September 15th, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

On this night in 1976, BBC 1 was showing the epic drama of Noah and Nelly.

I admit that might not be the most arresting revelation of all time but I can genuinely find nothing else interesting that happened on that day.

My main memory of Noah and Nelly is of them once riding their boat around on a roller coaster. How that unlikely circumstance came about, I have no idea.

But, if life was a roller coaster for Noah and Nelly, what was it for the heroes of our favourite comics company?

It's that rare thing, a Fantastic Four story drawn by John Romita.

I've seen criticism of his very short stint on the title but I loved it. And he actually managed to make Sue Richards not look like a wet blanket, which was a fair achievement and possibly the first time it had ever happened.

I suspect that an unconscious Crystal was meant to be on the cover but was somehow omitted. Otherwise, I'm not sure who the, "She," is the Torch is referring to.

Given that it was launched to cash-in on a craze - and given the tendency of Marvel UK mags to disappear without notice - plenty may have doubted it would ever happen but Planet of the Apes celebrates its hundredth issue.

And it does it with a punch in the mouth for those pesky apes.

I believe I detect a Frank Thorne cover.

If so, I suspect it may be the first Frank Thorne cover I've ever seen on a Planet of the Apes comic.

This issue gives us one of the few Thing stories I remember, as he teams up with the Scarecrow who, if I remember rightly, was in the habit of living inside a painting and of bursting out laughing for no good reason. Well, you have to like a man who has a sense of humour.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man's up against the Grizzly who, tragically, gets no respect from anyone.

Needless to say, I always liked him. Like the Kangaroo, he never seemed to grasp that he was hopeless, and surely you have to admire such a quality in a villain.

Ooh! I remember the Daredevil story! I think he's in Los Angeles and there are dead mammoths in a tar pit in a museum and there's possibly a man in an exoskeleton, hanging around.

I remember the Hulk tale too, in which Thunderbolt Ross gets his own equivalent of the Spider-Slayer.

Needless to say, it proves to be just as effective in fulfilling its purpose as the Spider-Slayer always was.