Monday 20 June 2016

1993: AVENGERS ANNIVERSARY MAGAZINE (MARVEL COMCS)

From November 1993: Marvel New York celebrated thirty years of THE AVENGERS with this glossy one-shot magazine, officially a spin-off from the not-magazine-sized MARVEL AGE MAGAZINE.

Marvel published a bunch of these in the early 1990s with a similar edition devoted to THE X-MEN, an objectification-packed celebration of the fictional flesh with a Swimsuit magazine (riffing on the SPORTS ILLUSTRATED tradition) and a couple of annual in-universe retrospectives spoofing the likes of TIME and NEWSWEEK.

The fad proved relatively short-lived (maybe it was just cheaper and easier to concoct another PUNISHER one-shot?) and the magazine line quietly went away when the market tanked.

The contents were all text based, albeit illustrated by numerous panels and covers from the Marvel vaults.


4 comments:

  1. Anyone else think it strange that the central character on this cover to celebrate the Avengers is Wolverine who was not an Avenger (at this stage at least)?

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  2. It is a bit strange but also not surprising since wolvie was marvel's most popular star by then and they were putting him in virtually every title.


    marvel have recently published several anniversary mags devoted to THE AVENGERS and CAPTAIN AMERICA.

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    Replies
    1. And, when it comes to the modern anniversary mags, the thing to remember is: don't get suckered into buying the full-price version as retailers also have freebie copies (albeit with different covers) behind the till to give away. Yay.

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  3. I see your point and I am aware of the difference. In fact, my FP had free copies of the CAP mag at the counter.

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