July 25th, 1979 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

This week in 1979 was a grim one indeed for readers who'd been with Marvel UK since the venture's launch, because it saw the demise of not one but two of its stalwart titles.

Which were those titles?

We'll find out in a moment but what else was going on around that time?

The Boomtown Rats were going on around that time. Their single I Don't Like Mondays hit the UK's Number One spot, giving them their second and final British Number One, with Bob Geldof's take on that year's Grover Cleveland Elementary School shooting.

Elsewhere, just a week after Chicago's Disco Demolition Night, the dance-orientated genre fought back by claiming the Number One spot on the UK album chart, thanks to The Best Disco Album in the World. Not only that but the art form hit its commercial peak in America by claiming the top six spots on that week's Billboard singles chart. Clearly, Disco was going to be around forever.

Unlike two particular comics.

One of those comics was not Star Wars Weekly. After all, nothing with the words, "Star Wars," on it was going to fail at that time and, so, Marvel UK's one remaining glossy-covered weekly carries right on, without a care in the world.

I haven't the slightest idea what happens in this issue, other than that Banthas are involved but I do note the Guardians of the Galaxy are back, presumably at the expense of the Micronauts.

From memory, I'm assuming we're launching into the Starhawk saga, as I remember reading it in the pages of Star Wars Weekly.

I could, of course, be totally wrong about that.

It's the start of the Sal Buscema drawn tale in which our favourite Gamma victim comes up against a whole host of Silver Age monsters conjured up by Xemnu.

Elsewhere, it's all gone mad, as Ant-Man turns Janet van Dyne into the Wasp, in order to avenge the murder of her father by a being from another world.

There is, of course, nothing abnormal about having a formula for turning people into human wasps in your lab and a wasp costume in your wardrobe, just in case a replica of your dead wife might turn up and need it.

It's bad news for all patriots, as the ever-useless Captain Britain's killed by a reanimated corpse posing as Death.

Meanwhile, the Reject's having a fight to the finish with Karkas and any other Deviant who gets in his way.

Nick Fury's on hallucinogens and the Watcher's still asking, "What if Rick Jones had become the Hulk, Daddy-O?"

But this is it, the end of an era. After nearly seven years, Marvel UK's flagship title - the one that launched the company on its way - kicks the bucket.

It'll be back later but, for now, it's as dead as a dodo.

As for the contents, I do believe DD's about to come up against Copperhead, while, the X-Men have been captured by Magneto in the tale in which the Angel first encounters Red Raven.

How ironic that the last issue of what was once Mighty World of Marvel should reprint one of the very first Marvel stories I ever read.

And it's the last issue of Marvel UK's second oldest book, despite it being billed as, "Britain's No. 1 Superhero Comic!" It doesn't suggest a very rosy future for the others if the Number One can't even survive.

Granted, it's not really doomed. It's just about to be relaunched under a different title, which isn't the first time it's been on the receiving end of such a fate.

Anyway, after what's seemed like an eternity, Spidey and Daredevil finally get to beat the Masked Marauder and his plan to terrorise New York City with his big metal bird.

But, judging by that cover, it looks like our hero now has even bigger things to worry about.