Fifty years ago this month - May 1970.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.

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The World Cup has been staged in Mexico twice. Once in 1986 and once in 1970.

Needless to say, I still haven't got over Diego Maradona's handled goal against England in the 1986 version but, in May 1970, that was all 16 years in the future and, so, people weren't devoting as much thought to it as they could have.

Instead, they were concerned with the 1970 opening ceremony which was in the process of occurring before their very eyes.

England were, of course, in that competition and marked their qualification by releasing the single Back Home, which is where they ended up being after their quarter-final tie with West Germany.

And, speaking of back home, in that very kingdom, the Beatles may have been dead but they were refusing to lie down, thanks to the release of their penultimate album Let it Be which came out several months after their ultimate one Abbey Road. It would be nice to say Let it Be was a magnificent send-off but the album was massively flawed and definitely one for those who didn't care how they got the Beatles, just as long as they got them.

But if the Fab Four's fans were feeling all at sea, they weren't the only ones because, also that month, Thor Heyerdahl set sail from Morocco, on the papyrus boat Ra II, in an attempt to sail across the Atlantic.

I don't know what Thor was thinking of. Crossing the Atlantic like that must have taken forever. He should have used a faster form of travel.

For instance, the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 which bore a suspicious resemblance to Concorde and, that May, became the first commercial aircraft to exceed Mach 2.

That's a very striking cover by Marie Severin.

Is this the one in which Cap goes to Asia to rescue an American soldier who's been captured by, "The Enemy?"

If it is, I predict, "The surprise villain of the year," will be the not-at-all surprising Mandarin, as who else would it be in a Marvel tale set in Asia?

Daredevil's in Los Angeles, on the hunt for Karen Page but, for reasons I can't recall, ends up battling the Stunt-Master.

As Karen went off to California, in search of movie stardom and the Stunt-Master has a history of working in movies, I'm going to assume these two biographical facts are, in some way, intertwined.

It's a story to rock the heavens themselves, as the Fantastic Four make sure Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to set foot on the moon, even though the FF have already been there at least twice.

And, also, the Andromeda galaxy.

And Planet X.

Have any other Marvel heroes been to the moon at this point? I can't think of any who have but I could be mistaken.

I believe the cover's mystery villain is a Kree Sentinel and that, despite everything the image implies, the FF remain on Earth for the whole of this tale.

Hooray! It's one of my Hulk faves, as the gamma-powered grappler finds himself facing Tyrannus' lackey Mogol and ends up embroiled in a war between Marvel's two most high-profile denizens of the underworld.

And I don't mean Pluto and Mephisto.

Nor Kala and the Lava Men.

Wait. Hold on. Didn't the Hulk go to the moon in one of his early tales, in order to retrieve a magic intelligence-expanding fishbowl for the Leader?

That's now six humans in the Marvel universe who went to the moon before Neil and Buzz.

Is this the one in which one of Tony Stark's factories is polluting the air above a small island, and Subby decides to do something about it, bringing him into conflict with Shellhead?

Spidey's hot on the heels of the Schemer!

And that brings him into conflict with the Kingpin!

Meanwhile, the Kingpin's wife seems a little too concerned for the welfare of the Schemer for Kingy's liking.

I am confident Spider-Man never went to the moon before Armstrong and Aldrin.

I genuinely don't have a clue what happens in this one.

I gather Surtur's in it.

What he's up to, I really couldn't say.

I guarantee it's malevolent, though.

Arkon's on Earth - and out to do something to save his own world which will doom our world.

What that thing is, I don't recall but I'm sure it's going to take the combined power of the Avengers to stop him.

I also have the feeling he wants to marry the Scarlet Witch.