A bit of history about the Mexican NON-CANON comics

The first company that edited the Spiderman

(El Sorprendente Hombre Araña) comics in
Mexico was La Prensa. The Amazing Spider-Man
title edited by La Prensa (Mexico) was a
bestselling along with other Marvel titles, so La
Prensa copied the Novaro strategy of making
its own comics (Joyas de la Mitología, Grandes
Viajes, etc) and started to do the same but
using the Marvel Characters focusing on
Spider-Man, Blackhawk, Heroes del Oeste
(Western Marvel) and Sergeant Fury, (as far as
I remembered).

The non-canon Spider-man comics were edited in the last year of life of La Prensa
Editorial Hombre Araña Numbers 123 to 185 (from March 15 of 1972 to Oct 23 of
1973). Although the cover of the previous number (HA 122) was drawn by a Mexican
comic book artist the interior was official Marvel content. According to the
Spidermex.com web site there 45 complete non-canon comics plus one cover (only).

http://www.spidermex.com/portadas.php?edi=mex&cve=epre&pag=7

My main hypothesis is that since the copyright that editorial La Prensa had to edit
the Spiderman in Mexico ended in 'Amazing Spider-Man' No. 120, and also than Macc
Division (another Mexican publisher had already acquired the copyright to continue
editing Hombre Araña in Mexico) a way to extend on its own, the benefits of the
Hombre Araña title was the creation and publication of its ‘own’ Spider-Man stories
made by Mexican scriptwriters and artists, since La Prensa began to publish them in
Spiderman No. 123 on March 15, 1972 and the last one published on October 23 of
1973, approximately one year and 7 months in advance. I mean, La Prensa already
knew that they will finish to edit Hombre Araña in Mexico. Also remember that La
Prensa already had experience editing non-canon comics for many years before
editing fake Spiderman, because in previous years made the same with the comic of
the Blackhawk of DC, which initially La Prensa had the copyright from DC but as La
Prensa bought the rights of the name in Spanish of the characters `Halcon Negro` in
Mexico, they continued editing the title even though Novaro had bought the rights of
the Blackhawk for Mexico, but in a clever move La Prensa changed the name of its

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‘Blackhawk’ characters (in order to avoid lawsuits from Novaro) and continued editing
the magazine but done entirely by Mexicans. Novaro called its Blackhawk Halcón de
Oro in Spanish.

When La Prensa closed its comic branch (about

October 1973), a smaller company took over the
editing of some of the Marvel titles: This was
Macc Division Historietas. It was based on the
State of Mexico. Next to the Capital (Distrito
Federal), and the original print run was quite small
comparing to La Prensa, and the distribution was
worse. So although Macc Division Historietas
comics were latest than La Prensa comics, always
were more complicated to find them.
(http://www.spidermex.com/portadas.php?edi=mex
&cve=emdh&pag=1)

Macc again used the same strategy: to publish fake Spiderman comics, together with
the real ones, being the first non-canon comics the numbers 12, 19 and 21. During this
period they edited in the Hombre Araña title the US comics of Amazing Spiderman,
Black Panther, Marvel Team Up, Spidey & non-canon Spiderman and Black Panther
Comics. During the Macc period they edited ‘officially’ 115 Hombre Araña numbers
(including the fake ones) but the edited sometimes the same number with a different
content -What the heck…! (keep reading).

I have counted the fake comics edited inside the

Hombre Araña Macc title: They were 29 comics.
The first 3 non-canon Spiderman comics were the
numbers 12, 19 and 21, then comics 5 non canon
Black Panther comics and then the fake Spider-
Man comics were edited under the title of Spidey.
Let me explain this: From Hombre Araña No. 38
Macc Division began to publish the USA stories of
Spidey comic in the even numbers of Spider-Man
of Macc, so that all even numbers of Macc after
No. 38 were changed the head and put ‘Arañita’
instead of Hombre Araña , (look at the photo).
This happened until the number 100 (which by the
way there are two comics with the number 100 in

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Macc!!) from which they began to include
stories of the Spiderman from ‘Amazing’
and of ‘Spectacular’ but starting in the
number 2 (check the pictures).

The exact list of non-canon comics are

this: Hombre Araña 12, 19, 21, then Black
Panther at Nº 36, 42, 44, 46 & 48. Under
the title of Spidey , the numbers 40, 44,
50, 52, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 76,
82, 84, 86, 90, 92, 94, 96. As I mentioned
before sometimes Macc Edited the same
numbers two times, so for instance you
have Black Panther 44 and Spidey 44,
both titles initially edited under the title of Hombre Araña.

Although they are less known , it is important to note that Macc edited also fake
comics of Fantastic Four, Black Panther,
Shang Chi, Iron Fist or Marvel war comics
(As you can check in the pictures). In this
way the Mexicans created the non-canon
Spiderman and other Marvel Mexican
comics. So the final line is this, although
the Non-canon Spiderman (and other
Marvel heroes) edited by Macc Ediciones
were later that Non-canon La Prensa, the
Macc titles were and are more difficult to
find, because the print run was smaller
and the distribution much worse than La
Prensa comics.

So today there are several Marvel fans over the world very interested for these rare
and weird comics, nowadays almost impossible to find. © Copyright ABM

Updated 04.07.2019