British Update: First Quenchers Plus Free Gift Farrago: Forces In Combat #1-3
*Marvel UK: In the latter days of Marvel’s UK operations, they had pretty much strip-mined their longer-running series to reprint, but still needed new titles to be launched to stimulate sales. This resulted in some… eclectic combinations of characters, one of the most esoteric (or ‘desperate’, your mileage may vary) arose in Forces In Combat in 1980. Cut and pasted into three or four-page instalments, the bewildered readership was treated to, in rapid succession, Sgt. Fury, Rom Space Knight, Rawhide Kid, Machine Man, Kull the Conqueror, and Master of Kung Fu, a smorgasbord of series originally published in three separate decades, all linked ostensibly by the ‘Combat’ theme. With the free gift stickers of military vehicles, it’s as if they planned a war comic, but suddenly realised they didn’t have enough strips to fill it! Most inexplicable, though certainly not unwelcome, was the colour centre feature of ‘Wulf the Briton’ by Ron Embleton, originally presented in ‘TV Express’ the better part of thirty years previously. This cornucopia of curiosities can be yours: the first three issues (#1 VG, #2 FN, #3 FN), with original Free Gifts (#1 FN, #2VF, #3 VF) at £15 each. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD