Marvel Anarchy In The U.K.

No personal preamble for today, thankfully for you readers.  I mean, I GUESS I could publically state that ice cream parlors around where my girlfriend lives are utter WUSSES about the season!  Seriously, while I could eat ice cream year 'round... and often do... there's NO REASON to call the start of the "Fall Closing Season" at the beginning half of September.  Grow a backbone, people!  Sigh...  Anyways, off to today's topic, which is a trip across the pond to visit a particular creative branch of the "House of Ideas" I eagerly explored during my late 90's periods!

Marvel Comics in the United Kingdom was not a new concept by the arrival of their original "Marvel UK" material in the 1990's.  In fact, according to the ever-wise Wikipedia... and in their episode about a British Spider-Man story, a podcast called Hey Kids, Comics! ... Marvel Comics from the United States were the FIRST American comics to be somewhat regularly reprinted through various companies in the U.K. since 1969.  But again, those were reformatted reprints of material that had already existed.  In due time, across the late 70's, original material from England began being published alongside their standard U.S. reprint fare, with original "Star Wars" stories, a "Doctor Who" comic series, and maybe best known as a vanguard character for the U.K. expansion, Captain Britain.  One could even lay claim that the REAL seeds of the 90's "Marvel U.K." development were begun when "Transformers" became a British exclusive title... after interest in the toy and cartoon line waned in the U.S... and writer Simon Furman introduced a new character to the cannon, the cybernetic bounty hunter, Death's Head.

In 1990, the Marvel U.K. editor-in-chief, Paul Neary, was tasked by their American investors to create a new division of characters for possible stateside expansion.  Thus was born "Marvel U.K.".  The unique thing about Marvel U.K., as a whole, was how drastically tonally different it was to the standard American Marvel product.  For a majority of their titles, they had a decidedly Sci-Fi/Fantasy bent over traditional superhero adventures.  And sadly, despite MANY talented creators... and some "okay" creators... and their efforts to spice up their Marvel contributions with "And now for something completely different", the "Marvel U.K." line uniformly withered and died as early as 1994.  (Though I SWEAR I saw materials advertising a revamping of many popular characters from the Marvel U.K. Universe around 2012 or so.  If anyone wishes to "school" this "fool" on that creative initiative, just lemme know via a comment to the blog!)  But for those four years of existence, I had dipped my toes into many various pools of Marvel U.K. creativity, and I wish to discuss some of my travels with you!  So let's start at the beginning!

Death's Head II: Dr. Evelyn Necker... NICE name... created a robotic assassin code-named Minion, and tasked it with destroying the original Death's Head machine.  Minion succeeded, but handy-dandy personality assimilation allowed for the spirit of Death's Head to live on in his new Minion body.  Welcome to the world a bouncing baby Death's Head II.  I was introduced to the character via a four-issue mini-series that not only helped establish many of the Marvel U.K. concepts... connections with a corporation known as the Mys-Tech group..., also not only setting into place the figurehead status of Death's Head II in association with Marvel U.K., but ALSO setting the unfortunate template of TRYING to cross over the Marvel U.S. characters as often as possible into their series to generate added sales.  I mean, it DID technically work with "Death's Head II", because his story was set in an alternative future timeline, for the most part.  And his initial mission of assassinating Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards did help establish the overriding of the Death's Head personality.  But as we all know from practically EVERY title that Marvel published in the 90's, if you want to "drum up" sales, Wolverine had to show up MORE than a few times.   But being a character that was meant to be to Marvel U.K. what Spider-Man was for Marvel U.S., I SUPPOSE he was the most successful of the lot, having a four-issue mini-series, a sixteen issue "ongoing" series, and an intended quarterly title that only lasted one issue called "Death's Head II Gold" to his credit.  And he did generate another title I will be discussing in a few.  But I also have to give "Death's Head II" credit for giving me an introduction to the writing stylings of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, along with the AWESOME artwork of Liam Sharp! 

Motormouth/And Killpower

If you took the power-set of Black Canary, placed them as a cybernetics-enhancement into a teenaged street urchin with a nasty mouth on her, and later teamed her up with a genetically enhanced super-soldier who is LITERALLY only a child in chronological age and mentality named Killpower, and you have the dimension-spanning adventures of the gutter-mouthed Motormouth.  Her comic span lasted twelve "ongoing" issues, and she did manage to cross over into many of the major "Marvel U.K. events, of which I shall discuss later on.  Her dimension-hopping was due to a pair of sneakers that matched her DNA pattern for activation.  And I'd say Motormouth's series was the more "post apocalyptic" of the "Marvel U.K." titles I read, with her often dealing with the grittier sides of their universe.  And her power-set involved a microchip installed into her body that would make her "verbal assaults" into literal concussive blasts from her mouth.  If memory serves me right, Wolverine did NOT show up in her book as a guest, but the title did feature various U.S. luminaries such as Nick Fury, the Punisher, and another "hot" mutant of the time, Cable.  But what made "Motormouth" a title of note for me was that it was the first time I was exposed to the artwork of Gary Frank.  I MAY have seen his work on "Incredible Hulk" around the same time, but I still more closely associate my being aware of his stylings in this particular title.

Black Axe:

I sadly have VERY little recollection of a lot of this book, aside from being fooled by the cover art into thinking that John Romita Jr. was actually going to be a regular artist on the title.  Plus, that GIGANTIC cyber-axe look AWESOME!  But I remember distinctly that when I opened the cover of that first issue... the artwork was utter slop, and the character didn't prove to be very memorable at all.  According to my internet research, Black Axe was a twist on the "Immortal Warrior" concept, having existed throughout all of mankind's major conflicts, and adapting to the times.  Apparently Black Axe couldn't adapt to his own title without a first-issue appearance by Death's Head II, and he couldn't survive the conflict of being a rather lame title that lasted only seven issues.

Death's Head II/Killpower: Battle Tide

Are you all ready for gratuitous fighting and guest appearances?!?  Then face the demonic embodiment of warfare and vengeance, as it threatens to envelop the universe in TWO mini-series that happen to feature the tag team of the former Minion and the pre-teen super being, along with appearances by Hercules, Hulk, Wolverine, Psylocke, AND Sabretooth!  In a way, the concept of the "Battle Tide" is kind of similar to the "Warworld" concepts that would be refined in the Post-Crisis "Superman" books.  The demonic force would recruit various aliens it encounters, and pits them against each other in galactic gladiatorial battles to determine which combatants would be strong enough to form a conquering army.  I was never wholly actively aware that there were two SEPARATE mini-series, because the publishers didn't provide any cover copy delineating any series difference.  But as a whole, for a round of mindless action and brawling, I really enjoyed... well... WHATEVER "Battle Tide" mini-series I actually read.

Death's 3

With Death's Head II being the Marvel U.K. "superstar", the attempts to expand his brand were many.  Aside from this title, which involved Dr. Necker... huh-huh... developing two separate assassin cyborgs named Death Metal and Death Wreck, the former being a "T-1000-esque" being and the latter a misshapen brute of a machine, there was another two-issue series using Death's Head II to introduce a character called Die-Cut.  Picture a humanoid bald male in a MASSIVE power-suit with a circular saw hand appendage, and you have Die-Cut to a tee!  I bring up these series as an example of how Death's Head II was intended to be a springboard to a wider universe containing his creative "seeds". 

Last, but not least, we shall discuss Marvel U.K.'s premiere "event" that featured universe-wide interaction with their American brothers!

The Mys-TECH Wars

The Mys-TECH Company board leaders were made up of a grouping of seven immortal mages, that sold their souls to Mephisto... y'know, the breaker of solid Marvel Universe marriages... for their power and agelessness.  They first were properly introduced to the Marvel U.K. line in a series called "Warheads", but their tendrils touched EVERY character that had a lasting foundation in the universe.  The events of the Mys-TECH Wars involved their progressing their global domination schedule with an assistance of a demonic army, and the opposing force consisting of all the Marvel U.K. heroes, along with a GOOD cross-section of Marvel U.S. characters!  (I believe the key to their involvement in the conflict is the use of Nick Fury as a sacrifice to the demonic army the Mys-TECH board wishes to summon.)  As with many of the Marvel U.K. titles, this book introduced me to another artist that would achieve later fame.  You may, or may not have, heard of a lil' someone by the name of Bryan Hitch, who drew all four issues of the mini-series.  And like most Marvel events, at the conclusion, the universe is set right after MASSIVE heroic sacrifices are made, and all memory of the cataclysm are wiped from the participants, outside of a handful.  Le, sigh...