The Marvel Lucky Bag - November 1978.

There are some people who you start to think are going to buck the trend of history and find a way to live forever.

Stan Lee was one of them.

But, sadly, even, "The Man," had to go eventually and that departure does provoke a genuine sense of loss.

Whatever the endless and ultimately unwinnable arguments about who did and didn't create what at Marvel, there's no doubt about one thing; Lee was the voice of Marvel. He was what gave the company a public persona that was hipper, cornier, deeper, more vibrant, human and dynamic than those of its rivals. And, in tying all those 1960s Marvel mags together, with his vision of what a super-hero should be - tormented by inner turmoil and cursed with feet of clay - he created a sense that all Marvel characters lived in the same universe and could bump into each other at any moment; and that you could bump into them too, if you ever happened to visit New York.

It was an approach that not only helped Marvel establish comic book industry dominance by the 1970s but also went on to give it cinematic dominance, decades later.

The truth is the comic book as an art form never had a better salesman. Even people who've never read a Marvel comic, and never will, know of Stan Lee and the heroes that he and artists like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko created.

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There's no doubt about it, Stan Lee and his collaborators created more successful comics than it's possible to shake a Skrull at but it's the second Tuesday of the month and that means it's time for me to take a look at what some of Marvel's less successful titles were doing in the issues cover-dated this month of forty years ago.

Hooray! The Black Panther's up against the Agents of Kiber!

No, I have to admit it, I don't have a clue who they are but they sort of look like evil counterparts to the astronauts in Jack Kirby's version of 2001, so they have both my interest and intrigue aroused.

The Invaders gets plenty of abuse on this site but it always seems to get included in this feature, whereas plenty of other titles don't.

I can't help feeling it's because it always had more intriguing covers than a lot of those other books could muster.

Apparently, in this one, the Destroyer becomes an honorary Invader and the gang head back to America to fight that pesky rapscallion Master Man.

But what on Earth is Union Jack's advertised new super-power? Only a month ago, he gained the powers of Thor. He must be getting fed up of acquiring new super-powers, at this rate.

I've no idea what happens in this one but I've not featured Machine Man in ages, so I thought I'd best include him.

It's what we've all been crying out for! Kiss get their very own Marvel comic!

Admittedly, I didn't cry out for it. The only reason I'd ever heard of Kiss in the 1970s was because of Marvel giving them their own comic. If their music ever got played on British radio, it totally bypassed me.

They did, of course, make more of a UK chart impact in the early to mid 1980s.

Not that they were likely to care too much about that. Judging by that cover, they were too busy having to deal with Ming the Merciless.

It's something of a surprise to me to discover that Marvel Treasury Editions were still going in late 1978. I always see them as a mid 1970s thing.

In this edition, Spidey teams up with the X-Men to tackle Morbius. I can't help feeling that's an awful lot of people to tackle just one vampire.

Elsewhere, Spidey and Werewolf by Night join forces to take on someone called Moondark who wants to take over San Francisco.

After that, Spidey and Ghost Rider team up to take on a foe who I think might be the Orb.

And, finally, Spidey and Iron Fist unite to tangle with Drom.

Was he the man who lived his life backwards? If so, it's the only one of these tales I've ever read, thanks to Iron Fist's adventures appearing in the pages of Marvel UK's Avengers mag.

The observant reader will, of course, have already realised that all of these tales are from Marvel Team-Up, meaning this is really a Marvel Team-Up Treasury Edition, even if Marvel's Powers-That-Be aren't admitting to it.

Red Sonja's comic may not have pulled up any trees and have been somewhat short-lived but you have to love a warrior woman.

You also have to love that cover by Frank Brunner.

It's more Kirby weirdness for the world's pinkest dinosaur.

According to Walt Simonson, this cover was the only time in his career that he ever got to ink the work of Jack Kirby.

Marvel gives us its take on Alice in Wonderland, a book that I still don't think I've ever read. Nor have I ever managed to sit all the way through any cinema or TV adaptations.