Marvel Super Special #26 - Marvel

1983 - James Bond is back!

I've always been a fan of James Bond, so a comic book starring 007 always interested me. But for some reason, Bond has never seemed to quite work as a comic book, in terms of sales at least--there have been numerous one-shots or mini-series, but there's been any ongoing Bond comic book.

I had never seen this Marvel adaptation of Octopussy, so I had no hesitation picking this up when I saw it on eBay. The cover doesn't reveal much about its contents, since its just stuff from the movie's press kit.

Once you get a look inside, though, you see that this issue doesn't look or feel like any typical Marvel comic book. The adaptation is by Steve Moore and Paul Neary, and the unusual coloring is uncredited. Here are some pages from the book:

The adaptation runs 48 pages, capturing most of the film's big moments. Why everyone is colored bright gold is a mystery.

If you closely at the indicia, you see that this whole book was licensed by Marvel from Eon Productions Ltd., but does not say where this material came from other than that. I looked the book up on the GCD, but could find no further information. I'm sure this book was run somewhere in England, but I'll be damned if I can find out where.

This Marvel Super Special does feature some material exclusive to this edition--a 14-page text feature about the Bond films, including some stills from Octopussy and some nice shots of the actors, including this beautiful one of Maud Adams:

The Marvel Super Special series ended in 1986, but there was no accompanying adaptation of the next Bond film in the series, A View To A Kill. Seeing as how that film turned out (at least how I remember it), maybe that was for the best.