Schedule Quarterly | Format Magazine | |
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Publication date 1975–Winter 1980 (as Marvel Preview)
March 1981–February 1983 (as Bizarre Adventures) Number of issues 34 (#1-24 as Marvel Preview #25-34 as Bizarre Adventures) Writers Bill Mantlo, Gil Kane, Steve Englehart, Doug Moench, Chris Claremont, Roger Stern Pencillers John Byrne, Howard Chaykin, Keith Giffen, Gil Kane, Michael Netzer, George Pérez, Mike Ploog, Jim Starlin Publishers Magazine Management, Marvel Comics Similar World War Hulk: X‑Men, Uncanny Avengers, Marvel Spotlight, Vinland Saga, Marvel Team‑Up | ||
Marvel Preview is a black-and-white comics magazine published by Magazine Management for 14 issues and the affiliated Marvel Comics Group for 10 issues. The final issue additionally carried the imprint Marvel Magazines Group.
Contents
Publication history
An umbrella title that showcased a different heroic-adventure, science-fiction, or sword-and-sorcery character in virtually every issue. The title introduced the Marvel Comics characters Dominic Fortune in issue #2, Star-Lord in #4, and Rocket Raccoon in #7. The vigilante character the Punisher, introduced as an antagonist in the comic book The Amazing Spider-Man, had his first solo story in issue #2.
The magazine had scheduling difficulties, with various "Next Issue" announcements proving unreliable. Issue #2 promised an adventure of the Marvel superhero Thor in #3, but a Blade story appeared, with the Thor story unseen until #10. As well, two different issues, #20 and #24, are dated "Winter 1980." Issue #20 was to have included photographs from a Japanese Spider-Man television program but instead featured Howard Chaykin's Dominic Fortune. In addition, Robert A. Heinlein's lawyers threatened legal action over the cover of Marvel Preview #11, which featured a blurb that described the Star-Lord content as "a novel-length science fiction spectacular in the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein," leading to the issue being pulled and reprinted.
With #25 (March 1981), the title was changed to Bizarre Adventures, which published an additional ten issues before ending publication. To offset the dark tone of most of the stories, editor Denny O'Neil had writer Steve Skeates produce a humor feature called Bucky Bizarre to close out each issue. The final issue, #34, was a standard-sized color comic book, cover-blurbed "Special Hate the Holidays Issue", with anthological Christmas-related stories including one starring Howard the Duck.
Collected editions
