A story through the years, giant robots, a monkey named Tina Marzipan, Frankenstein and Torrebruno
It can be considered that the current Marvel It began in 1961 with the release of number 1 of ‘The Fantastic Four’, which served to abandon – at least in part – the stories of monsters, aliens and love that Atlas, Marvel’s predecessor, had released again and again throughout the previous decade. The title, subtitled “The best comic in the world!” Starting with its number 3, it was a revulsion against the stagnant DC stories (or, as Stan Lee called it, “the Uaj brand”, or “Brand Echh” in English) and It would soon see its first television adaptation.
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Merry Marvel Marching
On September 5, 1966, ‘The Marvel Super Heroes’ premiered on several local American television stations. The series, which had 65 episodes divided into three segments (giving a total of 195) featured Hulk, Captain America, Namor, Thor and Iron Man and closely adapted Stan Lee’s original stories. In fact, It imitates the vignettes so much that the animation is almost anecdotal. That didn’t stop Lee from announcing him in the comics pages of the time as the greatest blessing on the shoulders of fans.
The punchline: Soon, our sensational superheroes will make their stellar debut on television five nights a week (yes, five) in half-hour shows! So you have just enough time to make sure your TV is working perfectly, check the time and channel in the newspaper, and get ready to enjoy yourself!
Things were so slow in the ’60s that by the time the announcement came in the comics the series had already ended. The following year, animated versions of ‘Spider-man’ (the one that left us with the famous little music woven into the character forever) and ‘The Fantastic Four’ would be released. The rest is, more or less, history. But what was happening in the cinema? Why didn’t the Marvel comic heroes make the leap like Batman and Superman had already done? That’s another story.
From Japan with love
The truth is that a Marvel character had indeed reached the big screen much earlier, in 1944: Captain America – the original Timely, not the one who would later be discovered in a block of ice by The Avengers – starred in a very expensive 15-episode serial that took all possible liberties. Instead of Steve Rogers it was Grant Gardner, there was no super-soldier serum, he carried a gun and in his real life he was a district attorney. An absolute nonsensecome on.
Let’s jump in time 30 years: we are in the 70s, and Marvel is triumphing in comics, selling merchandising and has its own television series of more or less success (‘The Incredible Hulk’, ‘The Spectacular Spider-Man’) of which it even released its pilots in cinemas as if they were movies. But there is a market that he does not fully control: the Japanese. accustomed to creating his own stories and who does not need Yankees to have its popular iconography. Marvel, of course, did not surrender to the evidence, and in its eagerness to globalize its products it did not care in the least about perverting them.
In 1970, just eight years after Peter Parker was born, publisher Kodansha has already published a very particular version of ‘Spider-man’ in its Monthly Shonen Magazine, in which a young man named Yu Komori became the superhero, following the original in the first chapters and going on his own towards the end. It was a failure, as was its counterpart ‘Hulk’, starring a certain Doctor Araki, which appeared in Weekly Bokura Magazine. However, all was not lost. If one thing was clear in the 70s, it was that Marvel never gave in.
A hamburger that bleeds, please
Years after making a mistake with the manga, Marvel contacted Toei. Yes, that Toei, the giant that would later make ‘Dragon Ball’, ‘One Piece’ and ‘Sailor Moon’. In the American company they were clear that, if they wanted to be successful in Japan, they had to let them come up with their own versions and not interfere. So, signed a three-year contract with Toei that said they could do whatever they wanted with their licenses. Said and done: on May 17, 1978, ‘Spider-man’ premiered, a live-action tokusatsu series that lasted 41 episodes and only resembled the original in Peter Park’s costume… Takuya Yamashiro, a Japanese who receives the powers of Garia, an alien who was the last survivor of Planet Spider.
The series was such a success that it even had its film version, which took place between episodes 10 and 11. Toei felt that the next thing they should do was a television anime, which would be, for posterity, the first Marvel animated film. And who would they choose from their wide spectrum of characters? Well, of course, Dracula. At that time, Gene Colan was continuing in comics with his masterpiece ‘The Tomb of Dracula’, which lasted 70 chapters, and in Japan they thought it was ideal.
Curiously, Toei adapted chapters 45 to 70 quite solemnly, leaving images like Dracula eating a hamburger to remember. ‘Yami no Teio: Kyuketsuki Dracula’, today, has aged fairly and is more laughable than anything else, but on August 19, 1980, when it premiered on TV Asahi, It was a big little success.. And yes, let’s get to what you were waiting for: it also arrived in Spain at a time when “Japanese cartoons” were considered inherently childish. And they were about to discover that this was not the case.
marzipan with blood
On TVE, shortly after all this happened without us knowing anything, They decided that Christmas needed a morning show for kids presented by Teresa Rabal, Torrebruno and a monkey named “Tina Mazapán”. December 24, 1984 ‘Mazapán’ premiered live from the network’s stand at Juvenaliabroadcasting a variety show with songs, cameos by the Avería Witch and the Electroduendes and the broadcast of a film.
On December 28, the program received a visit from Paul Naschy and, for some reason, They decided that it was a very good idea to broadcast ‘The Tomb of Dracula’ to a handful of children enjoying their Christmas vacation who didn’t know what they were about to see: bloody scenes, the occasional nude in the shower and terror that provoked waves of complaints in the network.
It must be taken into account that the other films that appeared in ‘Mazapan’ They were animes of the caliber from ‘Little Women’, ‘The Wind in the Willows’, ‘The Call of the Wild’, ‘The Enchanted Princess’, ‘The Age of the Dinosaurs’, ‘The King’s Court’ or the footballer ‘Eleven Pairs of Youth Boots’ ‘. Dracula was totally out of place. A wonder for the kids of the time. As a curiosity, ‘Mazapán’ was such a crazy program that they even brought Obús to sing ‘It doesn’t matter’ (a song about hooking up with an ugly girl because she hasn’t caught him in “months”). If it didn’t happen in the 80s, it would never happen.
And with the Marvel deal in Japan, what happened? ‘The Tomb of Dracula’ was a success, and Toei didn’t take any chances adapting the company’s other horror comic, ‘Frankenstein’. The other project they wanted to carry out was ‘Captain America’… or rather ‘Captain Japan’, in this round of “Japanizations”. ‘Captain Japan’ was going to abandon any reference to World War II (for whatever reason) and have a new giant super robot. However, at that time, Relations between Marvel and Toei were faltering and the series ended up becoming ‘Battle Fever J’.
‘Battle Fever J’ featured different world captains: France, Kenya, Russia and Miss America, commanded by Battle Japan and Battle Fever Robo, their gigantic robot. Marvel had been thinking for some time that it was too much and, after co-producing a couple of series in which their characters were not even sniffed at (‘Denshi Sentai Denziman’ and ‘Taiyou Sentai Sun Vulcan’), they ended the agreement. Five years after the last Toei movie The first American Marvel movie would arrive in theaters. But we’d better talk about ‘Howard, a new hero’ another day.
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