The most forgettable comics I have ever owned - Part 20: The Human Fly #7.

One of the seminal activities of my youth was watching The World of Sport every Saturday, which, when it wasn't giving us clinically obese men, in overly tight trunks, falling over on top of  each other in Preston Guild Hall, in the name of wrestling, would often give us sporting events from around the globe.

Thus would we get such sights as hawk-flying from the Middle East, elephant polo from India, alpaca shearing from South America and a whole plethora of other events unlikely to ever be staged in our own back yards.

From America, we'd get the esteemed sports of  tree felling, fence painting  and suicidal recklessness. The suicidal recklessness usually involved men in outlandish clothing leaping over things.

Obviously, the most famous of these daredevils was Evel Knievel who mostly made it onto British television by nearly killing himself on what seemed like a regular basis.

But there was another man who strived to make a crust from dangerous stunts - and that man was the Human Fly.

To say the Human Fly was a man of mystery would be an understatement. I can only recall him ever appearing once on British TV and that was when he was standing on top of an airborne Jumbo Jet in order to prove a point whose purpose not altogether unevaded me.

Who was the Human Fly?

What was his true identity?

If World of Sport presenter Dickie Davies was to be believed, that was the greatest secret on the planet. One that could only be revealed if he was ever defeated in combat. Obviously, by that, I mean if the Human Fly was defeated in combat, not if Dickie Davies was defeated in combat. I happen to have faith that no man could defeat Dickie Davies in combat.

But. Oh. No. Hold on. I'm thinking of the wrong man. The being-defeated-in-combat thing was about Kendo Nagasaki, the enigmatic, master-of-the-martial-arts, wrestler from the Far East who, upon being unmasked, turned out to be a man called Peter from Stoke-on-Trent.

Nonetheless, the Human Fly's secret identity was seemingly just as guarded.

Given that we were allowed to know nothing about him, and that he seemed to have no powers other than standing on top of things, he seemed a strange candidate to get his own comic but, with the abandon that distinguished Marvel in the 1970s, he did indeed get his own mag. And, Reader, I had one issue of that book.

I think it was the one pictured at the start of this post but I'm not sure. So memorable was his mag that I can't even be sure which issue it was that I had. However, that bear looks familiar, so I'm guessing it's this one.

Sadly, I can find no panels from any issue of his comic online, apart from one of him lounging around playing a guitar - in full costume - so I can reveal nothing about his adventures or how Marvel managed to make a hero of him.

Sadly, and possibly predictably, the anthropomorphic insectoid's comic only lasted nineteen issues before being swatted flat by poor sales, which suggests the public at large failed to take to the strip. But, at least before he went, he had the honour of teaming up with Ghost Rider in one adventure.

Bafflingly, he doesn't seem to have ever teamed up with Spider-Man, despite the obviousness of such a move. Perhaps the fact that the webbed wall-crawler already had an enemy of that name who was famous for appearing in Hostess ads was deemed to be too potentially confusing for readers?

It does strike me that, in being cynical about his book, I'm being somewhat unfair to the man. For all I know, he may well be the greatest stunt man who ever lived and also a thoroughly marvellous human being. I just wish I could recall his comic well enough to pass judgement.