How to Find a Marvel Story in Strange, Titans or Spidey

The same hero can appear in four different magazines at the same time, and a single magazine issue can contain four unrelated American series. That is what makes the question so tricky: "where was this story published?" has no answer until you know which American series it comes from. This guide lays out the method, magazine by magazine, then tests it on six specific cases.

As always in this guide, only verified information (creators, issue numbers, dates) is stated as fact; the analysis is our own, with no reproduction of protected artwork or dialogue.

The principle: one magazine, several US series

Lug's newsstand magazines were not translations of comics. They were anthologies: the Lyon publisher took one issue of each of three or four American series, reassembled them in a small-format booklet and gave it a French number. The American series kept its own counter, the French magazine its own, and the two almost never lined up. A reader looking for "the issue where this story appears" therefore has to clear two steps: find the original American series and its number, then find the magazine that published it and the range where it appeared.

A second rule simplifies the work a great deal: an American series was entrusted to one magazine for a given period, and it generally stayed there from issue to issue. The bibliographic databases show this well: Daredevil occupies Strange from issue 2 to issue 211, the Avengers have Strange 212 to 324, Star Wars occupies Titans from 18 to 95, and the Fantastic Four hold Nova from issue 26 to issue 227. Remembering these ranges amounts to having a directory: you just look the series up in it. One precaution only: a series could change magazines from one period to another. Iron Man leaves Strange between issues 186 and 215 and turns up in Nova, in issues 89 to 118.

The third rule is the one that prevents date errors: the magazine publishes with a delay, several years for older series, nine to sixteen months for the recent launches in our examples. Secret Wars starts in the United States in May 1984 and the first French episode is dated July 1985. So never deduce a French issue number from the American date, or the search will start in the wrong slice.

Finally, the catalog keeps only one line per issue. Strange 104, dated August 5, 1978, appears there under the title "Navires spatiaux" (Space Ships), even though the same issue also contains two famous Amazing Spider-Man episodes. Searching the catalog for a story title is therefore not enough: you have to reason by series and by range. Our guide on tracing a Strange issue back to its American edition covers the opposite direction, from the booklet to the original.

The French magazines, one by one

Strange: the mother magazine, from January 1970 to March 1998

Strange is the oldest and the longest-running. Éditions Lug launched it in January 1970 and carried it through issue 228, dated December 1988. Semic took over with issue 229, in January 1989, without resetting the counter, and the magazine ended with issue 335, in March 1998. The numbering is continuous across the whole run, as our article on number collisions between Lug and Semic details.

The first issue contains the first episode of Uncanny X-Men, dated September 1963 in its American version. The first booklets combine the X-Men, Iron Man, Daredevil and the Silver Surfer. Spider-Man arrives in issue 18, dated June 1971, with Amazing Spider-Man #19, and then stays in the magazine through issue 324. The series then change over: Rom, Alpha Flight, Namor, the Defenders, Deadpool. The magazine thus had several faces, and the same word "Strange" does not mean the same content in 1970 and in 1990.

You also need to know where the Marvel range ends. Strange 324 is dated December 1996, Semic losing the rights to the Marvel series at that point. Issue 325, dated May 1997, publishes DC series: Batman, JLA, Wonder Woman, Flash. A buyer looking for a Strange from this end of the run will therefore find no Marvel at all.

Titans: series that started apart, then the mutants

Titans ran from March 1976 to May 1998, 119 issues at Lug and then the continuation at Semic from issue 120. The magazine was bimonthly up to issue 35 and became monthly with issue 36, in January 1982. It started with material from a competing American publisher, and the first Marvel series only arrive in issue 4.

Its major series are clearly delimited: Marvel's Star Wars from issue 18 to issue 95, the New Mutants from issue 59 to issue 160 with a few interruptions, West Coast Avengers from about 86 to 193, Excalibur from issue 130. Titans is therefore the magazine to open for the 1980s mutant universe, apart from the X-Men themselves. Its end is as clear-cut as Strange's: issue 215, from December 1996, interrupts publication, which resumes a year later with a different editorial line, up to issue 221.

Spidey: the Spider magazine, then mutants and Secret Wars

Spidey started in April 1979 and has 114 issues, the first 107 under Lug, through December 1988, the last 7 under Semic through July 1989. It began as a magazine for young readers, with the adventures of Spidey Super Stories, then opened up to an older readership.

It is the magazine to remember for two precise reasons. First, it republishes the first X-Men: Uncanny X-Men #1 to 59, then 64 to 66, in issues 17 to 79. Second, it carries the two Secret Wars maxi-series, in issues 66 to 87, before the X-Factor series in issues 88 to 114. For anyone collecting a Marvel event of the 1980s, this is therefore where to look, and not in Strange.

Nova, Spécial Strange and the others

Nova, launched in February 1978, has a different structure: three series at the start, including Nova itself through issue 26, then the Fantastic Four through issue 227. Around them revolve the Silver Surfer, Spider-Woman, Iron Man from 89 to 118, and She-Hulk from 152 to 192. The magazine runs until 1996 for its Marvel content, and the last booklets turn toward another American publishing house.

Spécial Strange, launched in July 1975, is a quarterly that became bimonthly and then monthly. It brings together a main series and two or three secondary ones, with the X-Men as the common thread up to the last issue of December 1996, and changed its layout in January 1989 (issue 60), like the publisher's other titles. Our Spécial Strange guide details this series. The other magazines in the catalog, such as Strange Spécial Origines or Un Récit Complet Marvel, have their own rules and their own guides.

US / French correspondence: six verified cases

Here are six famous stories, with the magazine that carried them and the cover date of the booklet. The table gives only what is cross-checked between several databases: the original American issue number, the magazine issue number and the month.

Several lessons can be read from these six lines. The first concerns the gaps: the death of Gwen Stacy appeared five years later in France, New Mutants #1 only nine months apart, Secret Wars fourteen months. The age of the material decides everything. The second concerns the distribution: out of six stories, three different magazines are needed, even though the characters involved could all fit under "Marvel". The third is that a multi-part story spreads across several French issues. "Born Again" starts in Strange 208 and continues in issues 209, 210 and 211, from May to July 1987, at the pace of one American episode per booklet.

A seventh case confirms the value of reasoning by range: X-Factor #1, from February 1986, opens the series' range in Spidey, at issue 88, in May 1987.

Which magazine to look for, by profile

You are looking for a specific story to read. Start from the American series, find the range of the magazine that carried it, then look for the first episode of your story within that range. The work is quick for an event or a saga, slow for a single episode of a long series.

You collect a hero. Do not limit yourself to one magazine. Spider-Man appears in Strange, Spidey, Nova and in crossover magazines. Our guide to starting a French-edition collection helps you decide between collecting a title and collecting a character.

You collect a magazine. This is the simplest route. Choose a magazine, fix its range and move forward issue by issue. For Strange, the method for filling gaps is detailed in our article on how to complete a Strange collection.

Pitfalls and points to watch

The coincidence of the early issues. In Strange, between issues 10 and 23, the episodes of Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man and Daredevil carry the same number as the booklet: Strange 12 contains the American issues 12 of the three series, Strange 13 the issues 13. The alignment comes apart from issue 24, where Daredevil and Iron Man move to issue 25. Applying the rule "French number equals US number" beyond this period produces systematic errors.

Truncated episodes. Several databases report booklets where the American episode is only partly published: 19 pages out of 20 for the episodes of Gwen Stacy's death, or only 5 pages out of 22 for a 1982 issue of Daredevil. A story "published in Strange" has therefore not necessarily appeared in full. Read the page-count note when there is one.

Stories split across two issues. A 1982 episode of Daredevil (issue 181 of the series) is cut in two and spread over Strange 179 and 180. A reader who buys only the first booklet misses half the story.

The switch from Lug to Semic. It does not change the numbering, but it changes the layout and logo of the magazines, from Strange to Titans and from Nova to Spécial Strange. Our article on Semic taking over from Lug details what this means for dating a copy.

The ends of a magazine's run. The last issues no longer contain the same thing as the first. Strange moves to DC series at issue 325, Titans suspends publication in December 1996. A late issue says nothing about the series that made the magazine known.

What these magazines are worth in a collection

An anthology magazine is not worth anything because of its table of contents alone, but through the combination of three factors: the issue's place in the run, the importance of the first story it contains and the condition of the copy. An issue that holds the first episode of a series in the magazine, or an eagerly awaited event, is sought after for that reason, not for its rank in the numbering.

The method that works is comparative. Note the completed sales of the same issue in several conditions, then set them against the neighboring issues in the same range: the gap between an issue carrying a famous story and its neighbors gives the premium tied to the content, as distinct from the simple effect of age. Never compare two magazines to each other on the basis of their numbering alone, since Strange 208 and Titans 59 have nothing in common beyond their place of publication.

Frequently asked questions