Ian Millsted has fond memories of the Marvel superteam which laid the foundations for the Marvel cinematic universe decades later. He’d still like to see John Steed team up with the Scarlet Witch, but in the meantime he’s made do with a look back at another British Marvel weekly 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.

After the success of the Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-Man Comics Weekly, there was little doubt that Marvel would unleash a third title.

Superheroes were clearly the order of the day and what better way to build on that success than by releasing a title starring a whole gang of their bigname characters in one superteam?

Readers of the weekly comics had latched on to The Hulk in Mighty World of Marvel and Thor supporting in Spider-Man Comics Weekly. Together with Iron Man, Giant Man and The Wasp they formed The Avengers. It was certainly full of superhero action but would go on to also feature sword-and-sorcery, high-octane martial arts and Lovecraftian horror. It contained some of the best Marvel stories of the period; and a few wrong ‘uns as well.

Given the global media world we live in today, it is easy to forget that it was possible for two different properties to have the same title and be developed in glorious isolation from each other. Yet that is what happened with The Avengers. The British spy themed television series of that name debuted in January 1961 on the ITV network. It went on to be shown on US television from

1965. Between those two dates, Marvel Comics launched, in 1963, their superhero team. Viewers and readers have never had a problem knowing which was which, although the lawyers and marketing people insist on going to great lengths to distinguish between them, which is why we’ve had the nonsense of the first Avengers film being retitled Marvel Avengers Assemble for UK release. Nobody actually calls it that.

Similarly, there have been comics versions of the TV series which have had to use the title Steed and Mrs Peel. However, none of that was of concern in September 1973 when the first issue of The Avengers was released. The first thing that struck any comic buying kid about The Avengers #1 was the glossy cover. This was in marked contrast to the newsprint paper used for most weekly comics at the time (although the digest series such as Commando used shiny coloured covers).