December 6th, 1978 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

If 1978 belonged to anyone, it had to be Boney M.

Not content with Rivers of Babylon/Brown Girl in the Ring and Rasputin having been monstrous great big hits that year, they had the Christmas Number One spot all wrapped up by the first week of December when they captured it with Mary's Boy Child, giving them their second platinum-selling single of the year and meaning we'll have to endure them in shopping centres every Yuletide until we die.

They weren't cool, they weren't credible, they didn't necessarily sing on their own records but how could you not love them?

And there was something else you couldn't fail to love.

That was the contents of the products of our favourite comics company.

Admittedly, I say that but they might have been rubbish.

Here's where we find out.

For once, I know heaps about what happened in an issue of Star Wars Weekly.

Granted, I don't know that much about the main tale but I do know the reappearance of Obi-Wan Kenobi is down to someone telling Luke Skywalker an anecdote about an adventure the beardy sword-swinger had back when he was still alive.

Meanwhile, The UFO Connection's still running. For reasons I can't recall, our hero and his daughter are trying to get to the Great Pyramid in Giza - but the aliens are determined to stop them.

Our hero solves this problem by running them over with his jeep.

They might be super-intelligent aliens but they're clearly not smart enough to not to stand in the way of a speeding car.

There's also a story about someone called Karl Linders, which seems to be in the Flash Gordon envelope. I've no idea what it's about, as I possess no recall of it but the art looks to be the handiwork of that distinctly un-Marvel-like penciller Gray Morrow.

We also get An Illustrated History of Science Fiction Movies; Part One of which features, "The Damsels." Despite having no memory of that feature, I shall predict that it includes mentions of Maria from Metropolis and also Princess Leia.

Mere weeks after I wrote of Moonstone being in the Hulk's US mag, we get the tale reprinted in Mighty World of Marvel.

Elsewhere, Iron Man's up against the Night Phantom who I believe is a robot, while the Fantastic Four are discovering the Eliminator and friends have abducted Agatha Harkness and her youthful charge.

Daredevil, meanwhile, is out to prevent the Silver Samurai abducting Shanna the She-Devil but, instead, gets clobbered by Nekra.

Spidey's still up against the Iceman (who's still under the control of some villain or other) and is trying to shock him back to normal with the aid of a car wash.

For some reason, the Avengers are up against a huge horde of people, and the Squadron Supreme have turned against their own government.

Captain America and the Falcon are trying to prevent the Grey Gargoyle doing whatever it is he's trying to do with Element X, while Galactus releases Firelord from his service and, at Thor's suggestion, adopts the Destroyer as his new herald.

My knowledge of the contents of this month's issue extends no further than what is mentioned on the cover but I do know that's a Neal Adams illustration they're tempting us with.

The Hulk is in Atlantis and up against the Sub-Mariner in what I assume to be his first ever encounter with the merman monarch.

Nova teams up with Nick Fury to battle the Yellow Claw, while the Defenders are up against Nebulon and his army of bozos.

What's this? Superman? On the cover of a Marvel mag? Has the world succumbed to madness?