Owing to increasing amount of information discovered about the later years of Marvel UK, our “Genesis 1992” section has now been broken up into more pages

Part 1 – Published Comics 1992 | Part 2 – Published Comics 1993 -1994 | Part 3 – Published Comics 1994 – 1995 | Part 4 – Frontier Comics | Part 5 – Unpublished Projects Developed during 1990 – 1991 | Part 6 – Unpublished Projects Developed during 1992 – 1993 | Part 7 – Other Unpublished Projects Developed during 1993 | Part 8 – Unpublished Projects Developed during 1994 | Part 9 – 1994 (Marvel UK branded) Core Relaunch | Part 10 – Final Unrealised Projects 1994 – and a Postscript

This page was last updated on 30th January 2022 to add more information about Death Wreck, with thanks to Craig Houston, Staz Johnson and Stuart Vandal

January 1994

Death’s Head Gold / Death’s Head #0
Story and art: Liam Sharp

Announced as a quarterly companion to the main title but cancelled after the first issue and free #0 preview flip-book special. Issue one had a gold foil cover.

Death Metal
Four Issues
Writer: Simon Furman
Artist: John Royle

Created by A.I.M.’s Dr. Necker, Death Metal is a cyborg composed of the living metal prometheum recovered from Earth-9939.

Death Metal comes to the attention of MyS-Tech during his search for a means to end his own existence, ultimately finding a new reason to carry on. Death’s Head II cameos in Issue One.

• More info on Death Metal: www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/deathmet.htm

Death Wreck
Four issue series
Writer: Craig Houston | Artist: Stewart “Staz” Johnson | Colour: David Leach

The origin of Death Wreck, Necker’s Minion prototype, who promptly runs loose through time. Naturally. Death’s Head II cameos in #1 and #4.

“Death Wreck was fundamentally about the brain of a homeless alcoholic being placed in the body of a prototype Cyborg Killing Machine,” recalls writer Craig Houston, ”Who then bumbled his way through time and space…”

Craig also recalls the series was going to be titled “Death Rattle” (that name allocated to another unpublished project from Liam Sharp and Bryan Hitch) “because I remember it taking me time to get used to Death Wreck!”

The Death Wreck mini series was drawn by Staz Johnson, who drew a sample page of Death’s Head II in action to secure the commission. “I hadn’t worked in comics much over the previous couple of years,” he recalled in 2022, ”I’d been doing commercial art. So I called, I think, Paul Nearly and asked what Marvel UK would want to see in order to get some work. He told me to draw a fight scene page featuring Death’s Head II some others… and to make sure I showed I could draw sexy women!”

Writer Craig Houston recalls a guest appearance by The Punisher was dropped from Death Wreck and replaced with a “generic viglante” when it went to art – but he never knew about it, until he found copies five years later, in a comic shop bargain bin.

We’ve previously conjectured that, perhaps, it was felt the Punisher’s appearance might undermine the planned, but unpublished, Death’s Head II/ Punisher crossover. But, in fact, the guest appearance was dropped because of objections to the character’s use from Marvel US.

“I had drawn the layout for the page where the Punisher appears at the end of issue #2 for one panel, but Marvel UK editorial called me up and said I had to change it,” Staz recalls. ”Marvel US had seen the script for the following issue in which The Punisher played a more significant role, and in that issue, The Punisher got beaten up by Death Wreck.

“I think they took issue with the notion that their badass vigilante just showed up for half a dozen pages, only to get beaten up by this goofy cyborg. So I changed him out for an equally goofy OTT armoured vigilante.”

• More on Death Wreck: http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/deathwre.htm

October 1994

Clandestine
Art and story: Alan Davis, inked by Mark Farmer

Initially a Marvel UK project, which was transferred to Marvel US when Marvel UK closed down.

Created by Alan Davis, ClanDestine was a series centring on a group of near-immortal supersiblings, who live as a multi-generational family and whose powers come from their crusader father Adam’s relationship with a genie or d’jinn.

Doug Braithwaite and Glenn Dakin also worked on the first series.

Wild Angels
Writer: Nick Vince
Artist: Pino Rinaldi
Editor: Bambos Georgiou

Wild Angels was to have brought two characters into one title – Shevaun Haldane aka Dark Angel and Nikki Doyle aka Wild Thing. The series was written by Nick Vince (Warheads, Mortigan Goth: Immortalis) and drawn by Italian artist Pino Rinaldi, whose credits in his native country included  Skorpio, Martin Mystere and Nathan Never. 

Rinaldi did some work for Marvel in the US in the late 1990s, and was also a fill-in artist on the later, now retconned, issues of the non-Alan Davis period of ClanDestine.

Until his death in 2018, he created comics for European publishers, including a failed attempt to revive the Daily Mirror strip “Garth” initiated by the Bosnian publisher Print Media Productions.

Although unpublished in English, Wild Angels was published in Italy in 1996 as a single black and white volume, “where Marvel UK material continued to be printed for a good while longer than in the UK, US and Canada,” notes It Came from Darkmoor. The book was a best seller for Marvel Italia, due in no small part to Pino Rinaldi’s popularity as a comic artist in his home country.

“I think I edited Wild Angels,” Bambos Georgiou recalled in 2012. “Very professional, very tight pencils. I remember getting my sister-in-law to translate script pages for Pino, but can’t remember if it was for Wild Angels.”

The plot used some kind of time travel as a device to let Dark Angel travel to 2020, but the action was mainly centred in a virtual reality spiced up with magic.

This of course does raise the interesting question: if Wild Angels was published in Italy, were any of the unpublished titles below also published there?

• There’s a guide to the published story in English here on MarvUnApp

It Came from Darkmoor has two articles on this project; an initial feature here and an update here which includes more information on the title’s Italian publication, including artwork samples provided by Pino Rinaldi, who also discussed the project here on his own blog

February 1995

Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty
One-shot, perfect-bound
Writer: Cefn Ridout
Artist: Charlie Adlard
Colours: Frank Lopez; Steve Whitaker
Letters: Jon Babcock

This is an entirely different comic to another, using the Death Duty title (see the entry for the Red Mist 20-20 crossover line here). That comic was first promoted in Body Count and solicited in Marvel Age #130 (November 1993), with the artist José Fonteriz attached, but was subsequently delayed (as reported in Comic World Issue 22, December 1993) and then cancelled. Fonteriz did draw Nocturne, published by Marvel US (see directly below).

Memorably realised by Cefn Ridout and Charlie Adlard, this ‘Death Duty’ was eventually released by Marvel US in February 1995, and was a Night Raven comic in all but name. This dark story looks as though it could have developed out of an earlier take on the project, as A1 co-creator and comics publisher Dave Elliott has previously mentioned another Night Raven-related project (in addition to Nocturne, also published by Marvel US – see directly below), which was going to be “written by Alan Grant, pencilled by Doug Braithwaite and inked by myself,” he recalls in a post to the Make Mine Marvel UK Facebook group in September 2013. “I think Night Raven was involved somehow but it was not going to be his title.”

June 1995

Nocturne
Four issue series
Writer: Dan Abnett
Art: Pino Rinaldi (solicited artist) – actually drawn by José Fonteriz
Inks: John Stokes
Colour: Steve White; Sophie Heath
Letters: Pat Prentice

A film-maker discovers an old costume that grants him extraordinary powers, but which also seems to be taking over his mind.

Originally untended as part of a four-book relaunch of the Marvel UK range Paul Neary planned in 1994. An updated version of Night Raven, it was published by Marvel US, albeit with a Marvel UK logo on the cover.

“It’s been kinda written off as an alt-universe story because it doesn’t really fit the main universe version of Night Raven,” notes It Came from Darkmoor compiler Mark Roberts.

Alan Cowsill tells us there was an original version of Nocturne that Dan Abnett and Andrew Currie were doing that never got passed a few pages and script.

More info:

• Marvel Wikia: http://marvel.wikia.com/Nocturne_Vol_1
• It Came From Darkmoor: http://itcamefromdarkmoor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/deaths-head-which-almost-was-interview.html
• The Comic Vault: Dan Abnett’s Nocturne Review – YouTube
• Atomic Avenue mini review

A1 co-creator and comics publisher Dave Elliott recalls another Night Raven-related project was developed – see below.

July 1995

X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain

Collections of Marvel UK strips from several different sources

#1 – Reprints the Captain Britain stories from Marvel Super-Heroes #377–#383

#2 – Reprints the Captain Britain strories from Marvel Superheroes #384–Daredevils #1

#3 – Reprints Captain Britain from Daredevils #2–#5

#4 – Reprints Captain Britain from from Daredevils #6–#8

#5 – Reprints Captain Britain from Daredevils #9–#11

#6 – Reprints Captain Britain from Mighty World of Marvel #7–#10

#7 – Reprints Captain Britain from  Mighty World of Marvel #11–#13

Owing to increasing amount of information discovered about the later years of Marvel UK, our “Genesis 1992” section has now been broken up into more pages

Part 1 – Published Comics 1992 | Part 2 – Published Comics 1993 -1994 | Part 3 – Published Comics 1994 – 1995 | Part 4 – Frontier Comics | Part 5 – Unpublished Projects Developed during 1990 – 1991 | Part 6 – Unpublished Projects Developed during 1992 – 1993 | Part 7 – Other Unpublished Projects Developed during 1993 | Part 8 – Unpublished Projects Developed during 1994 | Part 9 – 1994 (Marvel UK branded) Core Relaunch | Part 10 – Final Unrealised Projects 1994 – and a Postscript

Marvel UK: Useful Links

• It Came From Darkmoor: itcamefromdarkmoor.blogspot.co.uk
Terrific blog about Marvel UK and British Marvel heroes

• Starlogged: starlogged.blogspot.co.uk
Charting the history of many British comics, including their promotion. Items include…

• The (Almost) Complete History of Marvel UK from 1972 to 1996
A chronological overview of the ongoing series published between 1972 and 1996 or thereabouts.  There’s plenty that will surprise all but the most ardent collectors of the British Bullpen.

• Marvel UK in the USA
From the late 1980s onwards, and peaking with the ‘Genesis’ line in 1992-94, the British Bullpen made various excursions across the Atlantic in the hopes of gaining a foothold.  The occasional incursions (like Death’s Head and G.I. Joe European Missions) became a deluge… which ended suddenly with the behind-the-scenes Genesis Massacre. 
Read Marvel UK in the USA – From A to Die | Marvel UK in the USA – Part Two

• A Distant Beacon

The web presence of author Rob Kirby, who’s working on a book on the history of Marvel UK, From Cents to Pence

• Comics Pending – January 1993

This document compiled by John Freeman outlines some of the unpublished comic strips planned for Overkill, and his thoughts on the future of some of the company’s title such as Motormouth and Warheads, in January 1993, when he was in the process of leaving the company to take up life as a freelancer.

The hand-written notes refer to “Paul” – Paul Neary, Marvel UK’s Editorial Director; and editors Tim Quinn, Jacqui Papp and Bambos Georgiou.