March 26th, 1980 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

For any lover of great music, perhaps the biggest tragedy of the Coronavirus pandemic has been the cancellation of this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Obviously, as a disaster, the cancellation of Eurovision is only a slightly lesser catastrophe for music than the contest actually going ahead.

But there were no such concerns on this night of four decades ago. Preparations for that year's competition were progressing strongly, with BBC One broadcasting A Song for Europe in which the UK's entry was chosen.

We all know Eurovision 1980 itself was won by Ireland's Johnny Logan, launching a trend for the Republic to win so often that they ended up deliberately trying to lose it by entering a glove puppet but that doesn't mean Britain's entry was overshadowed.

No, because the nation had a cunning plan.

And that was to wow judges and voters alike with Love Enough For Two by Prima Donna, a band made up of Kate Robbins, Jane Robbins, Sally Ann Triplett, Danny Finn, Alan Coates and Lance Aston.

They were definitely a band with a pedigree.

Lance was brother to Bucks Fizz's Jay Aston, Danny was a former member of the New Seekers, and Kate Robbins was Paul McCartney's cousin.

As Jane Robbins was Kate's sister, I assume she was also Paul McCartney's cousin.

Sally Ann Triplett was, of course, two years later, a member of Bardo who represented Britain in Europe, with their song One Step Further which bore a noticeable and suspicious resemblance to Manfred Mann's cover of Blinded by the Light.

It's hard to believe anything in any comic could stand comparison to drama on that scale.

But let's see if it does!

Spider-Man's on a boat and up against a man who's in a bad mood because he's lost one of his mechanical tentacles.

Meanwhile, the Sphinx now disposed of, Reed Richards sees-off the threat of Galactus by pretending to have built his own Ultimate Nullifier.

Galactus believes him and recedes quickly into Outer Space, thanks to the Watcher's assistance in the deception.

It's always good to see Uatu rigorously sticking to his vow of non-intervention.

That is the most impassive-looking bunch of floating heads I've ever seen on the front of a comic.

Then again, perhaps they're merely looking unimpressed by my total lack of knowledge of what's happening inside it.

The Fourth Doctor's still dealing with whatever problems it is the Star Beast is causing.

You can win a poster by colourising a black and white picture of the first four Doctors.

We take a look at various robots the Doctor has had to thwart.

We get more of Marvel's adaptation of First Men in the Moon.

And we're treated to a text adaptation of the First Doctor's tale Galaxy Four.

It's the question we've all asked since the early days of Marvel; "Who'd win a fight between the Mandarin's pointless robot copy of the Hulk and Iron Man?"

And now, at last, we're going to get the answer, as those two comic book titans clash.

No, I'm not totally sure why Mandy has a robot copy of the Hulk but he does - and he's unleashed it from its crate.

Come to think of it, I wonder who'd win a fight between it and the robot Hulk from The Eternals?

Then again, didn't the Thinker build a robot Hulk in Fantastic Four #100?

And Dr Doom built one in Incredible Hulk #143.

What is it with super-villains and robot Hulks?

Elsewhere, the Surfer's still in the future and self-pityingly gunning for the man who wrecked the universe.

The Beast's single-handedly foiling the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

And a whole nation celebrates as the Defenders have finally succeeded in rescuing Jack Norriss from Scorpio!

When I say, "Rescued," I mean Scorpio's killed himself in a fit of depression, leaving Jack free to leave of his own volition.

I'm not sure what the Black Knight's up to but I'm sure it's thrilling.

And I think the real Hulk's in the process of beating-up Sasquatch.

But this is it! As predicted by Sean in the comments section, mere days ago, the launch of a brand new comic!

Admittedly, the Chiller pocket book didn't necessarily come out this week but it did come out this month.

And it heralds the imminent arrival of a whole slew of similar books Marvel UK will launch in this period, and which are almost as hard to put a date on as anything published by Alan Class.

But what's in it?

Some very very late Tomb of Dracula action featuring the Domini/Janus storyline, and also a Satana tale, written by Chris Claremont, that's reprinted from Marvel Premiere #27.