Forty years ago today - July 1980.

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

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It would appear that today is Flying Ant Day.

I have seen no flying ants.

I can only assume they're absent from my life because Ant-Man has summoned them all for some deadly mission he's undertaking.

He has! He has summoned them for a deadly mission!

And that mission is escaping from a lift.

It's true. The world's mightiest super-team find themselves spending a chunk of this issue trying to get out of their own lift when it breaks down.

Now I'm starting to see how all those 2nd-string villains manage to give them such problems.

Meanwhile, giant robot Red Ronin's about to go on the rampage and Ms Marvel suddenly discovers she's pregnant!

What can it all be leading to?

What?

Having escaped the place, Conan returns to the city of short people, to overthrow their king and have his revenge.

But, when he gets there, no sooner does he triumph than he discovers some of his allies may not be as reliable as he might have hoped...

Daredevil has to fight Doctor Octopus, for reasons I can't recall and, as you'd expect, it isn't easy, even though the deadly Doctor's currently missing an appendage...

We get a recap of the Fantastic Four's origin, and then it's off to the North Pole or the South Pole where our heroes discover mysterious aliens are building a machine for purposes unknown.

Thinking about it, on their way there, they encounter that Canadian character from Alpha Flight, the one who can fly and has a maple leaf on his costume.

From this, I shall conclude it's the North Pole the FF are visiting.

For reasons I'm not totally sure of, the Hulk finds himself in a series of caves inhabited by Iron Man's old foe Jack Frost who's given up on crime, humanity, the surface world and, basically, life itself, to dwell alone amongst his ice sculptures.

Needless to say, it's not long before the Hulk's smashing the place to pieces and costing poor old Jack his life.

What a strangely sad tale.

Now I'm worried about what's become of Iron Man's other early foes, like Mister Doll, the Red Barbarian and the hypnotic robo-Neanderthal.

Remember Jonas Harrow?

Peter Parker doesn't because, to my knowledge, he's never met him, even though that mad scientist was to blame for creating such menaces as Hammerhead, the Kangaroo and Will o' the Wisp.

Now he's back and using the magic ray he's invented to make everyone aggressive.

Can our hero get to the bottom of it in time?

And, if he does, can he put a stop to it?

As the title implies, there's a multiple murderer on the loose.

And he's killing New York's crime bosses, in an attempt to take control of the New York Mob.

Who can this mystery villain be?

I can tell you.

It's the Vulture.

And it looks like he might succeed.

I've a feeling this may be the issue in which we first discover the Vulture's real name.

Now things get serious.

It's ancient times and, because a Valkyrie who seems to be the Defenders' Valkyrie has helped some bloke win a fight against some other bloke, Odin strips her of her Valkyrie powers, to teach her a lesson.

The bounder.

It's the big one. Dark Phoenix is well and truly on the loose - and even the comic's logo isn't safe! 

Now who can stop her?

The X-Men can.

And, if they can't, the Shi'ar, Kree and Skrull Empires will.

SHIELD has Baron Strucker in custody but it's not long before he's stolen Nick Fury's flying car and is trying to kill our heroes with it.

But then it all gets odd.

No sooner is his rampage thwarted than he explodes and it turns out he was just a robot lookalike and his captors had never noticed.

Iron Man finds himself up against the Endotherm whose power of freezing everything he encounters seems suspiciously like that of the aforementioned Jack Frost.

As far as I can recall, the Endotherm is an English security man, at one of Stark's factories, who decides to cause mayhem when he fears he's going to get the push for being no good at his job.