Is it a Bird ? Is it a Plane ??
Jan 11, 2011
Who is this strange man and what has he done with the real Superman ?
I mention UK Annuals more often than the comics they are based on for the simple reason that the durable books have survived in greater numbers than the weeklies …at least in this household. Atlas UK Superman Annuals are often advertised for sale (although at increasingly silly prices). Atlas UK Batman Annuals from the early 1960s seem to be the rarest as he then had yet to become a household name. The flimsy sixpenny Superman/Superboy/Batman/SuperAdventure Australian weekly black and white reprint comics are getting quite rare in the UK now. I’ve saved perhaps two dozen for the simple fact that when I was a teenaged comic trader I never sold them because I couldn’t find anyone who collected them. Although I have 30 or 40 Dandy Annuals, some going back to the early 1950s when it was called The Dandy Monster Comic, I know for a fact that I only own precisely 6 Dandy Comics as I’ve just kept one representitive issue from each of the last six decades !!
The Magic Robot 
Feb 22, 2011 at 8:09 am
Hi,
I’m looking for info on an old British Superman annual (or annuals as i may be), and someone pointed me in your direction. I remember reading an annual when I was younger and I’m trying to find out which particular one it was, in the better hopes of tracking one down. The stories I recall are “Thunder & Lightning” from Superman #303, “The Tattoo Switcheroo” from Superman #294 and “Solomon Grundy Wins on a Monday” from Superman #301. I can also remember a Green Lantern story and a Hawkman one also, but no details.
Do you have any idea on what the annual might be, or where to start looking for info?
Thanks for an interesting blog!
Richard
Feb 22, 2011 at 11:12 am
I wouldn’t have thought you would have very much trouble tracking down a UK Superman Annual that was published (at a guess)in the late 1970s or early 1980s on eBay as long as you can recall what the cover looked like. All the covers are pictured here:-
http://www.tonystrading.co.uk/galleries/annuals/superman.htm
I have issue 303 of Superman which was cover dated September 1976. The title story was “When Lightning strikes – Thunder kills!” and features a couple of rather generic villains named Thunder and Lightning. Even then they must have realised those names had been used many times before.
Feb 22, 2011 at 11:27 am
Thanks for the link! I recognise the covers for 1980 & 1984, so now I have a place to start! I guess there was quite a delay between the inital publishing of the comics in the US and their getting reprinted over here.