November 11th 1981 - 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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A person of taste and judgement might be OK with finding a bunch of croutons in their soup.

But what about a bunch of Krotons?

That's right. This evening in 1981 was the night on which BBC Two repeated the 1960s Doctor Who story The Krotons as part of its Five Faces of Doctor Who season.

How we trembled, as the robotic villains tried to violently dispose of the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. And how we, no doubt cheered, when they failed.

Over on the UK singles chart, things were far less life-or-death and the week saw the Police claim the top spot with their summery track Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.

Meanwhile, on the British album chart, Queen's Greatest Hits reclaimed the Number One slot it had lost, the previous week, to Shakin' Stevens.

Exactly forty years later, that Queen album is still on the chart and residing at Number 23, with just 30 weeks to go before it clocks up its 1,000th week on the listing.

I'm not a huge Police fan but tracks that I approved of on that week's singles chart were:

Labelled with Love - Squeeze

Joan of Arc - Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark

Under Pressure - Queen and David Bowie

A Good Year for The Roses - Elvis Costello

Open Your Heart - The Human League

O Superman - Laurie Anderson

The Voice - Ultravox

Bedsitter - Soft Cell

I Go to Sleep - The Pretenders

Walkin' in the Sunshine - Bad Manners

The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum) - The Fun Boy Three

Cambodia - Kim Wilde

and 

Tainted Love - Soft Cell.

Interesting to see 999's cover of Indian Reservation in the lower reaches of that chart.

For those who wish to investigate matters further, the UK singles chart for that week can be found right here.

And the corresponding album chart is located here.

It's a dramatic cover and it belongs to the story in which Peter Parker breaks into a prison, in his capacity as a newshound, to investigate just why so many criminals have been able to escape, of late.

Along the way, he also gets to tangle with the Grey Gargoyle and Jonas Harrow, as well as expose a crooked prison governor.

Readers will be pleased to know that two of the book's eight colour pages are used for a road safety advert.

And, of course, we get the latest exploits of Britain's newest super-hero Jett Lagg.

Personally, I could do without another retelling of A Christmas Carol but Marvel clearly thinks otherwise.

And so it is that we get the company's version of the Yuletide classic, as delivered by Doug Moench and Ken Landgraf, with seemingly everyone who's ever lived helping out on inks.

Cap's still caught up in Tinseltown shenanigans when it comes to the movie that's being made about his life.

And that means he has to tackle The Nihilist Order and the Red Skull.

But, fortunately, he gets some just-in-the-nick-of-time help from the doomed Ameridroid.

Elsewhere, weakened by Loki, Thor must fight a bunch of rock trolls, with the fate of the universe at stake. Thankfully, he has his Belt of Strength at hand!

As for Daredevil's activities, I'm afraid I can shed no light upon the matter.