Showing posts with label RAMPAGE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RAMPAGE. Show all posts

Friday, 20 February 2015

Thursday, 19 February 2015

1981: MARVEL SUPERHEROES and RAMPAGE House Ad (Marvel UK)


From 1981: A MARVEL UK House Ad for their two super-powered monthlies: RAMPAGE and MARVEL SUPERHEROES.  

Both were getting a new look (the "new direction") and aiming more at collectors and fans than casual readers.  The Inside Comics feature covered a wide range of topics (some penned by Alan Moore) and I've posted a few here in the past. 

Monday, 16 February 2015

1980: RAMPAGE HOUSE AD/ FORBIDDEN PLANET AD (Marvel UK)


From 1980: Doctor Strange graces the pages of RAMPAGE MAGAZINE and FORBIDDEN PLANET offers Mail Order wares for those not lucky enough to make the pilgrimage to their Central London store. 

Friday, 13 February 2015

1979: STAN LEE IN RAMPAGE MONTHLY (Marvel UK)



From 1979: Stan Lee talks HULK for MARVEL UK's RAMPAGE MONTHLY issue 11 (May).  

It looks like this might be an original piece for the UK.  Or, at least, an amended American interview with new copy added to plug the UK release of the pilot episode as a faux feature film.  Although, it actually happened the following year (see: here).

Thursday, 22 January 2015

1979: RAMPAGE MONTHLY House Ad (Marvel UK)


From 1979: a full-page MARVEL UK House Ad plugging the wares of RAMPAGE MONTHLY, the UK's second regular outlet for Hulk stories (alongside the green-skinned weekly). 

Wednesday, 21 January 2015

1979: MARVEL UK MONTHLIES HOUSE AD


From May 1979: A MARVEL UK House Ad for three of their blockbuster monthlies...STARBURST, RAMPAGE and THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN

Monday, 19 January 2015

1983: ON SALE THIS MONTH: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES Issue 393 (Marvel UK)


On sale this month in 1983: MARVEL SUPER-HEROES issue 393, the first to incorporate RAMPAGE following the demise of its monthly stablemate, after 54 issues, the previous month.

The tie-up meant the best of both titles... The Avengers continuing to appear in their old home but now joined by the (new) X-Men, just in time for the epic Dark Phoenix saga.  

The British Bullpen marked the momentous moment with the new Alan Davis poster in the previous post.  

RAMPAGE had already hoovered-up the unmemorable BLOCKBUSTER the previous March.  MARVEL SUPER-HEROES had snaffled-up SAVAGE ACTION a month earlier in February.  

Friday, 16 January 2015

1983: ON SALE THIS MONTH: ALAN DAVIS X-MEN POSTER from MARVEL SUPER-HEROES 393 (Marvel UK)



On sale this month in 1983: Some early Alan Davis Mighty Marvel Magic: an X-MEN poster from the glossy centre pages of MARVEL UK's MARVEL SUPER-HEROES Monthly issue 393 (the first to feature Marvel's merry mutants, thanks to the recent closure of RAMPAGE Monthly). 

Saturday, 9 August 2014

1982: MARVEL SUPERHEROES and RAMPAGE MERGE (Marvel UK)


Two half-page house ads from the end of 1982:

Two Winter Specials, Conan and The Avengers, which - unusually - were full-colour affairs just before the format became the norm for MARVEL UK.

The other announces the merger of RAMPAGE (after 54 issues) with MARVEL SUPERHEROES (from 393… remember: that numbering stretched all the way back to the first issue of MWOM in 1972), transferring the New X-Men into MS.  

RAMPAGE retained a mention on the cover of the merged title for only two issues (it vanished after 394) but the X-Men stuck around for the rest of the run (Marvel Superheroes shuttered with 397) and then resurfaced in the replacement: the revived THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL.

Rampage was replaced by THE DAREDEVILS and Marvel Superheroes by the aforementioned second volume of MWOM.

The MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE strips that were left homeless when Rampage closed were revived in March 1984 with the launch of THE THING IS BIG BEN weekly.

Friday, 8 August 2014

1979: BILL BIXBY INTERVIEW from RAMPAGE (Marvel UK)







Don't make me angry.  You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

Here's a really nice multi-page interview with the late Bill Bixby (aka Doctor David "Bruce" Banner) from MARVEL UK's RAMPAGE MAGAZINE issue 6, January 1979 (the cusp of the Marvel Revolution).

I'm not sure whether this was conducted specifically for Marvel UK or whether it's recycled from another source.  

Tuesday, 5 August 2014

2004: PANINI'S RAMPAGE REVIVAL


This is a flash from the - ahem - recent past… although the title will be familiar to long-time readers of MARVEL UK… and, indeed, STARLOGGED…

Not content with reviving THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL… Panini went back into the archives and dusted-off RAMPAGE as well.

Of course, tastes change so this combined Marvel Superhero comic strip fare (all, I believe, created specifically for this title… in the days before the Disney edict that ended licensors originating their own material) with superficial "lifestyle features" pitched at the target audience.

I didn't follow this on a regular basis although I know it was rebooted as, I believe, a monthly… and then cancelled a few issues later.  

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

Friday, 31 May 2013

1982-83: MARVEL SUPERHEROES - PART FOUR (Marvel UK)

Here's the last part of my MARVEL SUPERHEROES Cover Gallery spanning 1982-83.

Unfortunately, this entry is pretty patchy as I have some gaps in this latter part of the run and I apologise for that.  If anyone has the missing copies to flog - at a reasonable price - please get in touch.

The beginning of 1982 saw the demise of SAVAGE ACTION, followed by RAMPAGE a year later.  The former added the Night Raven text stories (which ultimately continued through to the demise of CAPTAIN BRITAIN monthly) whilst the latter added The New X-Men to the line-up.

Looking elsewhere on the 'net, the other shocker is the stonking price rise between issues 389 (45p) and 390 (60p) which is a rampant bit of inflation.  It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that sales dropped over the next seven months.

MSH didn't merge with another title and 397 is officially the final issue of the run.  However, as THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL volume 2 launched shortly thereafter I consider that part of the MWOM > MARVEL COMIC > MSH succession.  Using that logic, the run that started in 1972 eventually runs out of steam in 1984 with the merger of MWOM's second volume with (of all things) SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.

ISSUE 381
January 1982

ISSUE 382
February 1982

SAVAGE ACTION merges.  

ISSUE 383
March 1982

ISSUE 387
July 1982

ISSUE 393
January 1984

RAMPAGE merges.

ISSUE 394
February 1983

ISSUE 395
March 1983

ISSUE 396
April 1983

ISSUE 397
May 1983

Final issue.

Friday, 15 February 2013

1978: RAMPAGE MAGAZINE (Marvel UK)

RAMPAGE MONTHLY/ MAGAZINE was the 1978 successor to RAMPAGE WEEKLY, a dull concoction of The Defenders and Nova which failed to set the world alight.

The monthly incarnation, launched in the summer of '78, initially retained both strips as supporting features but added reprints from the US magazine THE RAMPAGING HULK as the main feature.  These strips were always something of an oddity: presumably created to capitalise on the Hulk's high media profile, thanks to the TV show, yet they made no effort to mimic the elements that made the TV show a success.  Any casual viewer that stumbled across the magazine would surely be confused... and probably alienated.  Marvel management, on both sides of the Atlantic, finally recognised the problem and rebooted the US mag as a colour monthly telling stories more akin to the show whilst Dez Skinn did the same with the original Hulk strips in the 1979-launched HULK COMIC.  

Rampage Monthly was one of the last Marvel UK titles launched under the direct auspices of the US Bullpen.  Stan Lee drafted-in Skinn later in '78 to overhaul the British line and reverse years of decline and swiftly-cancelled new launches.  The Marvel Revolution of early 1979 started to come into effect from the December-dated issue.  The cover design was overhauled (a design that Skinn made standard across the UK monthlies) and - from the turn-of-the-year Doctor Strange (also appearing in the just-shot Universal TV pilot movie) replaced Nova.  

Two issues later, The New X-Men made their official Marvel UK premiere (replacing The Defenders). A by-product of this decision was that Skinn blocked imports of the US monthly as part of the package of Marvel Comics sent to newsagents.  This avoided competing with Marvel's own product but also made finding copies of the US editions pretty difficult.

Rampage also added text features based on the TV show, a logical move akin to similar articles that had appeared in PLANET OF THE APES and STAR WARS WEEKLY.

Rampage Magazine (note the subtle name-change from issue 6) ultimately ran for 54 issues, merging with MARVEL SUPERHEROES in 1983.  Along the way it absorbed the short-lived BLOCKBUSTER MONTHLY from issue 45 (transferring one survivor: Iron Fist) and published original strips in issues 40-44.

Below are the covers for the first 12 issues.  Several of them, originally created for The Rampaging Hulk, will be familiar from my THE INCREDIBLE HULK PRESENTS post from last year.














Monday, 21 May 2012

BEHIND THE SCENES: MARVEL UK

Back to the Marvel magazine vaults for four behind-the-scenes features spanning two decades, complete with staff pix.

The early eighties features are from the Jadwin House years.  Doesn't Jaunty John look young...

The nineties pieces are from Marvel's Arundel House boom years, flush with the success of the US line and expanding into cult-flavoured magazines in the UK. It wouldn't last.
RAMPAGE
ISSUE 53
November 1982



MARVEL SUPERHEROES
ISSUE 383
March 1983





THE EXPLOITS OF SPIDER-MAN 
ISSUE 12
25 August 1993


THE EXPLOITS OF SPIDER-MAN 
ISSUE 16
15 December 1993



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