Sunday 25 January 2015

January 25th, 1975 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

The Internet tells me that yesterday was the 85th birthday of Jazzy John Romita. So, happy birthday to him, if he's reading, which I suspect he isn't.

But were Marvel UK serving up anything drawn by him on this day of exactly forty years ago - way back when the jazzy one was a mere forty five years old?

There's only one way to find out.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #102, Electro

And blow me down if we don't get a Spider-Man cover by that very artist, in conjunction with Marie Severin, as Electro tangles with our hero in a TV studio.
Marvel UK Avengers #71, Grim Reaper

The Grim Reaper's causing trouble for the Panther on a cover that's a noticeable cut above the ones that were normally commissioned for the UK mags.
Marvel UK Planer of the Apes #14

Jason and Alexander clearly in need of a trip to the opticians.
Mighty World of Marvel #121, Hulk vs Leader

The Leader's plot to replace the American government with robots continues apace.
Marvel UK Dracula Lives #14

For some reason, I can never look at this cover without expecting everyone concerned to burst into a song from The Sound of Music.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Sadly the Spider-man story wasn't drawn by the amazing Mr Romita either (art was by Jim Mooney)


John Pitt said...

Steve, do you know of anywhere on line where I could view all of the back covers of these comics? I am after images of all the random Apes posters that sometimes cropped up on the OTHER Marvel weeklies.
Cheers.

Steve W. said...

John, I'm not sure. Hunter's Planet of the Apes Archive has scans of the comics but I don't know if they include the back covers. It can be found at the following address: http://pota.goatley.com/marvel_uk.html

Steve W. said...

I've just checked and it looks like it does.

John Pitt said...

Yeah, Steve, I know Hunter's site has POTA weekly on it, but it's the Apes posters on the backs of the OTHER weeklies ( different ones!) that I'm after now.

Steve W. said...

Ah. In that case, I don't know where those might be found. I've just tried Googling, "Mighty World of Marvel back cover," and, "Spider-Man Comics Weekly back cover," but it didn't produce anything useful in that department.

Dougie said...

I don't recall that Avengers cover at all! Weird. Our village newsagent may have missed out on that issue.

Steve W. said...

And the issue before it never appeared at our local newsagents. I do wonder where those missing issues disappeared to.