Hot off the press from the Marvel website comes this news straight from Comic Con about their next big story arc, Revolutionary War. Andy Lanning and Alan Cowsill are behind this mini-series and they had this to say.

“[Alan Cowsill and I] plan to be setting up all you need to know in the story itself but the main thing readers need to know is that back in the 1990’s Marvel UK had a brief glorious spot in the sun where we got to develop our own UK based heroes as part of the greater Marvel Universe.”

The UK characters joining with the Marvel Universe proper is long overdue. Death’s Head has just recently popped up again in Iron-Man (the original design, not Death’s Head 2 or 3.0), so this is great news.

Living in the UK myself, these were some of the first heroes I was exposed to after I had sought out the X-Men and Spider-Man annuals. Titles like Overkill featured some incredible stories all set in their own universe, but including the Marvel main stream characters (the X-Men popped up regularly). For UK readers these were our characters, operating in areas that we knew about and even lived in. The sense of excitement reading these characters made directly for the UK was amazing. It seems that Lanning remembers these days fondly, as he had this to say.

[box_dark]“It was a very exciting time to work in comics in the UK and I have a lot of fond memories of the time we spent working on our own, UK-centric versions of super heroes. I was given one of my early breaks into comics by Paul Neary at Marvel UK along with a great number of current comic creators [including] Liam Sharp, Carlos Pacheco, Salvador Larroca, Gary Frank, Bryan Hitch, Pascal Ferry, Doug Braithwaite, Simon Coleby, Richard Elson, Gary Erskine, Cam Smith and more.”[/box_dark]

The fun thing about this new series of stories was the new villains that were created. The Mys-Tech Corporation were the main villains here. They pulled all the strings in the Marvel UK universe and almost all of the characters in these stories were affected by this company. Looks like Lanning has also remembered how popular and unique this new villain group were as his quote below elaborates.

[box_dark]“It’s been over 20 years since then and it seemed like a good time to revisit the Marvel UK landscape and see what has happened to the heroes since the last Marvel UK comic was published. The biggest surprise has been rereading the old issues and rediscovering how cool the characters and their stories were. Many of the stories revolved around the evil machinations of a shadowy organization called Mys-Tech, which was formed of 7 ‘techno-wizards’ who, in 987, sold their souls to Mephisto in exchange for immortality. As part of their pact the board must supply a steady stream of souls to the demon or else forfeit their own. Many of the stories and characters were linked to Mys-Tech’s efforts of finding a way to escape their compact with Mephisto and becoming immortal in their own right and the machinations and the numerous nefarious plots that they hatched to do this”[/box_dark]

But who will we see in this mini-series? There is such a diverse amount of characters created for the Marvel UK Universe it seems difficult to fit them all in. Luckily, Lanning has taken all this on board and has clear plans on what he and Alan Coswill wants to include.

“In re-reading the Marvel UK titles and researching old continuity we’ve realized there’s actually a very large and diverse cast of UK based characters available to us. We’ll be revisiting most of the popular old Marvel UK characters and a few of the more obscure ones. I think it’s safe to say that Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom will be involved. It would be sacrilege not to feature them in a story set in the UK. Fans of heroes like Warheads, Knights of Pendragon, Death’s Head, Warheads, Dark Angel, Super Soldiers, Motormouth and Killpower will be pleased. We will strive to fit as many in as possible so keep your eyes peeled as your own old favorite may very well make an appearance!”

This is incredible for all comic fans, not just UK ones. The return of these characters is awesome news and will be a welcome treat for older readers who remember them in their prime, and new readers who have yet to experience them. How they will be used is yet to be seen but with the extracts from this interview makes this reviewer feel that these characters are in safe hands. Keep your eyes on this new series because I think it will be full of surprises. Make sure you are prepared for the return of the UK heroes by checking with Grizzly Bomb for a who’s who of the Marvel UK comic characters which will be coming soon.

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