May 7th, 1980 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

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

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Grab on to your Filofaxes and head on down to the nearest stock exchange because this month in 1980 saw the first-ever recorded use of the word Yuppie.

It would appear it turned up in an article by Chicago-based journalist Dan Rottenberg, titled About that Urban Renaissance.

Far from the world of yuppies, and in the very heartland of British working-class culture, that same month saw Liverpool football club win the domestic league for the 12th time.

In London, mere days later, the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy, killing five of the six terrorists who'd taken the inhabitants hostage. This was an event so big that I'm fairly certain the BBC interrupted their broadcast of the snooker to show live coverage of it.

When it's the 1980s and even snooker gets interrupted, you know it's huge.

As the boast at the top of the cover tells us, this comic has mere days to go before it merges with Marvel's other super-hero themed book. But, for the time being, Spidey's got better things to worry about - such as the return of Michael Morbius.

I do believe this is the one which begins with the living vampire attacking a group of teenagers on bicycles.

I can't imagine Dracula attacking cyclists.

That Morbius, he has no dignity.

I can confirm that, despite what the cover may imply, Mike hasn't suddenly grown to be the size of King Kong.

Our heroes are still being menaced by that big red monster.

However, thanks to Leia attacking the mechanisms which control it, and Luke getting handy with his lightsabre, the fiend's quickly dispatched and the siblings are free to return to their space adventuring.

Meanwhile, in a galaxy not so far away and not so long ago, Man-Wolf's fighting a man who's on a quest to find the Weirdstone, whatever that might be.

Even more meanwhile, Deathlok finds his mind's now inhabiting the clone of his original body and that his worries seem to be over.

I get a feeling that they're not.

Now we're in trouble. The Doctor would appear to have turned into a werewolf!

Complete with a scarf!

I can only assume this is occurring in the tale known as The Dogs of Doom, mostly because that's what it says on the cover.

After that, there's a text article about the show's special effects. No doubt, it'll be looking at how the producers manage to source so many egg cartons, milk bottles and rolls of tin foil every week.

We get a tale titled The Man in the Mummy Case created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Given that creative team, I would assume it's not a Doctor Who adventure.

We also get a text story called The Sands of Time.

And, finally, we get more of the Abslom Daak outing The Star Tigers.

The Avengers are called in when a huge orbiting spaceship threatens SHIELD's HQ.

This leads to a clash between the world's mightiest super-team and the Guardians of the Galaxy. How many pages of fighting will they get through before they realise they're on the same side?

Elsewhere, the X-Men find themselves up against the bluster of Blastaar.

I do believe the artist on it is Barry Smith in his very earliest days at Marvel.

In The Champions, someone called Edward Lansing's out to enslave the whole world, including our heroes!

Most intriguingly of all, the issue departs with a feature about the Marvel characters of the Golden Age.

For those who don't find Star Wars Weekly enough to satiate their need for sci-fi, the Star Heroes pocket book gives us a dose of Battlestar Galactica and the Micronauts.

I suspect I'd find the Micronauts tale, whatever it is, to be the more interesting of the pair.

I don't know much about this month's contents but I believe they're a product of Chris Claremont and Don Heck and are reprinted from Giant-Size Dracula #3.

How ironic that a tale intended for a giant-size comic should end up in a pocket book.

As the cover informs us, the Fantastic Four find themselves battling the Inhumans and pondering just who these strange people are.

But that's not all. We also get a 1950s Marvel Boy tale and a Keith Pollard pin-up of the Frightful Four.

I may know plenty about what happens in the FF pocket book but I don't have a Scooby what occurs in this one.

I know the book's often in the habit of giving us Marvel Team-Up reprints but can neither confirm nor deny that it's doing so again.

Hooray! The Savage Sword of Conan's still bravely seeing off all challengers to its crown of, "Britain's Number 1 Sword and Sorcery magazine!"

And no wonder, as it gives us Marvel's adaptation of A Witch Shall Be Born, complete with legendary crucifixion!

In other news, I don't have a clue who Marok the Mighty is.

We get yet more coverage of The Black Hole, whether we want it or not and, it seems, yet more talk of Battlestar Galactica.

Not content with giving us BBC special effects enlightenment in Doctor Who Weekly, Marvel UK also gives us an interview with Mat Irvine who, famously, was the man behind the effects on the show.

Perhaps most intriguingly, we're given an article dedicated to the films of Jules Verne, which threatens to be quite thrilling for us and will, no doubt, include a photo of James Mason battling a giant squid.

Frantic gives us its take on Alien.

And, also, The Martian Chronicles, for the handful of people who remember that show.

My main memory of the series is that someone in it got poisoned to death by a Martian cheesecake.

The things that stick in your mind after 40 years...

The Hulk's still determined to return Jarella's corpse to her own world.

And now he's got Captain Marvel on his side!

I'm genuinely blank on what happens in the main Hulk tale.

And I'm not really sure what happens in the X-Men one either.

I am sure, though, that it reprints whichever story comes after the New X-Men's first encounter with Magneto.

Dr Strange, meanwhile, finds himself up against the menace of Wormworld.

I really have no idea what that is.

I feel I have failed in my summary of this issue.

On the other hand, I've just summarised the contents of thirteen comics and am, therefore, awarding myself a No-Prize.

Next month, I have to do fourteen.