Sunday 3 May 2015

May 3rd, 1975 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

Hooray! It's the May Day weekend and I'm dancing around a May pole while preparing to incinerate Edward Woodward in a giant wicker man.

But what about Marvel UK this week forty years ago? Were their heroes similarly setting the world alight?

Spider-Man Comics Weekly #116, Dr Octopus

Doc Ock may very well live but the exciting news for me is that not only does my favourite Thor villain Mangog also live but that he gets to make his senses-shattering debut.

Mighty World of Marvel #135, the Hulk

From the presence of Captain America on the cover, I'm assuming this is the start of the tale where the Hulk's captured and put on trial. Thus, presumably, inspiring the legendary TV movie where the Hulk teams up with a spectacularly badly-dressed Daredevil.

Marvel UK Avengers #85, Dr Strange

That's a very creepy cover. I'm not sure a mind as impressionable as mine should be exposed to it.

Marvel UK Planet of the Apes #28, Apeslayer

Apeslayer's still having trouble with those pesky ape tripods.

Marvel UK Dracula Lives #28

Is it my imagination or do around fifty percent of Dracula Lives covers feature Dracula clutching a blonde whilst boasting about how he's going to top the people surrounding him?

Marvel UK, Savage Sword of Conan #9

Wasn't this an adaptation of a Robert E Howard tale?

Or was it an L. Sprague de Camp tale?

Either way, I think I've read the original.

Still no hints as to what's going on in the Ka-Zar tale though.

The fools! Don't they realise I can't sleep at night until they tell me?

Marvel UK, The Super-Heroes #9, Silver Surfer vs Frankenstein

This is one of only two issues of The Super-Heroes I ever owned, although I seem to have acquired it about two years too late, as I recall first reading it whilst - on TV - there was something about someone lighting beacons on hilltops to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

Call me a dirty, treasonous, commie republican if you like but I must confess I found the Silver Surfer tale to be the more gripping of those two developments.

The thing that most impressed me about this tale was that there was a wolf in it which I have happy memories of copying with my trusty pencil.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm reading this post with the news on in the background, Steve, so thanks to you I will now forever associate that Silver Surfer story with the birth of yet another royal sprog that we all have to pay for.
With that Frankenstein's monster story, the original series somehow managed to get even more tedious than ever, but its still more gripping than jubilees, new royal brats or any of that nonsense.

-sean

Steve W. said...

It's beginning to look like the Silver Surfer can always be relied on to show up when there's a Royal story in the news.

Anonymous said...

I've been avoiding the news due to the election so I didn't know about the royal birth - when I can remember I click on the 'World News' link on the BBC News website but I've been avoiding UK news for the last month. My views about the royal baby are the same as Sean's. That issue of The Super-Heroes was the only one I had out of the entire 50-issue run and I also associate it with something - a little model car I bought at the same time, either Corgi or Matchbox.

Anonymous said...

"The Garden of Fear" was based on a Robert E. Howard story, although the original was about a Viking warrior, not Conan.

I think that "Trial of the Hulk" TV movie was intended as a pilot for a Daredevil spin-off series, as was another one that featured Thor. Evidently, neither of them made much of an impression.

-TC

Dougie said...

The Garden of Fear is one of my favourite Thomas/Smith Conan stories. There's something tragic yet horrific about the brooding winged man and his enigmatic relationship with the terrible flowers.

I love Superhero Dr. Strange getting his Lovecraft on and the Apeslayer episode was, of course, a reworking of my first-ever Killraven comic. So, an exciting week!