April 6th, 1977 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

Before I start on the vital business of the day, I should first give a plug to a guest post that I, Colin Bray and Colin Jones have inflicted upon readers of the Back in the Bronze Age blog.

It's a post that gives a history and overview of Marvel UK for those not familiar with the venture.

Long-standing readers of this site'll be amazed to discover it has actual facts in it, not just a load of pictures of covers, with me going, "I don't have a clue what happens in this one," like most of my posts are on here do. I can only assume some strange fever overcame me when I was composing my own contribution.

But Back in the Bronze Age isn't the only place where thrilling events are afoot.

They're also afoot in the dim and distant place that is April 1977. Not only is Red Rum winning the Grand National for the third time but we're seeing the debut of Mike Leigh's quintessential 1970s play Abigail's Party at the Hampstead Theatre, while, in a daring publicity stunt, the town of Hay-on-Wye is declaring independence from the UK. As it's still part of the UK, forty years later, I can only assume the declaration didn't stick.

Meanwhile, again back in April 1977, ABBA's Knowing Me, Knowing You (A-ha!) is Number One on the UK singles chart. It's one of my ABBA faves, with a video that's pure essence of ABBA distilled onto magnetic tape and served up to us in our living rooms. For some reason, I've always found the line, "In these old familiar rooms, children will play," strangely haunting. I'm not sure what it says about me, other than that I clearly have a thing about empty rooms.

But that was the real world. What was happening in the other world?

You know?

The other real world?

The one where super-heroes live?

The Red Skull's still trying to overthrow the British government.

Bearing in mind how long he's been trying by this point, I'd have given up by now if I was him.

The cover blurb declares, "More pages than ever!" Yes, that's right! He's taking more pages than ever to overthrow the government!

I'm not sure that's really something to boast about.

PS. Who can spot the deliberate mistake on this cover? I don't mean the line, "The greatest super-hero of all!" I don't think that's a mistake. I think that's just false advertising. There's another fatal error besides that one.

Is this really a Rhino story, or is it that one where the Hulk finds himself facing replicas of his greatest enemies whilst inside Glenn Talbot's brain?

I'm struggling to recall just how replicas of the Hulk's enemies got in there. Weren't they supposed to be part of a mental block? How exactly does a mental block create tiny replicas of super-villains? It's at times like this that I wish I had a doctorate in psychology, so I could understand these things.

This storyline's starting to feel almost as interminable as the Red Skull one.

Still, it's a lot more fun for lovers of silliness and it ends with a bang. Literally.

But how on Earth did Hammerhead ever manage to be a threat to Dr Octopus? When all's said and done, he's just a gangster with a hard head, whereas Doc Ock has four metal arms that are about thirty foot long. Hammerhead should never have been able to get anywhere near him.

I really do wish I knew something about the contents of Fury, beyond, "It has Nick Fury in it," so I'd have something to say about it other than that it has nice covers and plenty of alliteration.

Still, only about another twenty posts to go before I never need to worry about it ever again.

Hold on. Doesn't that mean I'll have to endure Nick Fury's Howling Commandos squatting in Mighty World of Marvel for what seems like an eternity?

I am intrigued to see, though, that I could win an Action Man (AKA: GI Joe). As a fan of gripping hands and eagle eyes, this is thrilling news for me.

Sadly, my own Action Man possessed neither of those qualities and, in the end, he didn't possess one of his legs either, as it fell off in circumstances that are still a mystery to me.

My Action Man was called Paul. I decided this because he had a T-Shirt that had a big, red letter, "P," on the front of it. I thus decided it stood for, "Paul the Action Man."

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, he might only have been able to hop into action but he did it with style and still always triumphed over all adversaries. Action Man would have seen off Hammerhead. He'd have ignored his head and punched him in the stomach. The scar on his face told me he was that kind of man.