Wednesday 26 November 2014

November 30th, 1974 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

Can it really be a week since I last looked at Marvel UK's output from exactly forty years ago?

No. It can't. It's only been six days.

Needless to say, I'm not going to let that stop me looking at what our favourite comic publisher was up to in this week of 1974.

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #94, Lizard and Human Torch

Assuming it wasn't drawn specially for Spider-Man Comics Weekly, I still don't have a clue where this cover originally came from.

Good to see some good old Gil Kane up-the-nose action there though. You do wonder what Gil would've done if God hadn't invented nostrils. He'd have had nothing to put in his foregrounds.
Marvel UK Avengers #63, Dr Strange and Dormammu

The Avengers really did have a remarkably difficult time getting on the cover of their own mag.

Still, who can complain when they're being pushed off the front by my role-model Dormammu?
Marvel UK Dracula Lives #6

Poor old Gwen Stacy. First the Green Goblin wants to kill her and now Dracula wants to as well.
Marvel UK Planet of the Apes #6

You can tell it's coming up to Christmas, as the apes decide to splash out on Charlton Heston.
Mighty World of Marvel #113, Hulk

I don't have a clue what the Hulk story is in this issue.

Is the Silver Surfer story the one where the Thing starts a fight with him because he thinks he's getting a bit too keen on Alicia?

9 comments:

Aggy said...

What is it about Dr Strange that whenever you put him in a magazine he'll try and take over the cover slot?

Strange

Anonymous said...

It's that freakish sentient cape of his. When it hits air, it starts to expand until it as acted upon by an outside or opposing force. Such that it is. I ain't saying, I'm just saying.....


The Prowler (its been no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise).

Anonymous said...

POTA No.6 was my second ever, ever Marvel comic and there's something rather unusual about the cover - there are no words on it (apart from the masthead/date etc at the top obviously). In modern comics wordless covers are the norm but in those days it was very uncommon to have a cover with no speech bubbles or captions at all - in the entire run of POTA's 123 issues only No.6 and No.33 had wordless covers (yes, I am nerdy enough to have checked). Perhaps they were stumped for something to say on this cover - "So, puny human - prepare to face the hosepipe of DEATH !!!" :)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John Pitt said...

POTA#6 was memorable for me too, as my brother lost it somehow!? Luckily I was able to get a replacement.
If I remember rightly, there may have been a letter in the letters page naming the gorilla leader as Marcus. And yet nowhere in the film was his name ever mentioned.

Dougie said...

I think you're right about the Surfer story.
I think the Hulk might be in that hinterland before the Englehart run, when Archie Goodwin wrote the stories. IIRC, that was around the time that the Hulk was put on trial. I think The Inheritor, the evolved cockroach ( or "cockaroach", as some Marvels had it) is around the corner. He -or it- had Spider-Woman's shock twist six or seven year's early.

Unknown said...

The stories in MWOM issue 113 are :

Hulk: Sanctuary - Bruce Banner is in New York and is chased by police when Dr Doom gives in sanctuary inhis embassy - Dco Samson in this and I thin as Dougie says this ties in with the Hulk on trial tale (this story is by Roy Thomas excellent art as awlays by the by Trimpe /Severin team

Daredevil vs Leapfrog and yes the FF tale is when the Surfer and Thing fight over Alicia (the wee minx)

That SMCW cover looks to me like its been cut and pasted from other artwork from Gil kane - some of it looks like a panel or a splah page from the Spiderman - Morbius tale

Steve W. said...

Dougie and Paul, thanks for the info.

Anonymous said...

I don't know when it happened or why but I do know that on this side of the pond, it would be Paulie and Doug. And our culture would be so much the poorer for it......


The Prowler (Superman, Superman, wish I could fly like Superman).