Marvel Comics Presents
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Marvel Comics Presents was a comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics from 1989 to 1995. It was released on a biweekly basis and lasted for 175 issues. Each issue had four eight-page stories, of which generally two were episodes in ongoing serials and two were one-episode stories. The one-episode stories generally featured obscure or little-seen characters from the Marvel universe.
The original plan was for the lead story to feature different members of the X-Men in solo adventures lasting between eight and ten episodes. The first ten issues featured Wolverine, others to be featured were Colossus, Cyclops, Havok and Excalibur. From issue 39 onwards, Wolverine was featured as the lead story in all issues. Particularly noted was the Weapon X story in issues 72 to 84 which re-told Wolverine's origin with story and art by Barry Windsor-Smith. Later Ghost Rider was added to the series as "co-lead" feature and the book adopted a "flip-book" format, thereby allowing each of the two characters cover billing. Eventually other characters, such as Man-Thing and Lunatik, got cover billing.
Whereas the series was intended to feature various characters from the Marvel Universe, at the time Wolverine and Ghost Rider were very popular in their own series. This might have led to overexposure for these characters and may have turned off some readers who wanted to read the book for which it was intended for, to showcase different characters.
Just lately the Wolverine portions of the MCP comics have started to be collected and reprinted in glossy high quality trade paperbacks in full colour. The stories in Vol.1 of the collections (issue 1-10) feature Wolverines first adventures in Madripoor, a fictional Island that became Wolverine's second home during the late 1980s. And the "introduction" of Tiger Tyger a minor but notable character in the Wolverine story.
In 2007 Marvel Comics Presents will return as an anthology series including work by creators previously unpublished in the comics field. The editors of the series are Warren Simons, Nick Lowe, and Andy Schmidt.
