The Marvel Lucky Bag - October 1969.

Things were getting a bit saucy, this month in 1969 because barely had the month started than Creedence Clearwater Revival's Bad Moon Rising was dethroned from atop the UK singles chart and replaced by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg's Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus.

However, the pair had clearly peaked too quickly because, just one week later, they were deposed by Bobby Gentry's I'll Never Fall in Love Again, possibly the earliest Number One I can remember seeing on Top of the Pops.

But that too was soon dislodged, this time by the Archies' Sugar Sugar. It does seem odd that Britain should grant a Number One to a non-existent band from a comic the vast majority of the public must have never even heard of.

Clearly, there was no shortage of churn on the singles chart but things were nothing like that volatile on the album chart because the whole month was totally dominated by just one LP, the Beatles' Abbey Road, a platter so dominant that it's still at Number One on the UK album chart, even as I type these words.

Hold on, it's been at Number One for fifty years? What madness is this?

This is it! The big one! The one where Captain Marvel has to endure the fate reserved for all Marvel heroes and is compelled to adopt Rick Jones as a sidekick!

And, weirdly, he does it willingly.

It's a tale of caves, glowing figures on wind-swept moors and alien technology in abandoned caves.

Actually, it sounds quite good when I put it like that.

Hot on the heels of the launch of last month's Tower of Shadows, Marvel produces a remarkably similar comic that's also designed to chill our bones and tingle our spines.

A somewhat odd tale in which Mephisto hires a villain to do his fighting for him - and then spends the entire fight attempting to join in while trying to pretend he's not there.

I don't have a clue why Mephisto bothered recruiting the Ghost in the first place, nor why he tries to keep his presence a secret from the Surfer.

Anyway, needless to say, the Diabolical troublemaker doesn't get what he wants.

But why on Earth is the Surfer shooting the platform, on that cover and just how is the Ghost managing to miss his target, from all of two feet away?

Aliens try to steal the Earth's water but they haven't counted on the power of Namor and Triton to mess things up for them.

Still, the bad guys get their revenge when they remove Subby's ability to breathe in water.

Hot on the heels of the launch of last month's My Love, Marvel produces a virtually identical comic in which young women who look like Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacy get to sob their way through yet more tales of self-inflicted woe and heartbreak.