The Marvel Lucky Bag - November 1968.

Last week, I survived Halloween. This week, I survived Guy Fawkes Night. Truly I  am on a roll beyond human imagination.

And you know who was on a roll in this month of fifty years ago?

Mary Hopkin, Joe Cocker and Hugo Montenegro because each of them claimed the Number One spot on the UK singles chart in that four week period, thanks to the tracks Those Were the Days, With a Little Help From My Friends and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

When it came to the album chart, the UK top spot that November belonged to just two LPs, Greatest Hits by the Hollies and The Sound of Music by the people from The Sound of Music.

Those were human beings who were sustaining a high profile at the time but what of the Marvel Comics publications that were of a noticeably lower profile? What were they up to in the mags that were just being removed from the news racks as that month began?

Captain Marvel fights Quasimodo in a story I think I may have read in an early issue of The Titans.

Beyond that, I remember little. Does it involve the good captain being attacked by a bunch of robots dressed as people from the 19th Century? Or was that a totally different story altogether?

According to the Grand Comics Database, our hero's battling someone called Lord Nekron who's struck a bargain with Satannish that he'll be gifted immortality, provided he finds a mystic to take his place within twelve months. I would assume that means the mystic he's got in mind is the doctor himself.

I've no memory of ever having read this tale but I feel confident in asserting that Lord Nekron's bound to be unrelated to the character Nekron who turned up in an issue of the JLA I once read.

It's a landmark issue, as the FF come up against Annihilus for the first time.

If I recall correctly, they have to enter the Negative Zone, in order to find a cure for the pregnant but unwell Sue, which leads to them needing to get their hands on Annihilus' Cosmic Control Rod.

Quite how they knew that a treatment for Sue could be found in the Negative Zone, I have no idea.

It's a momentous day, as Dane Whitman gets a run-out in what I assume is his first solo adventure.

But he's not the only one in action because the original Human Torch also gets a tale in this issue, as do the Sub-Mariner and the All-Winners Squad, giving us a massive 68 pages of action.

It's another classic Steranko cover, as Nick Fury gets space-bound, although Jim doesn't draw the comic's interior.

It would seem that an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and that it's all the fault of a group of mysterious people living in the Andes, who are up to no good with their force beam.

At last, Spider-Man learns what happened to his parents -  and it all turns out to be too glamorous and exciting for my liking, with the Red Skull and international espionage involved.

I do feel Peter Parker shouldn't have an exciting back story which incorporates parents who're secret agents. It does somewhat rob him of his down-to-Earth status.

Spider-Man's second 1960s title may have only lasted for two issues but, in its second outing, it did give us a classic tale, as the Green Goblin returns to cause no end of mischief for our hero.

It's a more nightmarish seeming Goblin than we'd seen before, one armed with strange, psychedelic drugs.

And if that weren't enough to get you buying the thing, how could any sane reader not love that cover?

It's a rare use of photos by John Buscema.

I don't have a clue what happens in this issue but it features Tiger Shark and someone called Paul Destine, whom, I suspect, may be out to become president.