The Marvel Lucky Bag - August 1978.

A mere two days ago, the comments section of this very site was abuzz with talk of whether Marvel's major comics were running out of steam by the late 1970s.

Fortunately, by that point, the company was so huge that we didn't only have to rely on its major titles, because it was now publishing just under fifty books a month.

So, that in mind, let's take a look at what some of the more attention-grabbing of its less high-profile titles were up to and see which, if any, were displaying the sort of vitality that would get us snatching them from the spinner racks.

With one mighty bound, The Rampaging Hulk becomes simply The Hulk! compete with exclamation mark!

Sadly, this means that no more will we get to see the machinations of the Krylorians, and a whole new direction will unfurl before us.

Not only do we get the arrival of colour but I do believe the switch means that, from now on, the stories will more closely resemble the formula of the TV show, with the Hulk showing up in random places and assisting random people, via the power of his helpful Hulkiness.

If there's a storytelling form that's not suited to telling tales about music, it's comics, thanks to their total lack of sound.

Needless to say, that didn't stop Marvel from giving us its take on the Beatles' career, as drawn by George Perez.

This is a comic I'd genuinely love to have read, if only to see how it dealt with the Yoko era, which we all secretly know may be infuriating but is easily the most fascinating of the Fab Four's career.

I don't know if Paladin was popular in his appearances in Daredevil but Marvel clearly thought he had potential, because it gave him an issue of Marvel Premiere to fool around in.

Looking at the cover, I am getting a strong Punisher vibe.

This is it! Surely this month's most celebrated tale, as we get the debut of Thordis!

I have read this tale but it was so long ago that I can't recall how it ends.

But this is What If, so I'm assuming she dies at the climax because every issue of What If I've ever read seems to have had an unhappy ending and the implication that we're lucky that things turned out the way they did in the real Marvel Universe because it would all have gone badly if they hadn't.

Then again, I could be misremembering and they could all have had happy endings.

There's long been a battle between Sheffield and Nottingham over ownership of Britain's most popular ever criminal. Was he from Loxley in Sheffield? Was he from Nottingham in Nottingham? Was he from both? Was he from somewhere else?

Frankly, we'll probably never know because he probably never existed. However, Robin Hood is so epic that even not existing doesn't stop him getting his own Marvel Comics adaptation.

I would assume this is another comic with a less than happy outcome for the protagonist.

Speaking of doomed protagonists, this is the last ever issue of Marvel's Man From Atlantis. I don't remember if the TV show was a commercial success but the comic clearly wasn't, folding after just seven issues.

Still, at least he got a nice dramatic cover for his final appearance. You do have to suspect that the impossibility for Marvel to connect him to their wider universe - like they did with Conan, the Micronauts and others - can't have helped his cause.

Then again, maybe people just didn't like the TV show.

The Invaders tangle with Frankenstein's Monster in a tale drawn by Chic Stone. I'm not sure if I've ever read a comic pencilled by Chic Stone. I'm more used to him as an inker.

But is this the same Frankenstein's Monster as the one who had his own Marvel strip in the 1970s? Is it the robot one who showed up in that 1960s Silver Age issue of The X-Men? Is it a totally different Frankenstein's Monster? And just how many Frankenstein's Monsters are there in the Marvel Universe?