June 5th, 1976 - 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. 

***

Will mankind never learn to live in peace?

You know what? It just might.

After all, peace finally prevailed, this week in 1976, when the United Kingdom and Iceland ended the Third Cod War, with the UK accepting Iceland's extension of its territorial waters, in exchange for defined fishing rights.

And what of the charts? It was a case of some change but No Charge, as J J Barrie (not to be confused with J M Barrie) seized the top of the UK Hit Parade from ABBA, thanks to his tune of that title.

However, the sensational Swedes were still unstoppable atop the corresponding album chart, as their Greatest Hits LP continued to dominate.

Television encountered something memorable, on June the 5th, when BBC One broadcast Steven Spielberg's TV horror movie Something Evil.

I can't help feeling that's quite a vague title. Personally, if I was confronting evil, I'd want a bit more info about the nature of it.

Regardless, the tale involved a family moving to a lonely farmhouse and, before you knew it, there were malevolent spirits everywhere.

That would be enough to put any man into a spin.

But you know what else was getting us in a spin?

That's right.

The Spider-Man Web Spinner. For that was the item being heavily touted on the front covers of this week's UK Marvel books.

And my razor-sharp senses tell me it was no lesser object than a frisbee!

Frisbees? Truly, summer was well and truly here.

Excitement abounds when Red Sonja again brings her bikini to the pages of Conan, thanks to an adventure called The Tower of Blood in which a brother and sister pair of sorcerers have lusty designs on the duo.

Following that, unless I miss my guess, this issue launches the story in which our heroes must battle the Sentry in the Antarctic, as Ronan sets out to devolve us all to the status of amoebae.

And Shang-Chi and friends continue to be on the island of Mordillo the assassin - with Leiko trapped inside a giant hour-glass!

From that cover, I get the feeling Adam Warlock's about to make a sensational comeback.

Elsewhere, Daredevil's busy invading Crime-Wave's illegal gambling ship. But the villain's already in the process of trying to blackmail Debbie Harris into betraying Foggy Nelson.

The X-Men remain in conflict with Grotesk who's out for revenge against the human race.

And, in a separate tale, we get to see Cyclops and Professor X in action before the formation of the X-Men, when they encounter a hard-fisted villain called Jack O'Diamonds.

Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe deliver a sequel to Kingdom on an Island on the Planet of the Apes. A fact which I have no doubt means we're about to get lots of action involving knights in armour. Not to mention, it seems, from that cover, quarterstaff action

And Ka-Zar's about to get a dose of the Moby Dicks when he encounters a man determined to inflict vengeance upon a river-dwelling dinosaur that cost him an eye and an arm.

But what's this?

Captain Marvel?

Returning to the comic that first introduced him to the British public before he departed for the pages of The Titans?

Indeed he is. For whatever reason, his strip's been moved back to this mag and does so in style, as Drax the Destroyer takes on Thanos, and Mar-Vell heads towards getting himself a brand new set of abilities.

Again.

And we complete the issue with the 1955 Jay Scott Pike short Which Wish, Dish? in which a woman's wish to be a queen is granted.

Only for that queen to turn out to be Marie Antoinette!

Hold on a minute.

That cover's screaming at me that this book is about to get a million times better!

But, first, with Dracula dead, the military descend upon the city of Boston, in an attempt to stop Dr Sun but, instead, they find themselves under his mental control!

And then it's the moment we've all been waiting for, as the Son of Satan replaces Ghost Rider in this book!

And with what style he does so, as Herb Trimpe gives us a tale packed with white-knuckled melodrama, as Daimon Hellstrom sets off in search of his father and the captive Johnny Blaze.

And it's not just the Son of Satan who's making his debut, this week. So is the Foolkiller, thanks to his arrival in the Man-Thing's strip, and an encounter with the motorbike gang that's been causing trouble of late.

You have to hand it to John Jameson. There aren't many werewolves could pull off bright yellow but, somehow, he can.

And it all happens when a piece of moon rock he brought back to Earth inflicts a terrible fate upon him whenever the moon is full.

Meanwhile, Thor's got problems in Latveria. He's turned back to Don Blake and can't get to his hammer because Dr Doom's surrounded it with a forcefield!

I do believe Dr Strange and Clea manage to defeat both Umar and Dormammu, with aid from Mother Earth.

And Iron Man has his work cut out for him. Not only is the Controller too powerful for him to stop but, now, the villain has only gone and loaded his Absorbatron onto a train that's headed for New York City!

Meanwhile, the Thing and the Golem must join forces to stop the devious plans of a man called Kaballa.

I think we know what Jack Kirby was watching on TV when he drew this latest FF adventure which sees the Thing abducted by Skrulls who've created a planet modelled on the activities of Chicago gangsters. 

I suppose we should be glad he wasn't watching Spock's Brain. A remote-controlled Reed Richards, with Sue Storm trying to do a brain transplant on him, doesn't bear thinking about.

Following that, Captain America's invading the lair of AIM, in a bid to rescue Sharon Carter from their clutches.

But has he counted on the presence of their mysterious leader, a being called MODOK?

The Sub-Mariner must fight a giant coral monster created by Plantman when the villain tries to trash London.

Johnny Blaze discovers Roxanne Simpson's gone missing - but doesn't yet know she's in the hands of Satan's disciples.

And Nick Fury's worried that a thing called the Overkill Horn might find its way into the hands of the bad guys.

Call me overly-negative but I'm going to assume that that's exactly what will happen.

Fifty years ago today - June 1976.

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

***

I'm going to see if I can launch straight into this, without an intro.

But, hold on. That was an intro.

And so is this.

And so is this.

What's up with me? I can't stop introducing things!!!

Unless my senses betray me, the Avengers have found themselves in a strange and alternate dimension. One which needs saving from a threat involving the Sub-Mariner's old enemy the Serpent Crown.

But who on Earth is the man in the yellow, doing the talking? I assume he's the Squadron Supreme's version of Hawkman but I have no recollection of him.

Also, where's their version of Hawkgirl?

Conan having a tangle with the man whose name he shall inherit.

A man who bears strong resemblance to both Tarzan and Ka-Zar.

But, before he can do that, he, Amra and Bêlit are going to have to defeat an army of underground goblins!

As far as I can make out, Cap and the Falc endeavour to track down the creator of the Madbombs.

But to add complexity to it all, our hero's developing a romantic attachment to the villain's seriously ill daughter.

I detect human drama incoming.

Not to mention a good dose of self-sacrifice by at least one of the characters.

I like that lettering at the bottom of the cover. It reminds me of those multi-coloured Polo mint things I've mentioned before but can never remember the name of, even though people keep telling me their name.

But I do suspect that one of the Torpedoes on that cover is, in fact, the Chameleon who DD and the real Torpedo are both out to get.

Hooray! It's the debut of Gorr! Which means our next encounter with the High Evolutionary can't be far away!

But, first, the Fantastic Four are going to have to burst into action when the glowing golden gorilla lands on our world, in a ship from Counter-Earth, and proceeds to go on the rampage and grow to huge size.

It's time for a celebration, as the Hulk's mag hits its 200th issue!

And I'm going to guess it's the one in which a dramatically shrunk-down Hulk's implanted into Glenn Talbot's brain. Inside of which, he fights imaginary versions of his old enemies.

I'm no doctor but I can't help feeling that can't be good for Talbot's brain.

The Blizzard is in this one.

That is all I know.

And that it's brought to us by the power-packed pairing of Bill Mantlo and George Tuska.

Spider-Man has problems with a Dr Octopus keen on revitalising his romance with Aunt May!

But that might be the least of Webhead's woes because I also believe this is the one in which Hammerhead returns as a ghost!

Not that the criminal's current state will matter much. I bet that Spider-Man still keeps trying to punch him in the head instead of the stomach.

I possess no knowledge of what happens in this one but I'm going to suggest the cover implies it may have a bit of a Jack and the Beanstalk vibe to it.

I must confess I was always on the side of the giant in that fairy tale, even though he kept saying he wanted to eat Englishmen.

Regardless, it would seem this issue introduces us to Brodag, Holvar and Cosak.

Not that I have a clue who they are.

We've got Sentinels! We've got outer space! And we've got Dave Cockrum! How could anyone not love the X-Men in this period?

It seems Stephen Lang may not. After all, the gang must assault his orbiting space station, in a bid to rescue their colleagues from he and his allies.

Those allies being the original X-Men!

Phantom Stranger #41. A Time For Endings.

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

***

 Phantom Stranger Quote of the Day:

"Men call me the Phantom Stranger and say that I have seen the beginning of this World. Perhaps they are right... ...for each man's world begins with his memory, and ends at the furthest borders of his dreams!"

Everyone knows how much I love the Phantom Stranger. His capacity for strangening phantomly, when I was a child, set him apart from all other heroes and bestowed upon him a wisdom at which the rest of us can only marvel.

But, oddly, it seems not everyone loved him as much as I did.

And so it was that, after just 41 issues, his comic came to an end.

But, having never read it before, what do I make of that end?

And will the presence of Deadman affect my perception of it?

It all begins when, during a presumably typical day at the Sanders School for the Blind, two of its teachers Cassandra Craft and Adam Shapiro go to the assistance of fellow blind person Nathan Seine - only for him to capture Cassandra and knock out Shapiro.

For this is no ordinary blind man. This is no less than the villain from Phantom Stranger #35. The one who tried to revive his dead wife by draining the protagonist's lifeforce into her.

Needless to say, that bid failed and, now, Seine's out for revenge against the titfer-topped tormentor of tyrants, terrors and troublemakers. And he's going to get it by sacrificing Cassandra to his masters the Nether Gods.

But it turns out they don't want her. They want the Phantom Stranger.

Taking advantage of the fact that she's still alive, Cassandra sends a psychic message to the Stranger who's stood around, arguing with Deadman. The Stranger knows that saving Cassandra's bacon is more important even than arguing with a ghost and instantly teleports off to save her.

But the Nether Gods have granted Seine the power to kill our hero and it looks like it's all up for the plucky man of mystery, until, as a last resort, he summons Deadman who takes one look at the situation and possesses the unconscious Shapiro.

Not that that does him much good because Seine promptly kills Shapiro.

But that's all our the Stranger needs. Now he can channel, into Seine, Deadman's pain at the knowledge that he caused Shapiro's death. And that pain robs the villain of his powers before he's taken away by the Nether Gods who don't take kindly to failure.

But not everyone on Team Good Guy is happy either because Deadman's angry about the death of Shapiro and his own part in it.

Not that he can do anything about it because, clearly tired of the conversation, the Stranger teleports away to wherever it is he teleports away to whenever he teleports away.

And that's how the Phantom Stranger's series ends. Not with a bang but with a disappearing act.

It would be nice to say it's a great finale to a great series but the truth is it all feels very rushed, with the story and its characters possessing no time to breathe.

It's nice to see Cassandra Craft and Nathan Seine return from previous issues but I'm not so sure it's nice to see Deadman again. A man who's always seemed, to me, to be a one-note character in the few appearances I've experienced. Not to mention that his constant complaining quickly starts to feel like a contractual obligation, rather than forming organically.

Fred Carrillo's art does its job and sporadically carries echoes of both Gerry Talaoc and Alex Niño but it's mostly routine in comparison to the work of those two. While Paul Levitz's dialogue feels clumsy and ineffectual.

But if little in the story itself satisfies me, at least the issue does boast that mean, moody and magnificent Jim Aparo cover to remind us of the strip's glory days.

But have I fallen into a trap? Is it possible that it was always the covers alone that had lent the book the air of it being a title experiencing its glory days?

May 29th, 1976 - 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. 

***

Fasten your seat belts!

Steve Does Comics is about to go supersonic!

And so was Washington, DC, exactly fifty years ago - because it was the week in which its Concorde service was launched!

Elsewhere, in the land that developed Concorde in conjunction with the UK, the so-called Judgement of Paris pitted French and Californian wines against each other in a blind taste-test. And, to the shock of all humanity, the Californian wines won! Sacré bleu! Not to mention Sacré Rosé

Speaking of the United States, President Gerald Ford defeated challenger Ronald Reagan in the Republican presidential primaries for Kentucky, Tennessee and Oregon.

It's the big one, as the FF move into a house designed to send the whole world blind!

Why such a machine is in the form of a house, I've no idea.

I also have no memory of the Mole Man's staff being cosmic. Is that just something made up for the front cover? Or is that a real thing?

After that, Captain America saves SHIELD's barbershop from an AIM android but receives no gratitude from Nick Fury who promptly sends him on a mission to rescue Sharon Carter from that organisation's clutches.

After that, Nick Fury's own strip sees the eye-patch-sporting super-spy deduce that Them and Hydra are the same organisation!

But, hold on. Didn't he previously deduce that Them was really AIM? And that Them is also really the Secret Empire? I'm struggling to keep track of which organisations are which.

Plantman's pitched the Sub-Mariner and Triton against each other while he sets off to destroy somewhere. Possibly London.

And I think the issue wraps up with Johnny Blaze still feebly opposing the works of Satan.

It's good to see Rick Jones throwing in the towel at the first sign of trouble, on that cover. It does make me wonder, has he ever been mentioned in any of the Marvel movies?

As for this week's Conan adventure, all I know for sure is it's called Statues of Terror. Gargoyle of Doom. I shall, therefore, assume it contains multiple statues of terror and just one gargoyle of doom.

In our main strip, Captain Marvel's been successfully drained of the deadly radiation he's been giving off. But, now, Ronan the Accuser sends a Sentry to abduct him from the hospital bed in which he's unconsciously recuperating from that ordeal.

And I think Shang-Chi and his friends are still on the island of top assassin Mordillo and are now in his deadly model village of death, packed, I have no doubt, with all manner of unlikely booby traps.

Yet again, a MWOM cover has us expecting a clash between Adam Warlock and the Hulk.

In fact, what really happens is things get properly Biblical, as Adam has the misfortune to be crucified on live television!

I would be shocked by his death but I have a strange feeling he may be coming back to life in three-or-so days.

Daredevil's still out to put a stop to the illicit activities of the man called Crime-Wave.

And to do that, he sneaks aboard the villain's gambling ship, disguised as a lackey in sunglasses.

But what happens when he's told to run the roulette wheel and he can't see the colours or the numbers on it?

The X-Men have only just got Frankenstein's Monster out of the way and, now, they have to deal with the "sub-human" Grotesk who's out to punish the surface world for destroying his underground civilisation, with nuclear tests. With a grudge of that nature, I can't help but feel he should team up with the Sub-Mariner.

When it comes to ape action, I do believe Alaric and Graymakin are about to meet an orangutan inventor who's built himself his own flying contraption, as seen on that cover.

And it's time to hang out the bunting because I think that, this week, we finally see the end of Ka-Zar's interminable Maa-Gor/El Tigre storyline with the latter plunging to his death and the other being reverted to his caveman form, by the machinery that made him super-intelligent in the first place,

The shrewd observer will note that, despite being the star of the strip, Ka-Zar had no involvement in the downfall of either of these villains. Almost as though writer Mike Friedrich was desperate to get rid of them.

Far more interestingly, Captain Marvel's strip sees the Controller invade the Avengers Mansion while Thanos continues to scheme his schemes.

To be honest, I'm not sure how dramatic, "The Ghost Rider shakes hands with Satan," is as a concept. Despite what it claims on the cover, it certainly doesn't instill a sense of horror beyond belief in me.

I am curious, though, about the fact that he still has a strip in two Marvel UK books at once. Nifty Neil Tennant really does seem to have faith in Blaze's ability to attract readers.

But it's not just Adam Warlock who's dying, this week. So is Dracula when Dr Sun's henchman rams a stake through his heart.

Is this the end for the lord of vampires?

I'm going to guess that he stays dead for even less time than Warlock will.

But it could be the end of the Ghost Rider because that fiery-faced fighter of fiends has run foul of a motorbike gang whose leader easily beats him up.

Until he's rescued by the Witch-Woman...

...who turns out to be Satan!

I'll just point out that the Son of Satan took on the same gang in his debut and totally marmalised the lot of them.

And what's this? Man-Thing too is up against a biker gang!

And he too is triumphant with ease.

But it's not all fun and games for the swampy sensation, because F A Schist has created a thing called The Slaughter Room which he's convinced will dispose of the creature forever!

An historic moment has arrived in the pantheon of heroes because I believe this is the first time I - and other Marvel UK readers - have ever encountered Luke Cage!

Needless to say, he makes such a big impact on me that I shall spend the next fifty years modelling my dress-sense on him.

And shouting, "Sweet Christmas!" at random moments.

I also suspect this is the story in which Peter Parker snaps his own pen in half.

Granted, that might not sound all that dramatic but, at the time, to me, it seemed incredibly potent and was a sight that burnt itself into my memory.

Speaking of sights that can burn themselves into your brain, after planting a story in the press about his amazing cosmetic surgery skills, Don Blake's kidnapped by Dr Doom and ordered to fix his face for him. But the physician takes one look at the Latverian ruler's visage and practically has a mental breakdown over it.

Needless to say, a bedside manner like that lands him in a dungeon.

And he doesn't even have his walking stick to hand!

Iron Man's having a tough time with the Controller who's absorbed the power of so many locals that even the armoured Avenger lacks the brute force to stop him.

Elsewhere, the Thing's about to have an encounter with a Golem now under the control of some villain or other.

And Dr Strange continues to have his hands full trying to stop both Umar and Dormammu who, I think, have now reached the feuding-with-each-other stage.

But can Clea's dodgy dad be the solution to all this?

Finally, as he was kind enough to give this site a plug on his blog, I shall remind everyone that those interested in the activities of Marvel UK, way back then, can find far more information about each issue than I could ever hope to provide, by visiting The Power of the BeeSting and discovering just what its proprietor Mark makes of all this week's mighty action.

Speak Your Brain! Part 125.

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

***

Image by Tumisu
from Pixabay

We've just come out of a bank holiday - and record-breaking temperatures for the time of year.

Hot stuff indeed.

But you know what else is hot?

This site!

And, in particular, one feature.

A feature that men, women, children and their pets can only speak of in hushed whispers.

Assuming, that is, that they dare speak of it at all and don't possess vocal chords paralysed by fear at the very thought of it.

That feature is the one in which you -  and you alone - can decide what is to be discussed.

It can be almost any subject beneath the sun, beside yourself or even over the moon.

Therefore, make sure to register your interest, in the comments section below and, when we sit down, we'll see just where we stand.

2000 AD - April 1988.

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

***

So eventful was April 1988 that it's a miracle we didn't all come out of it requiring more tranquillisers than Bruce Banner.

Not only did the Geneva Accords see the Soviet Union agree to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan, the USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a naval mine in the Persian Gulf, thanks to the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War, prompting retaliation against Iran by the United States.

And the world's longest skyjacking came to a close when the remaining passengers of Kuwait Airways Flight 422 were released by their captors.

But aviation wasn't finished with us yet. It was a month in which Aloha Airlines Flight 243 managed to land after losing its roof in mid-air. An event that killed a flight attendant and injured 65 people.

Fortunately, not all was melodrama and, in a far more sedate frame of mind, World Expo 88 opened in Brisbane.

When it came to movies, April saw the unleashing of such ne'er-to-be-forgotten classics as Bright Lights, Big City, The Seventh Sign, Appointment with Death, Brain Damage, Colors, The Blue Iguana, Lady in White, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Two Moon Junction, White Mischief, Critters 2 and Powaqqatsi.

I believe that Critters 2 and White Mischief are the only ones of those that I've actually seen. Therefore, I shall nominate Critters 2 as my Steve Does Comics Film of the Month.

But what of music?

The spell kicked off with the Pet Shop Boys' Heart at Number One on the UK singles chart before that was forced to make way for Theme from S-Express by S-Express.

On the accompanying album chart, April was ushered in with Now That's What I Call Music! 11 ruling the roost before that was barged aside by Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. But, then, even the mighty Maidens were forced to subside by the arrival of Erasure's The Innocents.

But what news of the galaxy's greatest comic?

Possibly to no one's surprise, it continued to feed us a diet of Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, Judge Dredd, Tharg's Future-Shocks and Tyranny Rex.

But there was innovation to be found in the form of Prog 571 introducing us to Summer Magic, a brand new strip by Alan McKenzie and John Ridgway.

Fandom informs me that it involved a boy called Luke Kirby who, in the summer of 1962, is sent to stay in the countryside with his Uncle Elias. A man he's never before met. Luke soon discovers the man is a practitioner of alchemy and, when a mysterious beast begins stalking the woods around the village, Elias announces the boy must learn magic, in order to defend himself!

May 22nd, 1976 - 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. 

***

I'm sure that football football football is all that's ever on our minds, round here, and it was even more on our minds, this week in 1976, when Liverpool won the UEFA Cup for the second time, thanks to a 4–3 aggregate victory over Club Brugge.

In a far more high-class vein, the Royal Charter was granted to the Chartered Society of Designers.

Granted, I've no idea what that actually means but I'm sure it's very fancy.

Speaking of being fancy, I do always wonder where super-heroes get those big hoops from, for each other to jump through. I have never yet encountered a shop that sells them.

But I do believe the Fantastic Four are about to get a shock when Sue decides to buy a house in the woods and it turns out to be booby-trapped up to the eyeballs!

Elsewhere, the Red Skull tries to steal America's latest nuclear submarine but, not for the first - and certainly not the last - time, causes his own death.

Speaking of blundering villains, the drones of AIM make a major goof when they steal what they think is a SHIELD LMD - only for it turn out to be Nick Fury!

The Sub-Mariner's about to encounter both Plant Man and Triton in a tale I have no doubt will be packed to the gunwales with drama.

It's a great week for fans of the Ghost Rider, as he doesn't only appear in this week's Dracula Lives. He also has a strip in this book.

And, this week, after an encounter with a bike gang, Johnny Blaze tells the story of how he became the flame-headed fright dispenser.

It's a striking cover, all right but, before we find out what's to do with the Avengers, Conan lands himself in a yarn called the Night of the Gargoyle.

But, now, hold onto your hats, pilgrim because it's the start of what was, at the time, the greatest super-hero epic of them all, as everyone's favourite Kree captain makes the mistake of using the most over-powered hairdryer in history.

And it all begins because he's giving off dangerous levels of radiation the Avengers need to set about draining, pronto.

Meanwhile, I do believe Shang-Chi and his friends have gone to the island of the assassin Mordillo, looking to bring an end to his murderous activities.

As that cover makes clear, there's plenty at stake for Dracula who, having gone to the lair of Dr Sun, must now survive a fight with the villain's blade-wielding lackey Juno.

In the Ghost Rider's strip, Daimon Hellstrom's still preparing to exorcise Linda Littletrees while Johnny Blaze must face the power of the Witch -Woman.

But forget about Kree/Skrull Wars, this is the big news of the month because I do believe the Man-Thing gets a Rick Jones of his very own when he encounters Richard Rory!

I'm sure that Alaric and Graymalkin are still splashing about on that big boat of theirs.

And, for what feels like the 300th week running, Ka-Zar's battling the malevolent machinations of Maa-Gor and El Tigre.

But the Black Panther finally brings an end to the Killmonger saga when he thwarts the homicidal plans of that malcontent's girlfriend and her leopards.

Despite what's claimed on the cover, I do believe that, inside the book, Adam Warlock and the Hulk are getting on like a house on fire, after encountering each other on Counter-Earth.

But tension's running high in Daredevil's strip when Crime-Wave sends the assassin known as Torpedo to kill Willie Lincoln for knowing too much.

And the X-Men are still in combat with Frankenstein's Monster but may have a solution at hand, thanks to its problem dealing with extreme cold.

And, in a separate strip, we discover the ocular origin of that team's man of action Cyclops.

But this is it, the tale that left me traumatised forever, as we get not just the death of Gwen Stacy but, also, the death of the Green Goblin.

In Dr Strange's strip, a crisis point's been reached, as Dormammu decides to liberate himself from the centre of the Earth and, once again, menace mankind.

Iron Man's still up against the power of the Controller.

And it looks like he might be all set to control Iron Man!

It looks like an even bigger clash of the titans is on the books because, upon discovering a French inventor's been kidnapped by Dr Doom, Thor decides it's time to pay a visit to Latveria and teach the maniacal monarch a lesson.

And, lastly, the Thing and Black Widow are in joint action when they attempt to prevent Agamemnon's terrorist organisation from detonating a giant nuclear bomb that will devastate the western world.