The recent news that Marvel USA are producing a new Secret Wars comic series this summer reminded me that back in the 1980s I did some back up strips for Marvel UK's Secret Wars 2 weekly. In those days I was a frequent contributor to Marvel UK's comics, mainly due to editor Richard Starkings who gave me plenty of work.
For Secret Wars 2 I created and submitted a full page comedy superhero strip called Macho Man. There wasn't enough room in the comic's crammed 28 pages to accommodate a full page extra so it was decided the origin story would be split in two halves, and subsequent episodes would be created as half pagers. Macho Man began in Secret Wars 2 No.42 (dated 19th April 1986) accompanied by a warm editorial welcome message...
Due to shortage of space, Macho Man only appeared occasionally, and only had 11 episodes in total. However I've always enjoyed doing superhero spoofs so brief as it was it was always great fun to do. The strip appeared in Secret Wars 2 Nos.42, 44, 51, 52, 53, 58, 63, 67, 69, 75, and 79 (3rd January 1987). Here they are. (As always, click images to enlarge them.)
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| A printing error with the colour on this one unfortunately. |
That wasn't the end of the character though. I've always liked to incorporate the characters I've created into a shared universe so a couple of years later in 1989 Macho Man turned up during the six part Combat Colin story The Place of No Return in Transformers No.245. (Reprinted in 2005's Brickman Begins! as Village of the Doomed.) Here's a segment...
The battle in the village bonded Colin and the other characters as pals so Macho Man returned again in Transformers Nos.270 and 271 during Colin's fight against a mystery villain...
Macho Man returned one final time, in an episode of the Combat Colin serial The Invasion of Megabrain (Transformers No.296, November 17th, 1990) where he met his fate...
Yep, I killed off one of my characters. Permanently! In a Marvel comic! Never to return.
...and that was the short career of Norman Dribble AKA Macho Man. I hope you've enjoyed it.
