Fifty years ago this month - September 1971.

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

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If you love Whispering Bob Harris, you were in luck in September 1971 because you were about to get a whole lot more of him.

You guessed it. It was the month in which BBC Two's legendary music series The Old Grey Whistle Test was first broadcast, helmed by the beardy wonder himself. Featuring actual live performances in the studio, and music videos that seemed to have been concocted by madmen, it was like Top of the Pops for adults, or Jools Holland's Later for people who don't like boogie-woogie piano. 

And it wasn't the only thing of historic import that was occurring right then because September was also the month in which Britain's pre-decimal penny and threepenny coins ceased to be legal tender. How were we ever going to cope without a coin that allowed us to pay for things whose price ended in 3?

But, speaking of historical import, you may have noticed something odd is afoot. Instead of the usual look at what Marvel UK was up to on this date forty years ago, we're taking a look at what its parent company was doing a full decade earlier.

That's because Charlie's demanded a rescheduling for this post and, as a one-off ploy, that rescheduling has occurred. The Marvel UK post will appear on Sunday and, from then on, everything'll be back to normal.

The Amazing Spider-Man celebrates his 100th issue by having a nightmare that involves just about every major foe he's ever had - and then caps it all off by waking up with six arms!

Can things possibly get any worse?

Yes, they can. Morbius and the return of the Lizard are just around the corner.

Using the Falcon as a lackey, the Grey Gargoyle tricks SHIELD into taking him to the mountain fortress where Element X is stored.

I don't have a clue what Element X is but it seems it's a planet-destroying compound with only one weakness.

Stone.

I'm not sure how stone can be a compound's weakness but that's why I'm not a super-villain.

Regardless, I've no doubt the Gargoyle's plan will be thwarted.

Jenna's kidnapped by a mysterious winged creature, the last survivor of his race, who takes her up a tower surrounded by flesh-eating flowers.

The internet informs me Conan gets round this tricky problem by using a herd of woolly mammoths to scale the tower and rescue his girlfriend.

Hold on a minute, mammoths can scale towers?

Maybe he gets them to stand on each other's shoulders.

Yes. I am certain that must be what he does.

It's the Owl - back by reader demand!

Are they really sure about that?

The Over-Mind shows up and causes trouble in New York.

At last, the Incredible Hulk finally gets round to battling Dr Doom, as Vic decides Purple Pants is just the monster he needs for his fiendish attack on a neighbouring country.

Oh, Victor, will you never learn?

Iron Man battles a man who can melt his armour. Surely, the tin-clad titan is doomed!

More to the point, what monstrosity of a costume is the bad guy wearing? Why's he called the Slasher if his schtick is melting things? And just what are those things sticking out of his head?

It's one of my faves, as Thor takes on the unstoppable Durok the Demolisher, thanks to Loki having seized the throne of Asgard after having acquired the Odin RIng.

How can Thor stop Durok? How?

He can't. He has to leave it to the Silver Surfer.

Can it be true? The Avengers disassembled?

By their own founders?

It certainly can, as Neal Adams contributes his first Avengers cover and the Kree/Skrull War rumbles ever onward.

That's Marvel's big hitters taken care of.

But what about a random sampling of what the Distinguished Competition was up to at the time?

By all accounts, Ra's Al Ghul forces Batman to track down someone called Striss who's stolen the villain's secret formula.

In our main tale, Batman encounters Wildcat in Mexico and helps him and a friend locate some hidden treasure.

Meanwhile, the back-up tale reprints the origin of Deadman from way back in 1967.

DC gets so relevant it hurts when it's revealed that even the Green Arrow's sidekick Speedy is a junkie, these days.

In fairness, I think there's a pretty big clue in his name.

Weird Mystery Tales gets the 100-page treatment - and does it with a Bernie Wrightson cover.

Inside, we get tales bearing such titles as I Was the Last Man on Earth, The Phantom Enemy, The New Arrival, I Fought the Clocks of Doom, The Witch's Candles, I Was Lost in a Mirage, Horror in the Lake, The Haunters from Beyond, I Was the Last Martian, I Hunted the World's Wildest Animals, The City of Three Dooms, Jungle Boy of Jupiter and The Mysterious Mr. Omen.

Needless to say, those are all separate stories, not just one story with an incredibly long title.

Wrightson doesn't appear to have drawn any of those stories but one of them is a Phantom Stranger adventure. So, that's something.

It's the story we've all been longing for, as Lois teams up with the Thorn!

Although, judging by that cover, the reporter seems more concerned with the Thorn's impact on her love life than her impact on crime.

In the back-up tale, the world believes Lois has been turned into a reptile girl, during a nuclear accident!

However, we can all relax.

She's merely been kidnapped and replaced by an impostor.

It's the cover that gives us Neal Adams inks over Jack Kirby's pencils.

To be honest, I'm not sure it's a combination that works all that well.

It's also a cover that gives us a photo of Don Rickles.

This all seems very strange.

Anyway, apparently, this is what happens. Lightray helps Superman escape a UFO, while Jimmy, Goody Rickles, and the Guardian foil Ugly Mannheim's plot to kill them.

I hope that synopsis made more sense to other people than it did to me.

The book that refuses to be predictable presents us with a whole clutch of terrifying tales.

In this case, they have titles such as Follow the Piper to Your Grave, The Cats Who Knew Too Much, The Ferry Was Waiting, The $30,000 Corpse, Queen of the Snows, Frightened to Death and Till Death Do Us Unite.