The Marvel Lucky Bag - October 1979.

It's time, once more, for me to fling open the doors and stride purposefully into my local cinema, striding down the aisle, down those steps, demanding a seat near the screen, and an ice lolly because I mean business.

That's because it's October 1979 and I've no doubt my local flea pit's filled with celluloid treasures the like of which we've never seen before.

Well, not really. To be honest, there were only two films released in that month that I've ever heard of. One of them was 10 and the other was Meteor. I have, to this day, never seen 10 but I did see Meteor in the ABC 2 cinema, an auditorium smaller than our living room. I must confess I remember the cinema better than I recall the movie.

But I'll tell you what I do remember...

...not one of the comics I'm about to take a glancing look at.

It's the news the world's been desperate to hear. Howard the Duck has a brand new comic - or even yet a magazine!

With a sizzling new book out, surely it can only be a matter of time before he too, like Meteor, conquers our cinemas.

I can offer few insights into the book's contents but I do know it only lasted for nine issues, so it possibly wasn't as great a success as Marvel might have hoped it'd be.

But hold on a minute! Not only can I see Meteor in the cinema but I can read it as well? Up until now, I'd been genuinely unaware Marvel had done an adaptation of it.

Apparently, Frank Miller provided the cover, while Gene Colan and Tom Palmer gave us the interior, so we can safely say it was guaranteed to not let us down when it came to visuals.

It turns out it wasn't just Kiss who got the Marvel treatment in the 1970s because the man who some of us suspect they owed almost everything to got one as well, as Alice Cooper found himself immortalised in print.

It would seem the art was provided by Charlton horror-meister Tom Sutton, which sounds like a good choice for such a book.

Apparently, Dr Octopus and the Hulk put in cameo appearances.

That ship may be sinking but so is Tarzan's Marvel career, as this is the last issue of his book. He can at least console himself that he did better than Howard the Duck's about to. The rivalry between Tarzan and Howard the Duck is, as we know, as old as the hills.

From what I can make out, Tarzan, Jane and their animal friends are on their way back to Africa, from New York, when a terrorist decides to blow up the ship they're on and they find themselves stranded in the middle of the ocean, in a lifeboat.

So, basically, it's like a more overcrowded version of Life of Pi.

Howard the Duck's not the only one getting a revival because the man who just won't lie down is also back.

I know little of the magazine's contents but I do know Gene Colan is once more let loose on the pencils.

Sadly, this book is doomed to survive for just six issues.

Hooray! John Carter gets his third annual. We can only assume this means Marvel have great plans for him.

Well, not really, as his regular mag's cancelled this month and this is his last annual.

In fairness, three annuals and twenty eight normal issues is a fair bit more than I would have expected him to have managed.

Anyway, our hero's in serious trouble when a bunch of female priests abduct him to sacrifice to their goddess.

Not to be outdone by his Edgar Rice Burroughs stablemate, Tarzan also gets a third annual coinciding with his final monthly appearance. His monthly mag has managed to last one issue longer than John Carter's, so that's something.

More to the point, "Ant-Men and She-Devils!" Wait! What! He's up against Ant-Man and Red Sonja? Now there's a storyline that would have made his book worth reading!