Marvel UK was an imprint of Marvel Comics formed in 1972 to reprint US-produced stories for the British weekly comic market. Marvel UK later produced original material by British creators such as Alan Moore, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Dillon, and Grant Morrison.

There were a number of editors in charge of overseeing the UK editions. Although based in the United States, Jenny Blake Isabella oversaw the establishment of Marvel UK. She was succeeded by UK-based editors Peter L. Skingley (a.k.a. Peter Allan) and then Matt Softly – both of whom were women who adopted male pen names for the job (in reality, they were Petra Skingley and Maureen Softly). They were then replaced by Neil Tennant, who later found fame with the pop group the Pet Shop Boys. Nick Laing succeeded him, but with a turbulent market and falling sales, Laing was let go and Dez Skinn took over. Paul Neary was editor in chief in 1995, when Marvel UK was shut down.

Panini Comics obtained the license to print Marvel material in 1995 and took over the UK office's remaining titles.

After World War II, the UK was intent on promoting homegrown publishers, and thus banned the direct importation of American periodicals, including comic books; that ban was lifted in 1959. The British company Thorpe & Porter became the sole UK distributor of both DC and Marvel comics. Thus it was that in the early 1960s brand-new American-printed copies of Fantastic Four #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, and countless others appeared in the UK. Alan Class Comics also reprinted select Marvel superhero stories during this period. Thorpe & Porter, however, went bankrupt in 1966 and was purchased by Independent News Distributors (IND), the distribution arm of National Periodical Publications (DC Comics). As a result, T & P's output became almost exclusively reprints of DC titles.

At that point, in early 1966, Odhams Press (a division of IPC Magazines) acquired the Marvel license, and reprints of American Marvel superhero material — including the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor, and the X-Men — began to be published in the UK in Odhams' Power Comics line of titles. Titles such as Wham!, Smash!, and Pow! featured a mix of Marvel reprints and original UK comics; while the titles Fantastic and Terrific were dominated by Marvel superhero stories. This arrangement lasted till March 1969, when the last Marvel strip was removed from Smash!.

Beginning about a year and a half later, from late November 1970 to late September 1971, reprints of Spider-Man and the Silver Surfer appeared in TV21, published by City Magazines (a company closely associated with IPC). From that point, no Marvel titles were being regularly reprinted in the UK (although IPC released a Marvel Annual, featuring Marvel superhero reprints, in autumn 1972).

In 1972, seeing a gap in the popular weekly comics market of the UK, Marvel Comics formed their own British publishing arm, Marvel UK (under the corporate name of Magazine Management London Ltd.). Though publishing comics in the UK for a British audience, Marvel UK was under the editorial direction of Marvel's New York offices, overseen by the then 21-year-old American writer/editor Jenny Blake Isabella. Pippa Melling (née King),^{[citation needed]} a British former staffer at Odhams who was familiar with the adjustments needed to transform stories from the monthly American comics to the weekly British ones, was employed on a six-month contract to help set the whole thing up.

Marvel UK started with The Mighty World of Marvel, which featured mainly black-and-white art with spot colouring (except for the front and back pages which were in full colour). Originally the weekly comic was created by slicing up storylines from the monthly American versions of The Incredible Hulk, The Amazing Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four.