Spider-Man comics exclusive to Mexico?

[KurtW95]

Hey guys,

Somebody told me that they published original Spider-Man stories in addition to translations of the American ones in Mexico in the 70s. I looked it up and I found a website that shows some comics that have no American version. Does anybody know anything about this and does anything happen in these stories that's fundamentally different from the U.S. ones? And why aren't these published stories listed anywhere else like the Marvel Database Wiki? Why isn't it listed as an alternate reality?

[Xenith22]

Hey guys,

Somebody told me that they published original Spider-Man stories in addition to translations of the American ones in Mexico in the 70s. I looked it up and I found this website that shows some comics that have no American version. Does anybody know anything about this and does anything happen in these stories that's fundamentally different from the U.S. ones? And why aren't these published stories listed anywhere else like the Marvel Database Wiki? Why isn't it listed as an alternate reality?

Yeah I remember finding an very old Jim Shooter article on them online. Basically the Spider-Man comics became so popular in Mexico that they started publishing weekly, the result being that they went thru all the official US stuff rather quickly so starting from issue 123 they started making up their own stuff as well (a total of 40 some issues were made). You can pretty easily tell which ones were homegrown as those are the ones filled with bikini clad/naked (but covered) women all over their covers and absurd plots (like Odin wanting Gwen). They did have their own continuity...I believe Spider-Man even married Gwen. Yeah.... When they needed to sync back up with standard continuity they just pulled a Dallas and said everything that happened in those filler issues was a dream.

Mexico was not the only country to get their own stories. I believe for instance Italy made up some of their own issues ine early 2000s? The pictures I've seen of those had some really nice art.

[Mister Mets]

I guess the main reason there's less information available on these stories is that the back issues are likely harder to find (I have no idea if Mexico has anything similar to a back issue market) and it requires people proficient in Spanish and English to read it and discuss it with an English speaking audience.

It might be fun to see Batmanga style translations of the material, though.

[ultimate jezebel]

Mexico also gets some exclusive variant covers at the La Mole Comic cons...Spidey included.

[SickAlice]

The wiki's are made by regular old peeps and Marvelwiki that I know of is pretty stringent and doesn't like dealing with half-baked guesswork. So they aren't there because no one who has access to the material entered them. There's a bit of holes in the US stuff there as well as anything else for this reason. Though I did a quick search and one of the first Google results looks like a whole page dedicated to it? (edit: oops, same page you found). Maybe a place to ask whats what and if anyone there would be interested in pitching in on the wiki's as well. They seem pretty thorough.

[Mister Mets]

In the unlikely event that someone who understands Spanish gets access to material made in another country that was never reprinted, they'll have a difficult time convincing wikia editors of the accuracy of the information.

Granted, there may be better places to write about the material, as it's the type of thing that could help traffic for a website given the novelty.

[SickAlice]

I'm aloof the language barrier concept you keep bringing up because this is the digital age. I do not understand Spanish and I read the page linked just fine in English using translate. That would hold up if everything was still in paper print and the world communicated by letters and phone but that world is long gone. I'm sure the people at the wiki are perfectly capable of clicking the translate button and understanding what's being said the same as anyone else is.

[Mister Mets]

Kurt's question seems to be about why there isn't more information about the original stories on the Marvel wikia site. The interest isn't in the publishing history of the Mexican comics, but about the content.

As far as I can tell, the website only has scans of covers rather than the interiors.

There may be places where you can find scans and translations of this material, although CBR won't include links to sites that violate copyright like that. Even so, the material will remain rather obscure.

Even if you have scans of the original material, features like google translate might help, but it's not going to be a great translation.

[SickAlice]

Wiki doesn't contain scanned versions or digital of the issues. The content is given in written summary. It's not hard to follow, he asked why Marvelwiki doesn't provide information about the issues. The answer is Marvelwiki like any other is user made and no user had contributed the content. Other than from yourself right now I've never heard the brass at Marvelwiki state anything about this cognitive dissonance with information about these issues being submitted, much less that there was any restriction on the books given the language printed in. The only expectation they do put forth is that only information that is factual be presented as opposed to speculated or opinion, and even then that just slips in there often enough.

I guess I'm going to simplify this as well: When did Marvelwiki announce these changes to the submission policy? I submit there though the last time I was in contact was January. But I've never heard of these rules except for right now. Do you have a link to this update?

[Hypestyle]

Marvel needs to have Latin American translations and original Latin American editorial productions of Spider-Man and other characters. The global markets are more important than ever.