February 1971. This Month in History.

Blow me down if it's not the start of a whole new month. And that means just one thing - it's time to look back at what our favourite Marvel heroes were doing exactly forty years ago.

It might've been February, the month of St Valentine, but there was little love in the air for our heroes as they yet again found themselves under siege from all sides

"He's back! More dangerous than ever!" declares the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #93 but the genius of Stan Lee and John Romita is that once inside the mag they make no attempt to convince us the Prowler's at all deadly. The tooled-up window cleaner is merely an obstacle, slowing Spidey down as he tries to get to Gwen Stacy before she leaves the country.

So outclassed is the Prowler that, in the end, Spider-Man doesn't make it to see Gwen in time purely because he has to rush his opponent to hospital after almost accidentally killing him.

I love every single Spider-Man tale from this era. With Peter Parker's private life in endless turmoil, how could I not?

After escaping the world of Arkon, a group of Avengers find themselves in an alternate world where they have to help the Squadron Supreme defeat an evil child genius.

I have to say I preferred the Justice League of America lookalikes when they were the Squadron Sinister but, as a Marvel fan, it's nice to see the Avengers putting the JLA in their place by being a whole lot smarter than they are.

The early days of Barry Smith's Conan continue as he comes up against the Grim Grey God. It's good to see the word "grey" being spelt with an "E" instead of an "A" - an attention to detail that appeals - but I must confess I remember nothing at all about the story itself.

I must've read this in the Mighty World of Marvel but have no recollection of it. This could be because Iron Man's in it and I've remarked before on my strange amnesia when it comes to Iron Man yarns.

John Buscema takes over the art chores. This is a good thing as he's probably my favourite Marvel artist of all time and I always dug the way he drew the Thing's pebbles.

It quickly becomes obvious to the reader that Mr Fantastic's attempt to cure the Thing has turned Benjamin J Grimm evil.

By this stage, the Thing had turned against the Fantastic Four more times than you could shake a FOOM subscription at but, this time round, the idea was given a fresher feel than it deserved by having the Thing's descent into evil be drawn out over a number of issues.

How could anyone not love this tale, as the Hulk comes up against Xeron and the giant space beast Klaatu? Not only that but we get the thrill of the Abomination finally returning to the strip that spawned him. Let's face it, at this stage in its history, the Hulk's mag could do no wrong.

Nope. Don't have a clue what happens in this one. Were Iron Man stories really that unmemorable post-Gene Colan or is it just that I have something wrong with me?

From the cover I'm betting this is the one where Thor finds himself up against an evil version of Odin. It has to be said, given the trouble Odin caused at the best of times, I'm not sure an evil Odin would be any bigger a threat to the universe than the normal one was.

Never having been a fan of the original X-Men, I've not read this one but it's clearly involves the Sentinels and that has to be good news.

Was this one of the Neal Adams stories?