more info check out the full interview here:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=138731

I'm really looking forward to this one.

A vision of how Marvel Comics could have been...

Okay, let's get this properly started, shall we?

I'm a comics nut. I'm not too proud to admit to it. I'm under Marvel's thumb and I know it. I’m not getting that monkey off my back any time soon. 

Like many people who have read comics for a long time I sometimes get that Armchair Editor feeling at the back of my mind. The belief that on some level I could do this myself, playing through some kind of fantasy bullpen in my head. I read books and think to myself, "If only they'd used Artist X with writer Y, here," or, "If only they'd had to guts to end it THAT way, that’s what I would have done!"

Throughout my childhood, and in particular in the early 90s, I read Marvel comics' Marvel UK imprint ardently. When the imprint took off I was amazingly happy that, finally, somebody was going to write some books set in (or at least directly associated with) the Britain that I lived in, day to day. To represent a more realistic take on this country, as opposed to the stereotypes and caricatures of Britain that we so frequently saw in US market comics. 

Sure, up to this point we had had some noble attempts - notably Alan Moore and Jamie Delano's Captain Britain runs, and Chris Claremont and Alan Davis Excalibur - but this was going to be a mass explosion of ongoing British characters. Death's Head, Dark Angel, Motormouth & Killpower - from early impressions I loved this stuff! Marvel UK EiC Paul Neary had brought together a pool of sound Comic Book talents, many of whom remain in the US market today. Writers like Dan Abnett, Artists like Salvador Larocca, Jimmy Cheung, and Carlos Pacheco...

And then, after just over 2 years (and a serious amount of material) Marvel's head office pulled the plug on Marvel UK. It was a bad time for the comic book industry. A massive crash from a collapsing collector boom and Marvel UK was a casualty, just as they were in the process of launching a whole new range of more mature, artistically and creatively interesting titles. 

Some saw the light of day, in the last few months of the imprint. Some (Like Alan Davis' ClanDestine) were eventually published through Marvel US. Unfortunately though, many titles were never finished, left half-completed or never actually made it beyond the planning phase.

It's a great shame, as from reading some of the concepts and seeing the brief glimpses of cancelled projects in the years since then? What Marvel UK were trying to do was arguably a few years ahead of its time. More in-step with DC’s Vertigo imprint than the rest of Marvel’s line. Genuinely interesting stuff. 

Most of the artists and writers unearthed by the imprint period, from Britain and across Europe, were fortunate enough to be given further work by Marvel, who fitted them onto some of their mainstream books. But this was still the mid-90s and Marvel's general look of the time was very much trying to match the exaggerated aesthetic of early Image Comics. Big guns a plenty and massive muscles. Make it look like Jim Lee, but not in a way you’ll get sued. Oh, and it still needs to basically be inks with very simple colours. Marvel had started to use airbrushing but it was still early days. 

While many Marvel UK artists could absolutely deliver on that? Not everybody could fit neatly into that shape.

A fine example of that is artist Mark Harrison.

Harrison did a lot of the cover work for Marvel UK's Overkill anthology. He works primarily in oils, and he's also really bloody good at it.

I came across this a while back:

http://www.2000ad.org/markus/loosecannons/

This is a link to the Loose Cannons limited series that Harrison was illustrating for Marvel UK at the time of its demise. I remember it because it was heavily advertised in other Marvel UK titles at the time. It was also a bold example of some of what Marvel UK's new approach was trying to achieve. A four issue series which was entirely painted rather than inked. It was something special, and I had planned to grab it when it was released.

Sadly, it never was.

When you look at what Marvel US have done recently, with projects such as last year's Garth Ennis penned Ghost Rider limited series, the concept of producing books painted in oils is now one that they are more willing to embrace, but back then? It seems that they weren't willing to take the gamble. Absolutely not the end for Harrison, thankfully. 2000 AD were more than happy to give him more work, and his revamp of Durham Red were very highly rated.

Harrison later tried to persuade 2000 AD to print Loose Cannons, with him finishing the material from the final issue, but with so many Marvel owned characters involved? This didn’t happen. Thankfully for the rest of us he's posted it up online, and any fans of Marvel UK's characters will want to take a look at this. Admittedly it's largely a spin-off from their Warheads series, but features a large number of characters from other books, rendered in oils in a way you wont have seen them before. Especially Death's Head.

Just think of what could/should have been...

A beginning

Hi there. 

This is a new blog, so I’m sure that if you’ve stumbled upon it you have the usual legitimate questions.

What’s the remit? Who the hell am I? Why have I started it up? Possibly what the hell is Darkmoor, anyway? Etc...

Well, to introduce myself, my name is Mark Roberts, and I'm a comics enthusiast from the UK. Many regular posters to forums such as Comixfan and Comic Book Resources will know me better as The Sword is Drawn - my long time username, pilfered from the title of the graphic novel which introduced Marvel's first British superteam, Excalibur.

A while back a few regular posters out there suggested that I aught to start up a blog (I suspect partially to stop me from posting so much Excalibur-related piffle on said messageboards.) where I could stack up my ideas. I wasn't immediately sure. I toyed with it for a while. This is what I eventually settled on.

For those who don't know, Darkmoor is a fictitious area of moorland in Marvel's Britain. There's not a lot out there - a Research Centre where a student period Brian Braddock once worked and a castle which Dark Angel used for a while - but its real significance in terms of Marvel UK is that it was the setting for the first British originated Marvel material - 1976's Captain Britain Weekly #1. It was the place where Brian Braddock first stepped into the stone circle, and was asked to make his choice of two artefacts - the Sword or the Amulet - and became Captain Britain.

But that's a blog for another day...

The thing is, I wasn't even born when Marvel UK began publishing its own stuff, in '76. I was three years late for that. But in some strange fashion I can't truly get it out of my head. I read Marvel's UK titles as a kid - Transformers, Thundercats, Death's Head and as many US reprints of X-Men as I could find. US market comics were harder to get your hands on in the UK back in the 80s. Despite now being 28 (and probably by rights I should know better by now) I find myself still caring for the characters from the UK corner of Marvel's universe - sometimes feeling the need to explain them in detail. The daft thing is that many of them weren't even that great. Some were just plain better as concepts than the material they appeared in. But even at their patchiest the bottom line is that Marvel UK was ours. Made here in blighty, giving us a tiny foothold in Marvel’s world, and that was something to be proud of.

Sure, the Marvel UK imprint closed down in the mid-90s, but despite a gap of more than a decade I still find myself thinking about what stories could or should have happened in the years since then. What happened to the characters and the places? Why didn't we see them again? Is Death's Head still lost in space, having fragmented conversations with his other personalities? Does Motormouth still have a potty-mouth? Did Dark Guard ever end?

Who can say? Maybe we'll find out someday. Maybe not.

It has always disappointed me that the mainstream comic book industry in the UK has somewhat dwindled since Marvel UK folded. Sure, we still have 2000 AD, Doctor Who Magazine and a strong indie scene, but the bulk of what lines the newsagent's shelves is a US reprint. And yet, when you think of some of the biggest current and recent names in the American comic book industry? Mark Millar, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, Chris Claremont, Alan Davis, Mike Carey, Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch...

Yeah, they're all British.

So what went wrong?

When I ask that question on primarily US market messageboards I usually get the same dry answer - 'Because nobody gives a %^&* about UK based stories or characters'.

Maybe some people actually believe that, but when I think back over the last year or so Marvel alone have put out a number UK based stories. From Christos Gage's Union Jack series, to New Excalibur, to Paul Cornell's Wisdom series. Heck, even Ed Brubaker's Captain America (And lets be fair you don't get a much more American character than Cap) spent an arc in London last year, in the storyline 21st Century Blitz.

2008 will bring us a new ClanDestine series from Alan Davis and a new incarnation of Excalibur (Back to the original name, without the 'New' tag) from Paul Cornell.

If nobody gives a %^&* then how come there's so much going on out there? It's like a mini-renaissance for British characters in Marvel, right now. And I'm loving it.

And so that's what this blog is going to be all about. A bit of nostalgia for the past, and seeing where the characters of the past fit into modern Marvel. It's a place to help me keep track of that, and hopefully you'll get something out of it, too.

So please, Enjoy! And let me know what you think.

Mark (The Sword is Drawn).