February 24th 1982 - 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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Disaster struck the time travel industry, this week in 1982 because it was at that moment the DeLorean Motor Company factory in Belfast was put into receivership.

I don't know. First, they discontinued police phone boxes and, now, DeLoreans. If I was a more paranoid individual, I might start to suspect a conspiracy.

But, at the time, perhaps we were all too distracted to care.

After all, on this every evening, that year, BBC One was transmitting the latest British Rock and Pop Awards, that ceremony we all tend to assume is the exact same thing as The Brit Awards but, it would seem, has nothing to do with them.

Presented by Sue Cook and Dave Lee Travis, 1982's ceremony was broadcast from the London Lyceum via the Nationwide TV show on behalf of the Daily Mirror.

I don't know who won what but I do know the event saw live performances by such musical deities as Alvin Stardust, Bad Manners, Dollar, Duran Duran, Toyah and Ronnie Hazlehurst and His Orchestra. Let's face it, nothing screams, "Rock and Roll," at you louder than the words, "Ronnie Hazlehurst and His Orchestra."

But, surely, the BBC was spoiling us because there was even more popular entertainment to come. For, straight after that ceremony, the same channel presented us with a documentary about the Batley Variety Club.

The programme featured contributions from Shirley Bassey, Cilla Black, Cannon & Ball, Bernie Clifton, Con Cluskey, Paul Daniels, Ken Dodd, Gracie Fields, The Grumbleweeds, Vince Hill, Engelbert Humperdinck, Eartha Kitt, Danny La Rue, Lulu, Vera Lynn, Johnny Mathis, Eric Morecambe, Gene Pitney, Cliff Richard, Neil Sedaka, Derek Smith, Alvin Stardust, Freddie Starr, Frankie Vaughan, Charlie Williams and Mike Yarwood.

I'm pretty sure Gracie Fields was dead, by this point. So, I'm assuming that whatever contribution she made was achieved through the medium of archive footage, rather than just a medium.

I must confess I don't know who Con Cluskey and Derek Smith were.

But it's good to see that Alvin Stardust managed to feature in both shows.

I am, of course, far more clued-up about the contents of this week's presentations from our favourite comics company.

How many times have we seen this phenom before? Just when we were thinking Marvel UK's weekly line is close to death, it comes out with a brand new book.

And this one's a sure-fire hit, as it unleashes a proven property upon the public.

If the front cover's to be believed, the mag gives us picture strips, games and so much more. 

And I've no doubt it features more people pretending to be supernatural horrors than you can shake a Scooby Snack at.

I'm going to guess this is the one that features the return of the Man-Wolf.

I do believe Curt Connors tries to cure the accident-prone astronaut but, it being a Curt Connors experiment, it all goes wrong.

Still, never mind. While we're fretting about that, we can at least try to de-stress by winning a walk-about cassette player.

Hooray! Iron Man's back!

And to celebrate, we get an updated retelling of his origin!

But, alas, I can shed no light upon what's transpiring in this issue's other strips.