CAPTAIN AMERICA film serial poster

Timely's star-spangled man didn't take long to make the leap to the big screen, getting his own Republic serial just three years after making his comic debut. Well, sort of - even by pre-MCU standards the adaptation was best termed as "loose". Not only did Cap trade in his iconic shield for his less iconic pistol, bit instead of being Steve Rogers, Super Soldier he was actually DA Grant Gardner for no readily apparent reason. In short it's unclear why Republic bothered leasing the rights at all. To top it all off Dick Purcell has a gut on him, and it's widely accepted that the light workout he goes through here was a factor in his fatal heart attack a few weeks after filming wrapped.

DAZZLER #35 comic cover art

Back in the day when comics sold to people under the age of 40 sales of even lower-performing titles were big numbers. As a result cancellation was something of a last resort instead of an annual exercise. Dazzler had been launched to tie in with disco but naturally by the time Alison's adventures were out the genre had become a lightning rod for hatred. Despite a change in direction the mutant songstress struggled to shift comics, so Danny Fingeroth had her switch to acting hopeful. To help promote the new format a series of nine covers were created by Bill Sienkiewicz, who was a serious heavyweight at the company. They didn't really help Dazzler but they looked superb.

SPIDER-WOMAN #1 cover

Possibly to combat the usual fanboy claims that Marvel were getting too woke (as no other explanation makes sense) in 2014 they enlisted Milo Manara to produce a variant cover for the relaunched Spider-Woman series. Yes, Milo Manara the artist of, among others, The Art of Spanking. Unsurprisingly Twitter exploded, even after Marvel slapped the title over Jess' ridiculously defined cleft.

Spider-Man film poster

Outside of North America a live-action webslinger first appeared in cinemas in 1977, as the CBS TV movie was - like many lavish network pilots of the time - released theatrically in the rest of the world. The movie pitted Nicholas Hammond's far-too-old Peter Parker against arguably Spidey's greatest foe, the iconic Guru. Unsurprisingly Hammond was well up for appearing in No Way Home. Unsurprisingly Marvel Studios weren't. 

G.I.Joe - Operation Star Fight book art

In a bizarre "worlds collide" moment Marvel assigned Earl Norrem to some of their licensed Big Looker storybooks in the eighties and he didn't shirk, resulting in some of the most gorgeous art ever to shill toys. And those certainly aren't lasers being traded between Cobra and the Joes...

New Universe advert

Launched in 1986 with this stunning promotional image drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz, the New Universe was Marvel's first attempt to launch an all-new imprint. Sadly the talent on the titles themselves was largely less stellar, typified by so much of it being written by the amiable but limited Mark Gruenwald. Four of the eight launch titles were cancelled within a year of their debut, and the line as a whole was wound down in 1989 to widespread apathy.

Venus comic advert

Beginning publication in 1948, Timely's Venus came into a struggling market. While Bill Everett drew the promo he wasn't avaliable for the title. It started off as a kind of superpowered romance title before morphing into a science fiction-slash-horror series. It lasted 19 issues, with the last three coming after the company had reorganised as Atlas. Some fifty years later modern successor Marvel would revive Venus as one of the Agents of Atlas.