March 14th, 1979 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

At first I was afraid. I was petrified.

That's right, I'd just realised I have to write another blog post.

However, it seems I'm not the only one to know what it is to feel the cold grasp of terror in my heart because, in this week of 1979, Gloria Gaynor was feeling it too.

For, it was in that week that her iconic single I Will Survive climbed to the top of the UK singles chart, holding off Elvis Costello's Oliver's Army in the process.

The Number One album that week was Spirits Having Flown by the Bee Gees.

And there was good news for all fans of those acts because the 8th of that month saw Philips give the first public demonstration of a fancy new technology called the compact disc. I still remember how Tomorrow's World presenters would smear jam all over one, hit it with a hammer and then put it in the microwave to demonstrate its near-indestructibility.

Personally, I never dared do that with any of my compact discs, as I wasn't quite so convinced of their resilience.

Nor, given recent turmoil, was I convinced about the resilience of our favourite comics company.

Still, there was at least an easy way to find out how they were doing.

The nation celebrates as Marvel UK's best-selling mag returns after disappearing without trace last week.

What hasn't returned is my memory of its contents. As so often with this book, I've not the slightest clue what happens in this issue. I would assume that Warlock and The Micronauts are still the back-up strips and that there's still a Tales of the Watcher type twist-ender in there, as well.

There's nothing like having a great cover to encourage people to buy your comic.

Which makes it a mystery why this issue has one of the dullest covers I've ever seen in my life. Seriously, the logo, the drawing, the blurb at the top, the whole thing looks like the latest issue of a self-produced fanzine, rather than a major title from one of the world's great comics publishers.

When it comes to the contents, still very much following the formula of the TV show, Bruce Banner arrives in a new town, encounters a taxi driver called Jody and then rescues her, as the Hulk, when she gets trapped beneath the burning wreckage of her cab.

Hold on. Taxi driver? Jody? Is it mere coincidence or am I seeing some sort of tribute to a certain Martin Scorsese film?

Elsewhere in this issue, Nick Fury has to deal with a traitor in his midst.

We also get a Tharg's Future Shock type tale about a man arranging a meeting with aliens, in order to dominate mankind. Needless to say, it does not end well for him when they finally do show up.

Meanwhile, Ant-Man sets out to foil a group of communist agents who've burst into his lab but, instead, he ends up having to fight an ant. There aren't many super-hero strips where you have to use the phrase, "Has to fight an ant."

Night-Raven's dealing with some hoods by pretending to be a blind man.

Strangely, the issue finishes off with a second Hulk strip - and it's the Herb Trimpe drawn one where our hero goes to Canada and encounters the Mimic and the Beast. Whether this tale's there to appease fans of the real Hulk or whether it's meant to acclimatise new readers to the feel of the true Hulk comics, I've no idea. However, it had already been reprinted, several years earlier, in The Mighty World of Marvel, so its presence here probably annoyed me at the time.

Rargh! Take that, world! Godzilla's US comic may be mere months away from cancellation but that doesn't prevent the big green galoot replacing the Hulk as the star of Marvel UK's flagship title.

Beyond that, I can reveal nothing of the contents of this book.

And all I can reveal about this issue is that it features a team-up between Spider-Man and Moon Knight.

I would assume, therefore, that it's reprinting Spectacular Spider-Man #22, in which the dynamic duo find themselves up against a Maggia plot to bump off the nocturnal croissant flinger.