May 23rd, 1979 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

As we all know, things are going swimmingly well between the West and Russia at the moment.

Clearly, there's only one thing for it.

We're going to have to call in Elton John.

That's what we did forty years ago this week, at the height of the Cold War, when the toupéed ivory-tickler became the first rock star from the West to perform live in the Soviet Union.

I do remember that event well, and also the communist Soviet media's incomprehension at the amount of money Elton was earning each year.

Someone else who was, no doubt, raking it in at that time was Debbie Harry because this was the week she and the rest of Blondie hit the UK Number One spot with their single Sunday Girl which, if I remember right, was their second consecutive British chart-topper, following on from Heart of Glass.

At Number Two was Roxy Music's Dance Away, their big comeback single after several years of working apart. At Three was M's Pop Muzik, while ABBA resided at Four with Does Your Mother Know which is the only ABBA single I can think of that had a lead vocal by one of the blokes. At Number Five was Peaches and Herb's Reunited which, for all its pleasantness, I must declare I do view as not being on a creative par with those other four singles.

But, obviously, no one really cares about any of that.

All anyone really cares about is where were Boney M while all this was going on?

They were at Number Seven, with Hooray Hooray, It's A Holi-Holiday, on its way down the chart, having already peaked at Number Three.

Sadly, the M's musical fortunes took a major downturn from this point on and it was their last Top Ten single in Britain until their Mega Mix in 1992, with barely any of their singles from this point on even making the Top 40.

It was a living tragedy.

Still, at least we had Marvel UK to keep our spirits up.

Han and Chewie are still in that cave and still under fire from Jabba the Hut and his not-so-merry men.

According to the internet, the Micronauts escape from H.E.L.L, Ray Coffin meets Time Traveller, Argon rescues Slug, and Karza meets Prometheus.

Frankly, I don't have a clue what any of that means - and I say that as someone who's actually read the story.

Meanwhile, we've reached The Strange Death of Adam Warlock which, for me, is one of the great comic book tales of the 1970s.

There would appear to be no Tales of the Watcher this issue. I can only assume he must be on holiday.

Hooray! The Hulk's up against the Abominable Snowman!

Except he's not. He's up against Bigfoot.

Admittedly, they're in the same ballpark but several dozens of thousands of miles apart.

Ant-Man's up against that man who looks like Brian Blessed and can control others with the power of his voice, enabling him to turn the entire city against our insect-sized hero.

In The Eternals, Sersy's been abducted by the Deviants.

Night-Raven's been stalked by an inquisitive reporter.

Nick Fury's up to something. I don't know what but it might involve a desert.

Captain Britain and the Black Knight get to meet Moondog the elf. His name-check on the cover suggests this is viewed by the company as major news. Personally, I don't remember him.

More memorably, DD finds himself up against El Jaguar, the Kraven lookalike who decides it's a good idea to try and kidnap the Black Widow at a party.

Just when everyone was asking why Marvel would bother to bring back the Masked Marauder, it cannily quells those doubts by making us ask why it'd bother to bring back the Tri-Man. One can only assume someone on the editorial staff has a thing for half-forgotten Daredevil villains.

With developments like this, surely it can only be a matter of time before Spidey finds himself up against the awesome power of the Matador.

Metal Men #44, Rain of the Missile Men.

Imagine standing in a butcher's shop in the early 1970s, reading a comic about robots while old people stand around complaining they can't understand this fancy New Money the government's introduced and that it's all just an excuse to put prices up.

Personally, I don't have to - because I lived it.

That comic was Metal Men #44 and, as a child, I always had a soft spot for it. It seemed odd. It seemed different. It seemed somewhat mystifying.

But now I'm not in a butcher's shop anymore and everyone, even old people, can understand that fancy New Money, so, how will I feel about this comic now?

It's the early 1960s (because this is a reprint book) and Doctor Magnus has created a bunch of robotic friends from various metals. He now uses them to fight the forces of evil and help mankind.

Unfortunately, mankind really does need his help because an evil space robot has the hots for the Metal Men's only female operative - Tina - and is determined to rain an army of his doppelgangers down upon Earth until he gets her.

Happily, like most of us, our resourceful doctor just happens to have a big cannon on him that makes things super-magnetic.

Once the evil space robot's been zapped with it, his mechanical army sticks to him and he ends up entombed at the heart of a giant ball of robots, trapped forever at the bottom of the nearest river, wherefrom he shall never escape .

The first thing that strikes me reading this tale now is its artwork. Drawn by Ross Andru, it has a cleanness and assurance that it's impossible not to be impressed by and it seems noticeably more accomplished than I'm used to from reading all those early Marvel comics of the same era.

The second thing that strikes me is what a complete and total jerk Doctor Magnus is. While his robots are totally devoted to him, and have a level of selflessness that's genuinely moving, he seems to have no concern for their welfare at all.

He even, at one point, sends Tina off to spend the rest of her existence in a glass case in the local museum, no matter how hard she begs him not to, only taking her back when the museum gets fed up of her crying all day long and returns her to him, complaining that she can't be a real robot because she's not acting like one.

Does this make Magnus change his attitude towards her?

No it doesn't.

The third thing that strikes me - and struck me as a child - is that this is probably the grimmest comic book story I've ever read. The Metal Men get killed twice in the course of this story.

Admittedly, Magnus does manage to recreate them, with their original memories intact, but the sight of the story's heroes melting to death as they attempt to put out a fire is the sort of thing that can leave a man, let alone a child, traumatised.

So, do I still like it?

Sort of. I like the Metal Men themselves. They each have clearly differentiated personalities, in line with their properties as metals, and how can you not like anyone as self-sacrificing as they are? I also like the villain who isn't exactly what you'd call a developed character but I like his short-temper, and his frustration at only being able to produce replicas of himself whenever he tries to create a wife.

But the elephant in the room that is Magnus is hard to get round. Call me sad but I had exactly the same feeling when I tried to watch The Powerpuff Girls. I couldn't bring myself to keep watching it because the sight of a grown man sending small children into battle with homicidal villains, without heed for their safety, bothered me so much I had to switch off. And that was just a cartoon. This, on the other hand, is real; it's a comic.

So, I'd be very happy to read more issues, provided Magnus has been replaced by a legal guardian who the Metal Men actually deserve.

Are the Metal Men still on the go in the modern DC universe? I hope so, and I hope they're having a happier time than they are here.

May 16th, 1979 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

Have you ever wanted to own a garden in space and have it tended by three robots while Joan Baez warbles the same song over and over and over again until you get sick of it?

If so, this night of exactly forty years ago was your lucky night because it was the evening BBC One was showing Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running, that slightly barking tale of conservation, and murder by shovel.

It is very much a film that is of its time and its plot doesn't stand up to any kind of logical scrutiny but I enjoyed it at the time and still get upset whenever the robots are hurt.

Joan Baez may have been in that film but, in the real world, we were all listening to ABBA because their album Voulez-Vous was reigning supreme at the top of the UK album chart. Chiquitita is my favourite of its five singles, especially for that magnificent bit of pub piano at the end. It positively makes me want to clink my steinkrug to it.

Come to think of it, after all these years, I still don't know what voulez-vous actually means.

There's only one thing for it. I'm going to have to Google it.

....

....

....

That's it. I have now Googled it. It would appear that it means, "Do you want?"

But do I want what?

Why can ABBA not be more specific in their questions to me? Why?

Han Solo and Chewie are on some planet or other, in a cave, being fired at by Jabba the Hut and his men.

As this is long before The Return of the Jedi, I wonder if we get to see Jabba in this issue and whether he bears any resemblance to the character who ended up on film.

Hold on. Is the scaly man on the cover meant to be him?

I cannot say.

Elsewhere, at Thano's insistence, Warlock's using his soul gem to destroy the Magus' army, even though such an act is part of the process which'll turn him into the Magus in the first place. Oh, the nightmarish paradoxes.

Somewhat less cosmically, the Micronauts are up against a man who only has a half a face. I don't have a clue who he is.

This is it! The big one! The Hulk beats up a bear!

To be honest, when you've grown up watching him take on the Galaxy Master, Klaatu and an island full of giant space-monsters, a punch-up in the woods, with a bear, seems somewhat less than thrilling.

Ant-Man has to deal with a hijacker who turns out to be exactly who you thought he'd be. In fact, I have noticed that the trend with early Ant-Man tales seems to be that whoever asked for his help in the first place is, later, going to be revealed as the villain.

High in the Andes, the Eternals are still mithering about the return of the Celestials.

Night-Raven finally gets round to bumping off the assassin who's been hired to kill him.

Nick Fury's up to something but I don't know what and, based on previous form, I doubt it'll be anything that interests me.

The Black Knight and Captain Britain are still battling the forces of evil in a Britain that bears no resemblance to any Britain I've ever been to.

Hooray! Ms Marvel makes her Kreetastic debut!

To be honest, I don't recall much about her adventures but I do recall that I always hated her costume. The bare stomach and legs just didn't go with an outfit that also had gloves. And no battler of evil should ever wear a scarf.

As usual, the rest of this issue's contents are a mystery to me.

Hooray! Spider-Man's up against the Masked Marauder!

For such a duff villain, he does seem to be getting a lot of use, of late, in Spidey's strip.

The Marvel Lucky Bag - May 1979.

As I sit typing these awesome words, I'm listening to ELO's 1981 album Time on YouTube. The way I remember things, I'm pretty sure it was viewed, back then, as a catastrophic shark-jump by the band.

Which is odd because I have to say I'm quite enjoying it. The production's more restrained than we're used to and there's a whole lot less of the highly silly backing vocals that were ELO's Achilles heel for some of us.

But is this the only thing we've been wrong about? Does it mean the world has, likewise, been too harsh on Marvel Comics' less appreciated titles that I'm about to look at in the list below? Has the lack of love for them been an injustice? Are they, in fact, the very finest books the world of Comicdom had to offer at that time?

There's only one way to find out.

Godzilla and Devil Dinosaur team up to tackle some bad guys or other in prehistoric times; a sequence of events which leads to Godzy reappearing in the 20th Century - and at full size!

Baron Blood's on the loose again - and under the control of a Japanese woman who's out to create a team made up of all the Invaders' greatest enemies.

Admittedly, "Great," is a relative term...

"Make way, World -- Nova's smashing thru!"

He's smashing through into oblivion - because this is his last issue.

It's a story which leads into this month's Fantastic Four tale, as our motley crew of super-doers, including Nova, Dr Sun, the Sphinx, a man with a diamond for a head, a man who looks like the Flash, and some other bloke, find themselves in the Skrull's galaxy, and having to wage war on those cosmic ne'er-do-wells, in order to get whatever it is they're after there.

Spidey and Satana team up to rescue Dr Strange who's been turned into a werewolf by someone or other.

I don't want to give away any spoilers but Satana's dead by the tale's climax.

I suspect she won't stay dead.

We get a magnificent magazine featuring the Hulk's meeting with Klaatu, and his first encounter with Dr Doom who, if I remember correctly, wants to use him to deliver an atom bomb to a rival country.

If Nova's feeling down about the loss of his book, he should at least take comfort from the fact he's not alone, because Red Sonja's also experiencing her final issue.

As well as vampires, I believe she gets to fight a man made of vegetable matter.

Holy coincidences, Batman! Just the other day, on here, I was opining on the prospect of the Red Skull, Hate-Monger, Sons of the Serpent and Dr Faustus teaming up to start a race war.

And what do you know? This very issue features the Red Skull and Hatey teaming up to relaunch the Third Reich.

I predict it won't be long before they're trying to kill each other.

Forty years ago today - May 1979.

It is occasion for me to once more bend Time to my will, like Plasticine, and see what was afoot in the comics that bore the cover date of this month of forty years ago.

Will our heroes have, at last, found the peace that none of them ever seem to seek?

Captain America certainly won't. Dr Faustus is still trying to start a race war in New York - and now he's kidnapped Sharon Carter!

You do wonder what would happen if Faustus, the Sons of the Serpent, Hate-Monger and the Red Skull all tried to start a race war simultaneously. The people of New York wouldn't know if they were coming or going.

I do believe this is the one which reveals Death-Stalker to have once been the Exterminator, even though I remain convinced it would have made more thematic sense for him to have been Mr Fear.

Come to think of it, both Mr Fear and the Exterminator made use of the services of The Ani-Men, didn't they?

And so does Death-Stalker in this issue.

Anyway, whoever he is, he comes a cropper when, like a total wally, he materialises inside a gravestone. You never saw the Vision making that mistake.

Iron Man decides to sit around retelling his origin.

Who does he think he is? Captain America?

At last, the true identity of Carrion is revealed.

As far as I can remember, he's the clone of Professor Warren who managed to die but be simultaneously kept alive by Warren's cloning solution thing.

It's a somewhat odd story, mostly dedicated to Thor standing on a mountain in Mexico and demanding Odin tell him what he needs to know about the Celestials.

With grim inevitability, the annoying old duffer goes out of his way to be of no use at all on that score.

The X-Men are in Canada, out to rescue Wolverine from Alpha Force.

Then it turns out he never needed rescuing, coz he's Wolverine and he's self-sufficient like that.

The FF make a right old mess of stopping the Skrulls from destroying a planet, and then get shot at by Nova's ship which is packed with more oddball super-doers than you can shake a stick at.

Conan and his gang of sailors encounter a beautiful woman who lives in the sea.

Needless to say, it's not long before she's slaughtering crew members.

Equally needless to say, it's not long before Conan's out there in the sea, with a dagger in his mouth, looking to give her a good stabbing.

Crusher Creel's back, having last been seen smashing into a million pieces of glass. And, thanks to him not being able to go five minutes without launching into a bar fight, he very quickly has to contend with the Avengers turning up to stop him.

From the cover, I'm assuming Professor Smythe's still causing trouble.

Beyond that, I can say nothing, as I know nothing.

Machine Man's up against the Hulk.

And gets killed, by the looks of it.

May 9th, 1979 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

It was good news for some in this week of 1979 - and bad news for others.

For instance, it was a happy time for someone called Margaret Thatcher whose Conservative Party won the General Election by 43 seats, making her the UK's first female Prime Minister.

It was also good news for a man called John Major who was elected to Parliament for the first time, as a 36-year-old MP for Huntingdon.

It wasn't such good news for the Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe who lost his seat in the election - and then followed that up, four days later, by being put on trial for attempted murder.

If you're going to have a bad week in politics, that's the way to do it.

Having a somewhat better week than that, in sport, were Liverpool Football Club who, on this day in 1979, won the League title, for the 12th time.

I'm assuming Luke Skywalker's still up against the pulse-pounding terror of the Tax Collector.

I assume the Micronauts are still having trouble in the United States.

I know for a fact that Adam Warlock's still working with Thanos in their mutual quest to stop the Magus, and that this week's instalment is introduced by Captain Marvel giving us a potted history of Thanos and his Cosmic Cube activities.

For me, Mar-Vell is a little too cheerful whilst recounting this tale.

The Hulk's about to have a punch-up with a bear.

Ant-Man encounters Egghead, for the first time. The villain has a cunning scheme to befriend the ants and turn them against our hero.

What a bounder.

And what a fool.

Does he not know that Ant-Man's little insect friends would never betray him?

Ikaris is faring somewhat worse than Ant-Man. He's in the process of being captured by the Deviants.

Night Raven's still making a meal of dealing with the assassin who's out to get him.

Captain Britain and the Black Knight are still not getting very far in their battle against darkness. I do believe that this week's exciting episode involves them hijacking a milk float.

Seriously.

I don't have a clue what Nick Fury's up to but I'm sure I wouldn't like it even if I did, because I never do.

Here's where I fling myself into Terra Incognito because, other than being able to surmise that Godzilla's battling a red dragon, I don't have a clue what happens in this issue.

But talk of Godzilla battling dragons does make me wonder who'd win a fight between Godzilla and Fin Fang Foom.

It also makes me realise Godzilla's not wearing underpants, like Marvel's giant monsters traditionally did. Did he have no class at all?

And my ignorance of this one is even more total. I don't even know what Spidey's up to in this one.

I can't help feeling this week's feature has fizzled out horribly.

I like to reassure myself that this is a good thing, as my lack of competence prevents people being dangerously in awe of me.

The Marvel Lucky Bag - May 1969.

The UK singles chart in May 1969 was not a place to go if you liked variety.

When I say, "Variety," I mean, of course, a high rate of change, not Variety acts.

Then again, it wasn't a good place to go for Variety acts either because the entire month was dominated by The Beatles whose Get Back refused to relinquish its grip on the top spot and duly saw off challenges from Fleetwood Mac, Herman's Hermits and Mary Hopkin to retain its position.

Things were a bit livelier on the LP chart, with the Number One slot being held by The Best of the Seekers, On the Threshold of a Dream by the Moody Blues and then Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan, in that order.

Apparently, On the Threshold of a Dream was the first UK chart-topper for the Moodies and their first US Top 20 entry. Clearly, they were becoming more popular by the second.

But you know who wasn't becoming popular?

That's right.

The stars of this month's Marvel Lucky Bag for 1969.

That doesn't mean we didn't love them.

And it doesn't mean I won't be taking a look at them.

I don't know what happens in this one. All I know is Marvy seems to be fighting an android.

Is it my imagination or did he fight an android in virtually every issue of his comic in the 1960s?

It's nothing but trouble for Dr Strange, as Nightmare kidnaps Eternity - on New Year's Eve!

I vaguely remember this one, although my main memory of it is of Eternity lying around not doing anything much.

I think this story introduced me to the word, "Archetypal."

Then again, that could be a totally different story I'm thinking of.

I am, however, almost certain that Tom Wolfe puts in a guest appearance in this one.

Barry Smith does his best Jim Steranko, on the cover.

Inside, Nick Fury's arrested for being an enemy agent.

Needless to say, it's not long before he's escaped custody and is out to clear his name.

Unfortunately, that sets up a sequence of events which leads to him being arrested for murder.

Some days, you can't catch a break.

Is this the one where Dorma pops her clogs? From the cover, I'm assuming it is.

I also believe this is the climax to the Serpent Crown Saga which I could claim to remember well but the truth is the only part of it I recall is the issue which featured The Thing.

So successful was Millie the Model for Marvel that even her rival Chili was granted a comic of her own. And here's where it started.

Thinking about it, I do wonder how big a part the Chili/Millie rivalry played in how Stan dealt with the MJ/Gwen rivalry in Spider-Man.

Then again, it might have been the other way round.

Then again, there might not have been any influence either way.