Good thread, taxidriver1980; I'm surprised you did not cover the DC strips that appeared in TV Tornado or Joe 90:





...although it was a TV (and sport) focused tabloid, the DC strips either reprinted U.S. issues, or in prose based more on the comics, instead of TV series.

The thing about DC in the UK is the American comics retained pretty pervasive distribution, certainly through the 70s, when US Marvel comics were rare as hen's teeth, so there was less of a driver for a UK reprint house to compete with them

By comparing our respective experiences growing up, tingramretro and I have more or less deduced that availability of real U.S. Marvel or DC comics in Britain varied greatly from region to region. And I think that what you're saying here might be another case of that, because my experience from about 1982 onwards (which is when I first discovered real American comics, rather than British reprints) is that Marvels were just as plentiful as DCs. They certainly weren't comparable to "hen's teeth" in scarcity. Prior to that, I know that a friend of mine, who was buying comics in the late '60s and '70s, regularly picked up American issues of Fantastic Four, Daredevil and Amazing Spider-Man at one particular newsagents in the tiny Home Counties town in which I live.

So, it might've been that American Marvels were scarcer that DCs in your particular locality, for one reason or another.

I can't find any details of DC UK reprint comics published in the 1970s. If anyone knows of any, please feel free to share details. What I did find details of were various annuals and pocketbooks, published by numerous licensees. Surely they showed up somewhere, even if only part of a wider licensed comic.

Brown Watson published annuals like this:










Egmont are a company who published a lot of DC annuals, pocketbooks and comics from the 70s onwards. Here's some annuals they published:










And they did some pocketbooks:










The coverage of the 80s DC UK reprints will be fairly eventful!

So, we enter the 1980s. A very busy period for Egmont, publishing various titles/annuals - and reprint comics via London Editions Magazines (who had an office in London, but moved to Manchester; perhaps they should have called themselves Manchester Editions Magazines).

The Super Heroes Monthly, which ran for 19 issues between 1980 and 1982, was a black and white reprint title that featured various heroes, particularly Superman and Batman. Here’s some covers:














I love these covers:






In 1988 London Editions Magazines put out a Superman title. Initially fortnightly, it reprinted Byrne's Superman. This was the first issue:






By its 20th issue, it increased to 48 pages, with Green Lantern and Justice League strips being added:






Also in 1988, Batman Monthly debuted, reprinting pure, unadulterated Batman. It started off by reprinting 1980’s The Untold Legend of the Batman, but soon began reprinting 70s tales. Here’s the first issue:






There was also this one-shot Joker special:






The really cool thing about the DC titles in the late 80s was that they were A4-sized (I think) and printed on glossy paper. It just felt so special. In addition to the reprinted strips, LEM also published articles; one of the Batman Monthly issues had a feature on the 1940s Batman serials. In a world before the internet, such information was vital.

Egmont/London Editions Magazines were on a roll in the 80s, particularly towards the latter end of the decade. It felt like it would never end. Sadly, and this will be covered in the 90s topic, they stopped publishing DC titles around 1994/95 - and it would be several years before another licensee (Panini) did a DC title, although annuals were published during the hiatus...

So, tarkintino, what magazine are you referring to?

I bought the first three issues of The Super-Heroes Monthly and still have them in my collection. Issue #3, the cover of which tarkintino posted above, featured a reprint of Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams' classic "The Joker's Five Way Revenge" story from Batman #251. That was the first time I read that story and it was always one of my favourite Batman tales. It wasn't til the advent of the internet and probably my finding this community back on the old CBR forums that I realised that it was considered an all-time classic comic.

They were really trying to channel Christopher Reeve's Superman, not so much in exact facial features, but in poses and costume design (the larger "S" shield was clearly inspired by the one created for the Reeve costume).