March 12th, 1980 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

BBC Two is an oft-ignored channel, having traditionally been the home of intellectuals and those who like cooking but there's no denying that on this night in 1980 it was the place to be.

Not only did we get Michael Woods setting off In Search of Arthur, we got another episode of Flash Gordon, in which Flash rescues King Vultan, even as Princess Aura sets out to capture Dale.

As if that wasn't enough, the station's arts documentary series Arena was giving us Rudies Come Back or The Rise and Rise of 2-Tone, as Adrian Thrills investigated the then-current chart success of Ska music and the tiny record label that lay behind it all.

But it wasn't only music lovers in Britain who had something to get excited about because, behind the Iron Curtain, things were also stirring.

Only two days previously, the Soviet Union had launched its first-ever Rock festival, in Tbilisi, Georgia. The event lasted from March 8th to March 16th and is often considered a turning point in the history of Soviet and Russian culture.

Speaking of music, back in the UK, while the Shadows held dominion over the LP chart, with their covers album A String of Hits, the singles chart found Fern Kinney supreme with Together We Are Beautiful, a song I still can't sing without it turning into Janet Kay's Silly Games.

I bet you can't wait for me to tell you what happens in this week's pulse-pounding issue.

Neither can I.

Which makes it all the more galling that I don't have a clue what happens in it.

Obviously, the Star Wars gang's present and my keen senses tell me we're also getting the origin of Star-Lord.

From memory, I can't recall whether that origin bears any resemblance to the one in the movies, so I shall choose not to comment upon it.

Just to prove my Star Wars ignorance wasn't a fluke, I can proudly announce that I know even less of what goes on in this book.

I do know Spidey's up against Doc Ock but that's all I know.

Hooray! I've found a comic of whose contents I'm not totally ignorant.

It looks like we've got the finale to the Fourth Doctor strip The Space Beast in which our hero finds a way to render harmless the bomb that's been implanted in his stomach.

He does this by wrapping the lead from a woman's roof around himself, in order to block off the detonation signal.

And that kind of improvisational thinking is why he's the greatest hero in the universe.

We also get an adaptation of The First Men in the Moon as scripted by Don McGregor.

It would appear there's also a text adaptation of the William Hartnell story The Time Meddler which famously featured the first appearance of a TARDIS other than that owned by the Doctor.

And, to wrap it all up, we get more from The Twilight of the Silurians.

It's a strange cover which highlights this week's Black Knight tale, rather than one featuring the book's actual star - and doesn't even include the Knight anyway, meaning he has to be added as a near-afterthought.

As for the insides, the Fantastic Four finally get to have their first-ever encounter with the Hulk who proceeds to flatten them.

In a more modern tale, set in Canada, Sasquatch is preparing to confront the Hulk.

Back in the USA, an amnesiac Beast's hanging around with Unus, the Blob and Mastermind who are tricking him into robbing the house of someone wealthy.

Higher up, the Silver Surfer's flown into the future, in order to thwart Galactus' Space Barrier.

And the Defenders are enduring their 85th consecutive week of trying to rescue Jack Norriss from Scorpio.