Wednesday 25 April 2012

1983: THOR AND THE X-MEN

Forget THE AVENGERS VS. THE X-MEN.  Way-back-when, one member of the Avengers was forced into a cancellation-dodging cohabitation of convenience.  It's perfectly possible to find a whole raft of reasons why Marvel UK's two 1983 colour weeklies failed miserably (appalling printing, X-Men's impossible-to-operate free gift, the X-Men getting stuck at customs and creaky reprints) so the sanctuary of a merger seemed inevitable.

The merger was a pretty equal affair, each strip occupying half of each issue and, generally, alternating cover slots.  The numbering continued from THE MIGHTY THOR (which hits the stands first, partially a result of the aforementioned action by customs who delayed copies of the X-Men issue 1 shipped from the Irish printers).

The partial colour interiors continued, with the worst printing problems of the early issues now fixed.  However, Marvel had already cut the number of colour interior pages printed in a cost-cutting move.

Despite (relative) strength-in-numbers, the combined title only survived another 19 weeks before transferring both strips to SPIDER-MAN (in its Amazing Friends era) from issue 567.

ISSUE 20
31 August 1983

MERGER ANNOUNCEMENT


ISSUE 21
7 September 1983

ISSUE 22
14 September 1983

ISSUE 23
21 September 1983

ISSUE 24
28 September 1983

ISSUE 25
5 October 1983

ISSUE 26
12 October 1983

ISSUE 27
19 October 1983

ISSUE 28
26 October 1983

ISSUE 29
2 November 1983

ISSUE 30
9 November 1983

ISSUE 31
16 November 1983

ISSUE 32
23 November 1983

ISSUE 33
30 November 1983

ISSUE 37
28 December 1983

ISSUE 38
4 January 1984

ISSUE 39
11 January 1984

MERGER ANNOUNCEMENT

SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS
ISSUE 567
18 January 1984

First merged issue.

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