Amongst the other records on that week's chart, we could find I Remember Elvis Presley by Danny Mirror at Number Eight. I do have to say that being able to remember Elvis Presley less than two months after his death was hardly a major feat, so why he felt the need to boast about it to the whole world is anyone's guess.
Well, we might all remember Elvis Presley but do we remember the contents of the Marvel UK mags that were hitting our doormats that week?
There's only one way to find out.
Hooray! The Spider-Slayer's back!
Said no one ever.
Wasn't this one in the habit of falling over on ice and getting crushed by statues? Poor old JJJ, when will he ever learn?
Interesting to see that our hero refers to it as the, "Spider-Killer," in this image. I wonder if that's because there's also mention of the Slay-Master, and the editor didn't want to overuse the word, "Slay," on one cover?
From what I can remember, the Slay-Master was a Bullseye type character with a silly car that would have made it impossible for him to go for a drive without instantly being spotted and arrested. Generally speaking, if you're an assassin, it's best not to draw attention to yourself.
Elsewhere, the FF are still up against Omega, despite having their own comic, while the Avengers are still battling against Zodiac, even though Zodiac shouldn't have been able to last more than five minutes against the Avengers.
Speaking of the FF, in the main story, they're now facing the deadly danger of the Dragon Man, while the back-up strip reprints their first ever meeting with the Mole Man.
But who cares about that when there's a free Boeing Clipper model to be had?
This is the second consecutive issue to give away a toy Boeing plane. Did Marvel have some sort of promotional deal with the company, or something?
The Hulk's finally stopped his post-Jarella rampage and is up against the Absorbing Man, a villain who should always beat the Hulk but, thanks to his total lack of smarts, still manages to lose to him every time.
That's right. The Absorbing Man isn't smart enough to beat the Hulk. Let's all just imagine how stupid a man has to be for that to be the case.
This maybe the first week since starting to follow your fine blog that I actually remember having more than one of the issues. Both the Spider-Man and MWOM covers are fixed in my mind and I even vaguely recall the stories inside. My continued lack of any memory of TCFF is baffling.
ReplyDeleteJJJ's Spider-Slayers always seemed a daft concept though as a prescient warning about the power of media moguls run amok I think they are worthy of reassessment. I could totally picture Rupert Murdoch in a Spider-Slayer.
I had the Spidey and MWOM issues. My memories of the Spidey issue are pretty strong. The only part of the Hulk tale I recollect is the ending.
ReplyDeleteAs for the thought of Rupert Murdoch in a spider-slayer, some things just don't bear thinking about.
I don't recall the Complete FF cover at all but I definitely had it.
ReplyDeleteYes, Silver Lady was much better than Don't Give Up On Us !
I'd love to see Jeremy Corbyn as a Spider-Slayer stamping on Rupert Murdoch's head :)
I think the important thing about this blog is that it's produced a definitive answer to the age-old question of what was David Soul's best single.
ReplyDeleteSteve - I feel for you regarding the airplane promo in the FF book. In 1971-1972ish, as a wee lad of 11, I too had to suffer through Marvel having a 4-page insert promoting lingerie. There I was reading Cap and Falcon 140ish and "boom" there is the full-color, 4-page insert.
ReplyDeleteI managed to rise to the occasion and read each page diligently.
Did you UKers have to suffer through that too? (I may have asked before.)
A colour lingerie insert? We wish. We had to trawl the local woods for abandoned copies of Playboy and Mayfair.
ReplyDeleteI'm telling you... I don't know what the heck Marvel was thinking with Lingerie adds for pre-pubescent boys, lol. Nor do I know what the heck the advertisers were thinking? I have to assume the heads of marketing, on both ends, were smokin too much weed or two bricks short of a load.
ReplyDeleteCharlie, I can confidently say I never saw a lingerie advert in a comic. All the ads in British comics seemed to be for Meccano sets and Dinky toys.
ReplyDeleteI heard somewhere that the "Silver Lady" in the song is actually the Virgin Mary - really ?!?!
ReplyDeleteSteve, don't forget the ads for Charles Atlas - why did Marvel UK think 9 year-old boys wanted to be body-builders ?
Colin, I think I might have been the person who claimed it's about the Virgin Mary, in a previous post on this site. I think I had the idea in my head that it's about someone who turned his back on the path of, "Righteousness," and subsequently hit rock bottom. He's now seen the error of his ways and is asking the forgiveness of God via a statue/figurine of the Virgin Mary that he's encountered somewhere. Granted, I have no evidence at all to back this theory up and have never listened to the words closely enough to know if they confirm this idea.
ReplyDeleteGents - I did a little googling and it says the lingerie inserts were for the Marvels comics sold to US Soldiers overseas. Diamond rings were also part of the advert, which I do recall
ReplyDelete(I recall thinking, "The heck with the dopey-ass diamond rings, more lingerie!" What the heck can a 10-year-old do with a diamond ring advert???)
I am curious how these adverts then ended up in Marvel comics here in the USA if the original target was US Forces overseas.
Good Lord, it's hard to imagine there were 1,000,000 Americans (soldiers and family members) living in Germany during the Cold War. Anyone know how many UK were in the north of West Germany?
I once had two copies of Amazing Spider-Man #126. One of them had a four-page card insert advertising diamond rings and the other one didn't. Your explanation would explain the disparity.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can make out, from the mid 1960s to the mid 1990s, there were around 53,000 British service personnel in Germany, reduced from the numbers who were there between the mid 1940s to the mid 1960s. How many family members were also there, I have no idea.
American comics also had the ads for Charles Atlas and other body-building courses, as well as karate and other martial arts training. I assumed at the time that they thought comic book readers were nerdy kids who were targets for bullying.
ReplyDeleteI've also heard, though, that comic book companies were usually owned by parent companies that published other kinds of magazines, too. Advertisers would buy X amount of space, and the ads would get tossed in with litte rhyme or reason for which ones went where. So the comics got some spill-over from the sports magazines, teenagers' fan magazines, etc.
I don't remember Silver Lady, but I don't doubt that it is David Soul's best song. "Don't Give Up On Us, Baby" did not set the bar very high.
For what it's worth... my good friend, when we were around 14, bought the Charles Atlas program. I did it with him for a while (Rocky 1 had just been released). I assure you it worked, if you stuck with it. That's a big "if!"
ReplyDeleteI remember one workout where my arms were so dead I could not raise them to turn on the shower faucets, lol.