Forty years ago on the 26th of October 1974 MarvelUK launched two very different comics, just in time for Halloween. Different that is from its super-hero output, 1972 saw the release of The Mighty World of Marvel, followed by Spider-man Comics Weekly in early 1973 and The Avengers later that same year. All those title heavily relied on American Super-Hero reprints from the 1960's. These two new titles mainly took their material from new horror and sci fi work freshly published in the US. Britain may have seen creepy and the futuristic comics before, but not with this mature style. If the truth be told in 1974 I was way too young to really appreciate their suffocated story telling. Spider-man was more my thing, but every now and then I would peak into my older brothers wardrobe to feel the thrill and terror from his stack of comics, Apes and Dracula Lives among them.
Both comics feed off movie magic to fill their pages. Vampire and horror films were massive at the time on both sides of the Atlantic. Hammer horror films made house hold names out of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Even though the Planet of the Apes film was made in 1968 its four sequels and TV serial also made it popular, especially in the UK. Of their time, these two mags where made to succeed.
Dracula Lives lead with the Evil Count, his stories were taken from the US Tomb of Dracula, mainly by Marv Wolfman as the writer and Gene Colan supplying the artwork aided by Tom Palmer. With back up strips from Werewolf by Night and The Monster of Frankenstein, DL covered all classic horror bases, as well as later additions like Brother Voodoo, the Living Mummy, Man-Thing, Ghost Rider and the Son of Satan. Some cracking story telling and artwork from many a talented creator, far too many to list.
Planet of the Apes started with the comic strip of the film from the US publication of the same name, which had only just been released in August 1974, under three month old. This would become a problem later as the weekly version used the material quicker, more on that later. The movie strip was written by Doug Moench and drawn by George Tuska. Moench would write all the comic versions of the sequels from the original scripts rather than watching the film as video wasn't around in 1974 for popular use. Alfredo Alcala drew "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" and Rico Rival supplied the artwork for the remaining sequels which suited them and pleased this reader no end. To lengthen the Apes run other versions of tales from the primate planet were printed, again taken from its US magazine. The most popular and longest running was "Terror on the Planet of the Apes", a fresh take on the cinema version written by Moench and Gerry Conway with artwork by Mike Ploog. Other ape tales came and went, but the constant need for strip lead to a problem with the weekly demand. This was solved by reprinting the original film version again, a small stock gap at best, but not before a very creative idea from MarvelUK was applied. The sci fi strip "killraven" was printed with the heads of some of the aliens re-drawn as apes, the dialogue was re-written and the strip re-titled "Apeslayer". Strangely enough it was quite readable and enjoyable too! An incredible variety of back up strips followed Ka Zar, Captain Marvel, Black Panther (the classic Jungle Action stories that are sometimes called "The Panther Rage"), as well as adaptations of "Day of the Triffids", "Killdoser" and other sci fi shorts.
As the issues went on it became harder to for the stars of both these comics to maintain their presents as lead stories, as the weekly need for Ape and Vampire action eat away at the possible back catalogue, ever it was destiny that they would have to merge, if only to cut down the number of pages per week. So after 88 weeks two became one. The best of both joined a packed line up. Later the Prince of darkness would take leave from his own strip to narrate older tales from classic horror and suspense stories from Marvel 1960s back catalogue. Even these creative use of material couldn't stop the next merger. After 123 weeks of monkey and monster mayhem Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives joined The Mighty World of Marvel, number 231 on the 2rd March 1977, but only Planet of the Apes appeared in the comic and on the front cover with the Hulk in the title. Dracula had to wait 16 weeks later to star with the Green Goliath, in issue 247 on the 22rd June. Sadly the blood sucker only lasted 11 week. He did make a return to the comic during Dez Skinn's Marvel Revolution of MWOM that became Marvel Comic, but that's a tale for another day.
My younger self may not have fully appreciated the muture, imaginative worlds of horror or sci fi classic but I do now. On dark winter nights there's always a place in my heart where a spine chilling tale or a story of a thought provoking world where the apes rule supreme is longed to be read.
Make Mine Marvel.
