In 1972, British comics were the home of footballers, space heroes, war stories, poverty-stricken ballerinas and assorted denizens of boarding schools. Into this world, Mighty World of Marvel dropped like a hand-grenade. Ian Millsted uncovers the story of the first official British Marvel comic

The characters created from the burst of creativity in the early 1960s from what quickly became known as Marvel Comics, by the likes of Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, proved both popular and enduring. The likes of The Hulk, Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and many others were still going strong ten years later.

For potential readers in Britain there had been two main ways they could follow these characters. The favoured method was by trying to find the comics that were shipped over here. Distribution was a bit patchy but if you lived in a populated area with multiple options for buying comics (WHSmith, Woolworths, corner shops etc) most could be found. Our esteemed editor still cries into his cornflakes every morning over the original Marvel comics he acquired from hours cycling round newsagents only to see them thrown away by his Mum!

The alternative was by reading the licensed reprints published in the UK. Alan Class specialised in black and white reprints of US comics and included early Marvels in some titles. A more systematic, chronological reprinting started in the Power Comics line (Pow, Wham, Fantastic, Terrific, Smash) which even had a few original Marvel character pages drawn by a young Barry WindsorSmith before he travelled across the Atlantic to make his name on Conan the Barbarian. However, that largely petered out by 1968 as the division was absorbed more fully into parent company IPC. That was the same year that IPC boss, Cecil King, was deposed for trying to use the Daily Mirror as part of a coup attempt against Harold Wilson.

In 1972, Stan Lee was transitioning from his role as editor of Marvel comics to that of publisher, with a wider remit for promoting Marvel Comics, and Stan was certainly great at promotion.

Stan Lee was an Anglophile whose wife, Joan, was born and brought up in Newcastle, England. They travelled there to see her family quite regularly and Stan was underwhelmed by the comics he saw over here.

The move to launch an official British Marvel line was somewhat more complicated than that but, essentially, the decision was made. (Note: there is a detailed history of British Marvel comics due to be published any year now by Rob Kirby. It will be called From Cents to Pence and should be of interest to Infinity readers). The first issue of The Mighty World of Marvel was published at the beginning of October 1972 and was just the first of a range of titles.