April 27th 1974 - Marvel UK, 50 years ago this week.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

Shock, horror and, no doubt, anguish gripped the world of football on April 27th, 1974.

But what could have been the cause of such kerfuffle?

It was only the news that football giants Manchester United had been relegated from top flight football for the first time since the 1930s, thanks to a 1–0 home defeat at the hands of their deadly enemies Manchester City. And in one of those fits of  irony that only sport can provide, the goal that sent them down was scored by former United legend Denis Law.

Granted, not everyone was shocked, horrified or anguished. I suspect that fans of every other club took great pleasure in the news. Such is the nature of football enmity.

Fans who were definitely in good spirits were those of Leeds United because, mere days before that event, their club had clinched their second ever title, reminding us, once more, of the ups and downs of life.

Speaking of the ups and downs of life, I've a feeling I didn't have any of this week's Marvel weeklies. Just what caused them to be absent from the shops, I cannot even venture to suggest but, happily, by the following week, normal service had resumed.

I do have to say that's not the greatest cover I've ever witnessed. However, with any comic book, it's what's within that truly matters.

And, within it, Sir Denis Nayland Smith hires Black Jack Tarr to kill Shang-Chi in his house of deadly traps.

Can our hero defeat that house?

And can he convince Sir Denis that he was duped into killing Dr Petrie and has now turned his back on his evil father?

In their strip, I do believe the Avengers are trying to thwart the dreams of the Sons of the Serpent but I cannot say if we've yet reached the shock reveal of just who is the head honcho of those herpetological hatemongers.

Dr Strange, meanwhile, finds himself battling the unlikely menace of Mr Rasputin, malevolent descendant of the mad monk of the same name.

The original Rasputin may have been mad but this one clearly isn't. Realising he's no match for Strange when it comes to magic, the villain opts, instead, to shoot him.

And blow me down if it doesn't work where a thousand Dormammus may have failed - because it does, at least, land the sorcerer supreme in a hospital ward.

But what's this? Even when we finish this issue, the excitement isn't over?

That's because the back cover of this week's mag features the winners of the Marvel UK competition for those who fancy designing a brand new super-hero or villain. Thus it is that this issue brings us news of Newspaper Man, Mud Man, the Red King and his Army of Chess, Blitzkrieg the Man-Beast, and the awesome Twinkler, among many others.

Drama hits us in in its rawest form, as New Yorkers can only stand and watch while two Vultures slog it out in the skies of the Big Apple, for the right to be known as the real Vulture.

Then again, there's one New Yorker who doesn't have to just stand and watch. And that's Spider-Man who's quickly on the scene with his super-powers, looking to put a stop to their silliness.

Elsewhere, Iron Man's still battling to overcome the Crimson Dynamo and convince him what fun it'd be to defect to the West.

Next, as so often in recent weeks, we get a Lee/Ditko mini-masterpiece.

In this one, would-be alien invaders send a shape-shifting scout to Earth, telling him to disguise himself as a member of the world's dominant species.

But the useless fool adopts the form of a housefly and is promptly swatted.

To wrap up the issue, in a storyline that seems to have been going on for decades, Thor's still trying to rescue Hercules from the perils of Hades.

Revived and boosted by the Leader, the rambunctious Rhino rudely ramrods his way into the wedding of Bruce Banner and Betty Ross, only to get a slap in the teeth from the Hulk. 

Is this the story in which the Leader becomes paralysed, thanks to his escape craft blowing up?

In Daredevil's strip, we get the conclusion of the tale in which the Ox and Dr Stragg have swapped bodies, giving the scientist by far the better part of that deal.

Having said that, I do believe the scientist ends up dead at the end of the tale, while the Ox is still alive.

We also get the conclusion to the Fantastic Four's first adventure in the Andromeda galaxy, in which they find the Skrull who killed Sue and Johnny's father. I'm fairly certain that killer dies at the tale's climax, although I'm struggling to recall just how.

However it happens, the quartet are now free to return home and get on with the everyday task of clobbering criminals of all shapes and sizes.

Speak Your Brain! Part 76.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

Many people in this life have started at the bottom.

Me, for instance. I started at the bottom and have resolutely worked my way down from there. 

How apt, therefore, that this post is a perfect reflection of its author because it too starts from the bottom.

Or at least from what's at the bottom of it.

And that's a handy-dandy comments section. 

This is, of course, my convoluted way of heralding the return of the feature in which the first person to raise a topic gets to set the day's agenda.

That topic may be drawn from a multi-fold of fields but only you can decide just what it should be.

Therefore, don't hesitate to make your mark upon the internet and post your question, query, postulation, theorem, hypothesis or topic, below.

April 1984 - Marvel UK monthlies, 40 years ago this month.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

Hello? Is it me you're looking for?

No. It's Lionel Richie.

And I know that because this is April 1984 and sat resplendent at the top of the UK singles chart, as the month begins, is the singer of that very name with the song that starts with those very words, just as this post has begun with those very words. 

However, "Hello," soon became, "Goodbye," for the former Commodores frontman, with his crown being snatched from him, in the month's second half, by Duran Duran and their upbeat but lyrically baffling The Reflex. 

On the accompanying album chart, Richie also entered April at Number One. This time, with his LP Can't Slow Down.

However, just as he'd had to make way on the singles chart, so too did he find himself subsiding here, as the top slot was soon retrieved from him by Now That's What I Call Music 2.

As the cover makes clear, Marvel UK's flagship title is still being dominated by the cheery chappies that are Cloak and Dagger.

This month, they star in a tale called Dark is My Love, And Deadly but I struggle to recall just what happens in it.

I'm far more certain about the contents of Captain Britain's strip.

Excitement spills over because the moment we've all been waiting for has arrived. The one in which the unstoppable forces that are The Fury and Mad Jim Jaspers duke it out as only they can, with the fate of the universe in their malevolent hands.

On a much lower scale, Night Raven's reached the conclusion of his serial All the World's a Stage.

Pete Scott, meanwhile, takes a look at the history of violence in comics.

And we finish with a Marvel Showcase tale called Closer Encounter. I can impart no wisdom about the contents of this one but I do know it's brought to us by Steve Craddock and Dave Harwood.

In this thrilling issue, Conan finds himself enmeshed in an adventure that mankind knows only as Colossus of Argos.

Wait. What? They had Argos stores back in those days? I can only hope Conan has the sense to bring his own pen with him, as the ones Argos provide are always too small for convenience.

All I know about this mighty epic is it features a couple of villains called Don K'tar and H'ar Da'an who both lay dead before the tale is over.

Frankly, with names like that, they're probably better off deceased.

I must declare that that is, perhaps, not the most menacing photo of the Master ever printed.

However, inside, we find previews of upcoming serials The Caves of Androzani and The Twin Dilemma which, I'm sure we all recall, featured the end of the Peter Davison era and the launch of the Colin Baker one. It seems to be popular consensus that one of those serials is substantially better than the other.

Elsewhere, it's exciting news for all lovers of the visual arts because we're granted an interview with the man who painted the covers for so many Target novelisations, none other than Chris Achilleos!

I detect a rare painted cover for the nation's leading sci-fi mag, which seems to relate to a brand new video game bearing the title Dragon's Lair.

The publication also investigates the gadgetry present in Never Say Never Again, casts an eye over how cinema's depicted the end of the world, scrutinises the making of the film Dreamscape and offers a retrospective of the giant ant classic Them!

April 20th 1974 - Marvel UK, 50 years ago this week.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

When it comes to music, TV and current affairs, nothing too thrilling happened in the world, this week in 1974. Therefore, let us fling ourselves into our look at what Marvel UK was offering up during that spell.

As the cover makes clear, everyone's favourite martial artist is still battling for survival against the menace of Midnight.

Granted, he's not his own father's most popular martial artist. If he was, Midnight wouldn't have been sent to kill him in the first place.

It all climaxes with a dramatic battle on a building site and a perfect demonstration of why you should never leap off cranes while wearing a cape.

This is, of course, the reason I refuse to wear one, even though everyone wants me to.

Elsewhere in New York, the Avengers also have their hands full when the Sons of the Serpent try to blow up visiting Chinese official General Chen and his visiting car.

Clearly, the world's mightiest super-team can't let such an affront to diplomatic relations stand.

And that all leads to Captain America being captured by the viperous villains!

Also up against it is Dr Strange who must fight Baron Mordo's allies while blindfolded, gagged and unable to waggle his fingers around, meaning he must rely entirely on his habitually feeble astral self to do all his fighting for him.

Spider-Man may have thought he had his work cut out, a few weeks ago, when he had to combat the New Vulture but, now, he's really got problems, as the original feathered fiend is on the loose and out to prove he can do anything his replacement could.

In Iron Man's strip, the leader of the Communist World sends the newly created Crimson Dynamo to the United States to destroy Tony Stark's latest project - and destroy Iron Man while he's at it.

Fortunately, Iron Man has two things on his side; superior armour and the smooth-tongued ability to convince his foe to defect to a land that can offer more baseball games and brands of cola than you can shake a stick at. 

Thor, meanwhile, finds himself in Hades and helping his love rival Hercules battle Pluto's never-ending minions.

And we finish with a Lee/Ditko shorty, as we encounter a woman who's accused of witchcraft and put on trial.

Ultimately, she's exonerated and released, a free woman but, in a shocking twist that could turn a reader's mind inside out, upside down and back to front, we discover her fiancé is the real witch!

Sal Buscema appears from nowhere to provide the finished artwork for this week's Hulk tale, as the Leader, still butt hurt from previous defeats by the brute, decides to revive the Rhino, boost his powers and send him to gatecrash Bruce Banner's wedding to Betty Ross who, thanks to the intrusion, narrowly misses out on the honour of becoming known as Betty Banner.

Speaking of brutes, the Ox is convinced by his cellmate Karl Stragg that if the two of them bust out of jail together, Stragg will make him smarter.

However, the sinister scientist is out to pull a fast one and intends to swap bodies with the bovine bully boy, giving himself the body of a thug and the mind of a scientist!

Can Daredevil put paid to such plans?

Elsewhere, the Fantastic Four are not at all happy about the death of Sue and Johnny's father and decide it's time to go to the Skrull's home galaxy to bring the knuckle sandwich of justice to the individual who killed him.

2000 AD - March 1986.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

How desperate are you to see really small things?

If you're inescapably desperate to do it, the 3rd of March in 1986 was the happiest day of your life.

You guessed it. It was the day which saw the publication of the first paper that described the atomic force microscope!

I know. I was excited too!

Things were, possibly, not quite so thrilling in your local cinema but the month did see the release of such offerings as Highlander, The Care Bears Movie II and Police Academy 3.

On the UK singles chart, March began with the Bee Gees penned Diana Ross toe-tapper Chain Reaction at Number One. However, even the supreme Miss Ross cannot stand in the way of a determined Cliff. And so it was that the month ended with Cliff Richard and the Young Ones ruling supreme, thanks to their revival of Living Doll. 

The British album chart, meanwhile, entered March with Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms in top spot before that was forced to make way for Hits 4 by the 1980s' hottest act Various Artists.

But what of the galaxy's greatest comic?

As so often before, it was giving us a diet of The Ballad of Halo Jones, Sláine, Ace Trucking Co, Strontium Dog and Tharg's Future-Shocks. Meanwhile, Judge Dredd found himself encountering The Last Voyage of the Flying Dutchman.

The Marvel Lucky Bag - April 1984.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

The past is once more beckoning us to join it.

And who are we to spurn a good beckoning?

A brand new comic arrives in our lives and I could impress you by telling you exactly what happens in it.

But that would be far too easy.

Or it would be if I had the slightest idea what happens in it.

However, from the title, I'm going to assume it's like some sort of mashup of Star Trek and The Legion of Super-Heroes.

Whatever it is, it's brought to us by the team of Alan Zelenetz and Frank Cirocco and it's a whopping 38 pages long with an additional seven pages devoted to character studies of our newborn cast.

What question is the Watcher demanding answers to, this month?

It seems he's demanding to know what would have happened had our favourite patriot not been revived until the 1980s.

It would seem that, among other problems he'd face, he'd be confronted with the nightmare that the 1950s Cap would have been revived before him.

And my instincts tell me that can only cause chaos and conflict.

I genuinely can't even guess what this comic is about.

However, I do know it's written by Steve Skeates and this fact is making me suspect it may be of a humorous bent.

It would seem we're getting a reprint of the events of the Dark Phoenix Saga but with the original planned ending - and info from the creators as to why it wasn't used.

I'm sensing the presence of yet another humour comic.

And I think it might involve the fun-packed setting of the Marvel bullpen under the reign of jovial Jim Shooter.

I can shed little light upon the merits of the tales but there are a lot of them.

For instance, we get stories with titles like Spidey's Edi-Tour, Breakfast in the Bullpen!, Who's the Boss?, The Wet T-Shirt Contest, The Fastest Writer in the World, The Spider-Man Plot Session, Secrets Behind the Comics III and myriad other yarns and features to amuse and bemuse us.

Things aren't looking good for our heroes, if we can trust a cover I initially thought reminiscent of the one from Defenders #53 but which, upon closer scrutiny, turns out to bear little resemblance to it.

And it's another story I don't know much about - but I do know it's called The Armageddon Game and features a villain called Doombringer.

I least, I assume he's a villain. It'd be a bit strange for a hero to be called Doombringer.

April 13th 1974 - Marvel UK, 50 years ago this week.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

This week in 1974 saw no signs of change at the top of the UK singles and album charts, with Terry Jacks' Seasons in the Sun and the Carpenters' The Singles 1969-1973 retaining their holds on their respective Number One spots.

As a lover of the languidly maudlin, I approve of Seasons in the Sun but other tracks which got my blessing on that week's Hit Parade were:

Everyday - Slade

Emma - Hot Chocolate

Candle in the Wind - Elton John

The Air That I Breathe - the Hollies

Jet - Paul McCartney and Wings

Ma-Ma-Belle - Electric Light Orchestra

Jealous Mind - Alvin Stardust

and

Devil Gate Drive - Suzi Quatro.

Should one wish to explore the matter further, that chart can be found by clicking here.

While the associated album ranking may be discovered here.

But, apart from listening to that week's chart countdowns on Radio One, there was another treat in store for the dedicated lover of music because, on the evening of the 13th, BBC One broadcast the documentary On Tour With the Osmonds which I'm sure we all tuned in to, even though I've no memory of it whatsoever.

It's bad news for Shang-Chi. No sooner has he found a nice spot to live in Central Park than his urban paradise is invaded by that hat-wearing fiend Midnight, his childhood friend and ninja who's been sent to murder him, by Fu Manchu.

Will our hero be forced to kill one he once saw as a brother?

And will any explanation ever be given for why he's wearing a hat?

In another part of New York, the Avengers are about to have their first run-in with the Sons of the Serpent, after Hank Pym's friend and associate Bill Foster gets attacked by the rattlesnake related racists.

And, finally, Dr Strange, back on Earth, following his victory over Dormammu, discovers a bomb in his flat.

He soon gets rid of it but finishes the issue blindfolded with his hands bound to prevent them making the mystic gestures they need if he's to perform his spells. Never has the master of the mystic arts been more helpless.

But the magic doesn't end there. Lovers of fine art will be intrigued to know that Rafael López Espí's legendary posters of our favourite Marvel heroes feature on the back of this and other Marvel UK mags, this week, meaning we can get them all for just 90 pence.

For my ancient post  about those posters, feel free to click here.

I do believe the Kingpin's brainwashing scheme comes crashing to ground, this issue, with Spidey rescuing Gwen and her father from a vat filled with molten death, while Norman Osborn, of all people, performs helpful heroics on the side.

And Jack Frost is still causing problems for Iron Man.

Exactly what those problems are, I struggle to recall but, given that he has a Russian name, and it's an early Iron Man story, I assume it involves launching espionage attacks on Tony Stark's factory.

Over in Hollywood, Hercules has fallen into Pluto's trap and agreed to take his place in Hades.

And, now, only Thor can save him.

But that's not quite a wrap because we finish the issue with a treat, as we get the three-page feature in which Stan Lee and Steve Ditko reveal, at last, how they create an issue of Spider-Man.

It's the one which involves Spidey riding around the statue of Liberty, sat astride a missile. And, despite its comedic nature, it was, for a long time, the only information I had about how comics are produced.

It's another Hulktastic classic, as, now possessing the intellect of Bruce Banner, the Hulk must prevent the Leader from stealing the ungainly but unstoppable tripod that is the Murder Module. Will the Hulk's newfound lack of savagery prove to be his downfall?

Elsewhere, Daredevil finally brings his conflict with the Organization to a conclusion by revealing the Organizer is none other than Abner Jonas, just as everyone always thought he was.

It would appear the presence of the Fantastic Four in the early parts of this week's Hulk story means there's no FF tale in this issue.