Unlike Marvel, which had enjoyed a strong presence in the British comic market first through reprints by Alan Class and then Odhams in the 1950s and 1960s, and then via Marvel's own UK branch from the 1970s onwards, reprints of DC Comics were far less common in UK titles. Smash! had reprinted the Batman newspaper strip in the 1960s, and companies such as World Distributors had licensed rights to release annuals for Batman and Superman over the years, but DC stories did not enjoy consistent reprints in British titles. In 1980 London Editions Magazines, a subsidiary of Egmont, began an effort to change that, launching The Super Heroes Monthly, a black and white anthology title reprinting three DC comic stories each issue. An editorial decision was apparently made not to run ongoing strips, but instead to jump around from one character to another and take stories from different eras, though most issues featured either Batman or Superman, if not both. Twelve issues were published, starting in September 1980, before the title was relaunched as volume 2, which ran for a further seven issues. There were also three annuals, 1982, 1983 and 1984; the middle annual featured a brand new Wonder Woman text story.
Log in to comment