1981 Cap Secret Story Trade

Item: Captain America: The Secret Story of Marvel's Star-Spangled Super Hero
Year: 1981
Company: Ideals Publishing Corp.

Comments: A little thin for your typical trade paperback but much thicker than your average comic as well. And with a heavier stock cover, I'm calling this a trade. Stories inside include Cap battle the Red Skull over the Cosmic Cube from TALES OF SUSPENSE, AVENGERS #4, and Byrne and Stern's 40th anniversary origin story.

Cap in the UK: The Titans Pocket Books

More Captain America as seen in the United Kingdom. This series was from 1980 and 1981 and featured not just Cap but Iron Man and Thor in glorious black and white, digest sized, and reprints from the 1960s with the TALES OF SUSPENSE & JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY/THOR books.

The "Titans" title is interesting and looks very much like the New Teen Titans logo that DC started to use for the return of that book in 1980. Marvel was actually using that title and logo in the 1970s for a weekly larger Marvel UK title that did sometimes have Cap in it as well. I guess, because it was a different country, they could get away with the title, even though at this point with DC it was still the TEEN Titans, and perhaps the title "The Avengers" would still be confused with the John Steed television show in the UK.

Cap in the UK: 1980s Weeklies

Marvel UK had been doing the weekly comics format since the 1970s with the pattern of black and white interiors, a magazine format, and breaking up the story over two issues with back up stories from other American comics. By 1981, Captain America finally got his own title in the same format. Dazzler, the Defenders, and Iron Man were the back up features in the beginning.

Like with other weeklies, new cover art and splash pages would have to be drawn to cover two issues like the one above.

John Byrne and Roger Stern's great Cap runs finally gets reprinted but it is lacking without the nicer glossy covers. Still, for art lovers who sometimes think the color distracts from enjoying the inking, these books are great to look at until the Essential line catches up.

Confusing matters was the introduction of "Marvel Action" to the title. I think this was done to showcase more than just the Cap issue on the cover.

Finally, glossy covers were used with color interiors as we see below. And that just might be some very early Alan Davis art below.

It looks like Cap had to start sharing his covers with the back up stories from this cover below.

I believe the weekly Cap issues only lasted to issue #58 (below). It seems like a decent run but, in the scope of 52 issues a year, that is a run just over a year from 1981 to 1982.

Cap also did some double duty in some other titles like  a guest appearance in MARVEL SUPER ADVENTURE.

1981 Cap Mad Libs

Item: Captain America Mad Libs
Year: 1981
Company: Price/Stern/Loan

Comments: Anyone remember Mad Libs? They were a fun game when I was a kid in the 1970s but I have to think, by 1981, the novelty was wearing thin. Essentially, the game goes like this: take a paragraph and remove several of the key nouns and adjectives and then ask the audience to think of another noun or adjective to go in its place. Then read it out loud and hilarity ensues. Still, it is kind of cool that Cap got his own Mad Lib.