The Marvel Lucky Bag - April 1980.

People who've followed this site for many years and paid especially close attention will know that an occasional commenter on it has been a man in the habit of calling himself just, "Aggy." He hasn't been a regular contributor but has made his presence known, from time to time.

He has, though, been far more active on Twitter, as Andrew@ataccounting and has engaged on a regular basis with myself and other writers and bloggers there.

This morning, it suddenly dawned on me that I'd not heard from him in a while. Knowing of his long-term health issues, and with the coronavirus on the loose, I had a check to see if I could find any news of him.

It was then that I discovered he died last November, just a day or two after his final tweets. This is genuinely saddening, as he always came across as a decent man of impressive reasonableness, compassion and good humour, always ready to argue against unfairness, injustice, and corruption among the powerful and always happy to promote the work of writers and artists who might need a retweet or two.

He was, of course, also a comics fan and I didn't want his passing to go unmarked on here.

A Frank Frazetta cover heralds the arrival of a new era in Marvel Comics.

I believe Epic Illustrated was the first venture Marvel published which allowed creators to retain their rights to the stories and get royalties.

Rights? Royalties? Whatever would they think of next?

Any road, this thing would appear to have had a million pages and a million stories.

Among the ones which seem most notable are an eight-page Silver Surfer story, a similar length Elfquest one and a Jim Starlin tale called Za!

Apparently, it is the debut of Za.

I don't have a clue who Za is.

And I don't know if he's related to Zo.

If this doesn't get people excited about the Micronauts, nothing will, as the tiny titans come up against the deadly power of Psycho-Man.

How could anyone not love Psycho-Man?

Granted, the Micronauts probably don't love him but that's only because his box of tricks doesn't have a button for that particular emotion.

Excitement hits max overdrive, as the world's greatest comics company gives us its official adaptation of the second Star Wars film.

I wish I could comment on the quality of that adaptation but, even though I've read it, I genuinely don't remember anything about it, not even who drew it.

Was it another job for Howard Chaykin, as the first one had been?

Not content with flinging Star Wars at us, the company gives us that other great 1980 movie with, "Star," in the title.

It all means it's a chance for us to thrill, once more, to the world's slowest adventure movie.

Rick Jones is obviously the glue that holds the Marvel universe together but it looks like he's come a bit unstuck here as the Avengers have to win the Kree/Skrull War without him.

Not only that but, even worse, the world will have to survive without his subsequent singing career!

It's great news for all Star Wars fans because not only does Marvel give us an adaptation of the Empire Strikes Back, this month, it also gives us...

...two adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back, this month.

You have to hand it to Marvel, there aren't many companies would think to publish two adaptations of the same movie in the same month.

In fact, it would appear to be exactly the same adaptation published in two different comics.

I'm sure it made sense to Marvel.