A few Marvel UK Tidbits from Yesteryear

Hello everyone.

Many apologies for my recent disappearances from the interwebs. I heard talk of search parties. It's okay. I am alive a well. :)

Long term followers of this Blog will know that it's been a difficult few years for me. 2011 and 2012 were both years of stepping back and being treated, 2013 proved to be the year of recovery and that has led to 2014 - the year of getting back on track. Over the past few years I've had to put a lot of things on the back burner, I've had to take a less proactive role in a lot of areas of my life. With this having changed somewhat in the past couple of months, as you can see, regular updates to this blog have suffered. Do not worry. It's not been abandoned.

I feel greatly frustrated that it has impacted on my coverage of the final issues of Revolutionary War, because the Motormouth, Warheads and the final Omega issue were something very special indeed. The new status quo set up for several characters over those issues are things which I dearly hope get carried over into future projects.

Oh! And while it's coming a little late for the warning, Dark Angel fans? If you've not been picking up Kieron Gillen's Iron Man series, then you most certainly should be. Shevaun Haldane has now joined that title's supporting cast, starting with the Issue #23.NOW - as the curious Marvel Now numbering has named it. A good new platform for the character.

Revolutionary War has served to remind both readers and creators as to just what a buzz of creativity the early 90s were at Marvel UK. Over on the Make Mine Marvel UK Facebook group recently, one half of Revolutionary War's writing combo - Alan Cowsill - posted up a couple of images from what would have been Roid Rage #1. Roid Rage and Red Mist 20-20 were both advertised in Marvel UK titles in the latter days of the imprint. Two page painted adverts if I recall correctly. Sadly it never made it into print before the sell-off, but it was definitely intended to be a big story. If I understand correctly, from what I've managed to pick up over the years, the Super Soldiers title was going to play a large part in that and I believe there was even a set of painted artwork destined to be promotional trading cards for the event.

Beyond that? Well, we've not really known very much.

I hope Alan doesn't mind me posting these up, here. I've tweaked the contrast a little for clarity, but the artwork comes from Andrew Currie on pencils and Bryan Hitch on inks.

Interestingly, from that second image, Cowsill posted that "Rw trivia, it's also the first time Agent Keller appeared...he didn't last long though...". So he was always a planned character, even all those years ago...

Marvel UK artwork from this period is of course somewhat hard to come by. A lot of it, tragically, ended up being trashed when the Marvel UK offices closed. It has been lost forever. However, in the same category of unpublished artwork John Freeman also recently posted up these couple of images from an unpublished Warheads story.

The artwork comes courtesy of 2000 AD's SMS (Smuzz). Freeman notes that "Just to note, we're now thinking that these two 'pages' are amalgams of incomplete art from the strip, now everyone has had sight of the script. Neither 'page' matches the script exactly. I've been pushing Smuzz's excellent work for years and at some point he sent me these two pages as samplers". 

A third and final page of artwork was later added, with a name for the story as "Target Practice".

"There are amendments on the script that asked that the alien on this final page be Vorin, the leader of the Shadow Riders," says Freeman, "I suspect that, as I have never seen this page before today, this would have been a matter of me asking for the change when I'd seen the art!"

It would have been great to have SMS doing art for Marvel UK. He's probably best known for his work on 2000 AD's ABC Warriors. I definitely think he'd have been a good fit for the tone of the series.

But perhaps the most interesting thing to have come from this stroll back through Marvel UK documents is that John Freeman has shared up some internal notes from 1993, on future plans for Overkill magazine. 

US readers - For those of you unaware Overkill magazine was a UK market anthology series which printed choice sections of what was printed in the US market books (along with the odd bit of exclusive material) in a fashion not entirely dissimilar to, say, that of 2000 AD. 

"(The document)outlines some of the unpublished comic strips planned for Overkill," says Freeman, "and my thoughts on the future of some of the company’s title such as Motormouth and Warheads, in January 1993, when I was in the process of leaving the company to take up life as a freelancer. The company was absorbed by Panini UK in 1995 and is no longer in business.

The hand-written notes re...fer to “Paul” – Paul Neary, Marvel UK’s Editorial Director; and editors Tim Quinn, Jacqui Papp and Bambos Georgiou."

And there are a number of interesting details within. Such as this, for example. Highlighted below:

How interesting is that? A US market book fronted by DH II, to collect the strips which the US market missed.

Now I can recall in the Marvel UK 'Bodycount' freebie from around that time that there was definitely some painted dinosaur artwork from a future project showcased there. I wonder if that was from the same piece?

But one of the most interesting parts of the document refers to two creators who would certainly play a role in shaping British characters for mainstream US Marvel at a later point.

Warren Ellis would later take the reins of Excalibur at Marvel and go on to create the character of Pete Wisdom - who is now among the most prominent British characters out there and active in Marvel Comics. Paul Cornell of course would also go on to write Pete Wisdom, as in integral part of his Captain Britain & MI13 series. Small world.

I'd have loved to have seen this. The MYS-TECH board were always intriguing characters, to me. There were so many possibilities in expanding their history and individual character. An organisation capable of rivaling The Hellfire Club with their clandestine operations around the world (and for a much larger chunk of history, at that).

For those who are interested in reading more, John has shared the document up here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/217618955/Marvel-UK-Comics-Pending-01-1993

I'd also recommend looking over the ongoing list which John has been keeping of all Marvel UK projects, past and new, over at his own site. It really is a comprehensive list, both of published titles and the many projects with never saw the light of day.

Well, that's it for now folks. Hope that's proven to be of interest to you.

Until we meet again... (and hopefully it won't take as long next time)

Mark (Sword)

Did you walk away with a piece of Overkill Artwork?

Maybe some of you might remember that last year I showcased the cover to #19 of Marvel UK anthology title, Overkill, as one of our 'Covers of the Week'? (Here's a reminder). This was a great painted pop art cover, courtesy of Steve Sampson (www.sampsonart.com)who did a number of covers for Overkill in the early 90s, which stood out very well in the newsagent's rack. The cover was an image of mouthy Harley 'Motormouth' Davis, in full scream. It remains one of my favourite covers from that title. Sampson always did a great job on Overkill.

Earlier today I was very pleasantly surprised to find a blog article by John Freeman, formerly of Marvel UK and these days the man responsible for the brilliant and long running Down The Tubes (downthetubescomics.blogspot.com), posting up a link to an eBay auction.

An auction for the original, pre-title-overlay, cover artwork for Overkill #19!


Doesn't it look bloody brilliant!

The piece eventually went for just under £85. Not bad at all.

I was not the lucky winner sadly, and had to bail at the halfway point (What? I've got a Con to visit this weekend, I'm on a budget!) but somebody out there got a quality piece of Marvel UK history.

Were you the lucky winner? I envy you. ;)

ICFD Cover of the Week - 25th Aug 2008

Yes, three weeks in a row...

This week's cover is from Overkill #24 and comes from the oils of Mark Harrison, who provided quite a lot of covers for Overkill during its run.


As I've mentioned before, while Mark is quite well-known here in the UK for his work on 2000 AD (Especially with characters such as Durham Red) I have always felt it to be an incredible shame that Marvel never took the opportunity to export Mark to their US line. The quality of his work is always exceptionally high, but back in the early 90s Marvel US seemed very reluctant towards the concept of painted artwork in comics. Maybe because of reproduction costs, maybe because it didn't match the colouring direction they were going down (With the acquisition of Malibu Comics, for example), but here (As with other fully-painted art guys, like Carl Critchlow) I really do feel that they were missing a trick.

This cover features Harrison's first foray into drawing Warheads characters - in this case new recruit Leona McBride. It's a book which was originally pencilled (And very well, for that matter) by Gary Erskine. Harrison matches it's gritty tone very well, and it was no doubt on the back of his depictions of the team that he was given the (sadly ill-fated) Loose Cannons limited series - a series about another, all-female team of Warheads - later on into Marvel UK's imprint days.

You can find more about that here: http://itcamefromdarkmoor.blogspot.com/search/label/Loose%20Cannons

I really like this cover. It captures Leona's innocence in her early Warheads outings very well. Anybody who read up as far as Warhead's: Black Dawn will know things definitely changed in her by the the end, but this cover captures the character from those early Vince/Erskine issues brilliantly.

ICFD Cover of the Week - 17th Aug 2008

This week's Cover of the Week we're returning to British shores with this little number from late on in the run of Marvel UK's Brtish published anthology title Overkill.



Overkill #50, from June 1994, is a splendid cover of Death's Head II and Tuck staring out over a field of skulls. It's a collaborative effort between the immense talents of Mr Liam Sharp and Mr Simon Bisley. Now THAT'S a pairing! And it's exactly the kind of reason that I started doing this feature. Overkill had so many great covers and possessed a tone which we certainly felt here in the UK, but I'm not sure translated entirely to American readers. It was grittier over here. Dirtier. But in the most enjoyable sense.

I find myself missing Death's Head and Tuck more and more by the year. I find it hard to believe that Marvel would opt for the reinvented Death's Head 3.0 in favour of this guy. He had so much more to offer. And offer it he would, for the right price...

ICFD Cover of the Week - 24th March 2008

Yeah, delayed, I know. Here in the UK we have two Bank Holidays around Easter, effectively giving us four days away from work. I used them to the full... just not here. Hope everybody had a great Easter weekend.

This week's cover is from Overkill number 23, from February 1993. It's a Carl Critchlow cover, featuring Motormouth and Killpower.



Again, a really nice cover done in oils (If only Marvel US had gotten their heads around that concept sooner...). I really love seeing Marvel UK characters given a three dimensional feel, and this is a great example of this. Of all the characters in that early 90s era that were pumped up to the point of near explosion Killpower was one of the few who actually had a reason. They built him that way.

I miss those two.

A note to Paul Cornell and Alan Davis (As the two writers currently writing Marvel's British characters) these guys are available... ;-)

ICFD Cover of the Week - 9th March 2008

This week's cover, once more, comes courtesy of Steve Sampson.



As you can see this is cover to Overkill #19, from Jan 1993. And this remains one of my favourite Overkill covers. The way Sampson captures the essence of Motormouth here is brilliant. It's kind of pop art, kind of psychedelic and kind of pinky all in one. What better way to describe Harley herself. It's also such a great way to visualise those sound blasts. Characters with sonic powers are so damned difficult to physically show on page, but this kind of series of resonating circles down a line captures it very well, indeed.

I'm very sorry for the lack of updates this last week. I have been quite poorly sick, and whilst I could stumble online to check my mail and drop the odd word, anything more detailed seemed to tax me a little too far. Rest assured I'm back with it now, and Part 2 of Understanding Captain Britain (Which seems even more timely, with other recent announcements) will be on it's way this week.

I'd also like to take the time, if I may, in plugging another little project of mine. Some of you will know that last year I came third in Comixfan's Superhero Idol fan fiction tournament. I was playing as Captain Britain (I know, such an unpredictable turn of events!). Well this year Comixfan are doing a similar tournament again, only this time it's Supervillain Idol. And yours truly will be on the judging panel this year. So if you fancy flexing your evil side, in prose form, or simply feel like drifting in to see what's going down every once in a while, then you will be more than welcome.

More info can be found here:

http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=44597