The Marvel Lucky Bag - July 1979.

Fear!

Fear!

FEAR!

It was everywhere you looked, in July of 1979.

If it wasn't in your cinema, it was on your TV.

That's because it was the month which saw the terror of The Amityville Horror unleashed in our picture houses, that tale of a nightmarish house, made all the more terrifying because everything that happened in the film was true. Or at least that's what we were told. And, surely, no one would lie to us about such a thing.

But our cinemas didn't just have to survive that horror because it was also the month in which they once more played host to the prince of darkness, as Dracula returned to them, this time portrayed by Frank Langella, the man who later played Skeletor in Masters of the Universe. You have to hand it to Frank, there aren't many people who've played both Dracula and Skeletor in one lifetime.

But, even on the small screen, there was no escape from dread because it was the month which saw the debut of Sapphire & Steel, that serialised saga of transuranic lightweight elements battling evil, thanks to David McCallum and Joanna Lumley. Who were they? Where did they come from? What was going on?

I've no idea but it kept us entertained for three years, so it must have been doing something right.

The Micronauts find themselves up against the swampy savagery of the Man-Thing and end up having to be saved by a child with more gumption than all of them put together.

Baron Karza, meanwhile, has plans to invade the Earth.

It's some sort of Lord of the Rings type thing that I know nothing of.

If they ever make a movie of it, they can put that on the poster; "'It's some sort of Lord of the Rings type thing that I know nothing of! Three Stars!' - Steve Does Comics."

Not to be outdone by Conan, Kull gets the big, fat magazine treatment.

I can still never remember which one's Thulsa Doom and which ones Thoth-Amon but, whichever is whichever, one of them's causing trouble this issue.

Tarzan gets captured by an evil carnival owner who intends to put him on display in New York City. Can our hero escape or will he have to be saved by Korak and/or Jane?

And what are the chances he ends up climbing the Empire State Building?

The Watcher asks, "What if four other people had become Nova, including a wheelchair-bound Peter Parker, a vengeance-obsessed woman, some bloke and a criminal?"

Those may not be the exact words the Watcher uses.

And, of course, the answer is it would have turned out unhappily for all of them.

Then again, the youth who did become Nova in our continuity had his comic cancelled after just two dozen issues, so perhaps we have to accept that being Nova has never done anyone any good in any world.

Speaking of Nova.

Marvel's clearly determined to keep him going, in the absence of his own comic, because, hot on the heels of his What If appearance, he's now teaming up with Spider-Man to tackle Doc Ock in a tale written for very young children deemed unable to handle too much tension in their lives.

And Nova's not the only one having to face up to the loss of a comic because, after just two years, Godzilla's book finally bites the dust, as the behemoth literally walks off into the sunset, after seeing off a joint attack by the Avengers, FF and SHIELD.

To be honest, two years is about eighteen months longer than I ever expected the venture to last.

Marvel Spotlight returns, and so does Captain Marvel.

I can pass no judgement on the contents of this comic because I don't know what they are.

I gather, though, from the internet, that various familiar faces, like Dax, Mentor and Eros, put in appearances.