Forty years ago today - November 1981.

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

***

It's time, once more, for me to smash the past in the face, with heaps of Marvel awesomeness.

Then again, it's possibly not that awesome, as we reach everybody's favourite issue of The Avengers, in which Hank Pym goes completely mad, hits the Wasp and builds an indestructible adamantium robot to attack his teammates, so he can defeat it and prove he's worthy of being an Avenger, which seems an odd way in which to prove you're worthy of being an Avenger.

And I suspect his teammates will agree.

Thinking about it, it does pose an obvious question. With this kind of scientific knowledge, why has Hank not simply built an indestructible adamantium robot to fight super-villains? If he did that, the Avengers could practically retire.

The Red Skull's back and trying to make a film about the death of our hero!

Of course, that means he's going to have to kill our hero.

Our hero's not too keen on that plotline and decides to come up with a few story ideas of his own. Most of them involve him hitting the Red Skull in the face.

Elsewhere, the recently deceased Nomad's publicly outed as a phony, and a movie executive pulls the plug on his own plans for a Captain America film.

Also, the Ameridroid dies doing heroic things.

Daredevil's lost the use of his radar sense and, so, goes in search of Stick, the guru who first taught him how to fight like a ninja, as detailed in Daredevil #1, all those years ago.

The trouble is that seemingly every villain in town, plus Elektra, wants to have a word with Stick, as well, leading to an awful lot of conflicty people in one place at the same time.

I have a feeling that situation's not going to end peacefully.

Iron Man uses his new stealth armour to sneak into a complex in East Germany, in order to rescue his girlfriend and security expert Bethany Cabe.

Only to discover, when he gets there, that she doesn't need rescuing because she's there to rescue someone else.

Anyway, it all ends up with Shellhead getting zapped by the Living Laser - and now he has stuff to worry about.

I do believe this is the issue in which Bethany finally tells Iron Man that she knows he's Tony Stark.

The Whizzer gets tired of being a laughing stock and decides to reinvent himself as The Speed Demon.

That's the Whizzer from the Squadron Sinister, I should point out. Not the one who used to fight Hitler in the 1940s.

With his new-found self-respect in place, the villain goes on a spree, robbing department stores.

A spree which only lasts for as long as it takes Spidey to web up a few department store exits.

Hooray! Spidey defeats the Beetle, despite the criminal's hi-tech new suit of armour.

However, everyone thinks it's the Gibbon who's defeated the wrongdoer and it's he, therefore, who gets all the plaudits.

Tyr, the Norse god of war, has tried to kill Thor, so the thunder god returns to Asgard to demand Odin explain why the bounder was sent to Earth to attack him.

There's also a giant monster blundering around New York who I think has been unleashed by Loki and is out for revenge against Thor who once defeated him in his salad days.

Can it be the last we ever see of Kitty Pryde in an X-Men comic?

We can only hope so, as her parents decide Professor X's academy isn't the best place for her and, therefore, transfer her to a far better school run by Emma Frost.

Given that Emma's an evil super-villain, this is clearly not a good idea.

So, Storm accompanies her to the place - only for Emma to perform a psychic mind-swap, leaving Storm trapped in Emma's body, as Emma - in Storm's - heads for the X-Men's HQ, looking to destroy the heroes.

Conan heads back home and bumps into a childhood friend who's now married to a woman from Khitai who's actually a witch and is mixed up in some supernatural shenanigans or other that Conan just can't avoid getting caught up in because he's Conan and that's what he does.

It's an instant classic, as the FF's minds are transferred into the bodies of dolls in a model village and have their memories of ever having been super-heroes removed.

It turns out it's all down to a plan by the Puppet Master to give Alicia the, "normal," life she couldn't otherwise have.

Except, like a mug, he's brought Dr Doom onboard to help him set it all up.

And, of course, Doomsie couldn't care less about Alicia's happiness - or the happiness of anyone else either.

The Corruptor still has control of the Hulk!

And that means it's up to the spontaneously arranged new super-team the Rangers to stop the green grappler.

Except, of course, that's way beyond their skillset.

But it's OK because, somehow, everything's resolved and it all ends happily.

I suspect Rick Jones probably just appeals to the Hulk's good side enough times for it to finally work.

That's how these things usually go.