Marvel Action Hour

Marvel Action Hour


Marvel Action Hour was another attempt by Marvel UK to utilize American reprints in a British comic format. The slim 24 page fortnightly was printed on matt paper and featured Fantastic Four stories from the late 1970s and Iron Man strips from the 1980s. The first issue was cover dated 9th October 1996, and priced 75p. The free gift was a chew bar.



With so few pages to accommodate two US comics, the strips took it in turns to be serialized over two issues. For example, issue 1 featured a complete FF tale plus the first third of an Iron Man story, and No.2 featured the rest of the Iron Man story and 9 pages of the next FF adventure.



The reproduction of the strips was excellent and the comics featured some fine John Buscema/Joe Sinnot Fantastic Four pages.



The original splash pages of the lead strips were replaced by newly drawn images by Jon Rushby and inked by Bambos Georgiou so the stories could begin on the covers in traditional UK fashion.



The title was inspired by a cartoon series of the same name so clearly the comic was hoping to capitalize on that. Sadly, it wasn't to be. After just four issues the fortnightly was abruptly cancelled with no warning. So sudden was the decision that the next issue was advertised but never materialized. Sales must have been pretty low. Superheroes were a hit or miss affair with the British public back then. The Fantastic Four had never really been hugely popular in UK comics so it was never going to be an easy sell.



Marvel Action Hour was one of the shortest-lived UK comics of all time but it was a worthwhile effort. The company have since enjoyed much more success with the 76 page 'Collectors Editions' reprinting three full comics, - aided no doubt by the massively successful Marvel movies of this century.