Superman Monthly #21 (London Editions/1989)

Although Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman were all household names even in the UK attempts to create a comics line based on these iconic characters were never as successful as Marvel whose comics continue to dominate the British market to today.

When I was a child I used to read a lot of American comics back in the sixties mostly DC rather than Marvel plus a few others on occasion including Mighty Comics (Archie), Charlton's line of Action Heroes and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents from Tower comics. 

For British Marvel's output was available in Alan Class publications and the Power Comics line and finally TV 21 (for reasons I will never understand) until the Mighty World of Marvel was directly published by the company in 1972. The rest is history

With the exception of the Batman newspaper strip which appeared on the front page of Odham's Smash!  DC's only real attempt to intervene in the British comics market was with the monthly Super DC which was launched in 1969 but only lasted 14 issues plus one "annual".

London Editions made several attempts at launching DC characters onto the British Market in the eighties but these didn't take and I freely admit to not even being aware of them until long after the comics had disappeared and it's only by chance I finally got to pick up one.

This edition of Superman, oversized to fit the British market is actually in full colour and of a good design featuring stories I hadn't read including a face-off between Superman and Superboy which shouldn't have been possible in the post crisis universe but that's a story for another day.

This issue also included an excerpt of The Secret origin Of Green Lantern plus Batman in a Justice League International adventure Born Again.

Superman  ran as a fortnightly from it's start in 1988 until #20 when it went monthly then bi-monthly ending with #56.

There were several other titles including Batman which merged or absorbed the second series of Superman (Adventures of -15 issues) as the rest of the line fell before itself falling to cancellation. I have to say I'd be happy to pick up more of these as I find them and have already obtained one of their annuals which I will be looking at in due course.