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Every Marvel Release in 1980

Marvel released one title in 1980: The Incredible Hulk: Season 4, about 13h 20m of viewing. Here’s where it fits.

Every release this year came from outside the MCU: The Incredible Hulk: Season 4.

Marvel in 1980

Apart from a fourth season of The Incredible Hulk, Marvel's only new screen title in 1980 came from Japan. Toei Animation made Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, an anime TV movie adapted from Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's comic The Tomb of Dracula. English-speaking viewers didn't see it until 1983, when Harmony Gold released a dub that played sparsely on North American cable.

In the US, the year was mostly about endings and set-up. Spider-Woman's single season on ABC wrapped in January, as did Battle Fever J in Japan. CBS's live-action Incredible Hulk kept going, and Marvel Productions opened its Los Angeles animation studio. That studio would go on to make Marvel's 1980s cartoons along with G.I. Joe and The Transformers, a reminder that Marvel was in the animation business long before Disney bought it.

There's a small MCU thread here too. The Tomb of Dracula is the comic where Blade made his debut in 1973, so this odd anime shares its source with the Wesley Snipes Blade films. The same run of 1970s monster comics fed Marvel's horror corner in the MCU, which opened with the Werewolf by Night special in 2022. If you're working through every Marvel adaptation, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned is one of the harder ones to track down.

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