March 3rd 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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In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.

If it does, it must be lost, as lions don't live in jungles. 

Still, that fact didn't stop Tight Fit, the loincloth-wearing funsters who managed to claim the Number One spot on the UK singles chart, this week in 1982.

How we thrilled as we sang along with that song.

Well, all right, we didn't. No one did. Everyone hated it. But, it being the British singles chart, a mere thing like no one liking it was never going to prevent it triumphing.

Over on the associated album chart, things were a whole lot soppier, as Barbra Streisand's Love Songs clung determinedly to its Number One perch. And not a loincloth in sight.

Not content with giving the nation's favourite Time Lord his own magazine, Marvel UK also gives him his own winter special.

And it seems to be making good use of the Zygons.

I'd say what else is in it but some clueless fool's decided to put yellow text over a yellow background, on the cover, which makes it next to impossible to read.

However, I gather it involves The War Machines, the Evil of the Daleks and a convention.

Also, it has Adric on the cover. So, who's going to turn that offer down?

Who doesn't like a bit of gun-slinging?

Probably the people who get on the wrong end of the heroes of Marvel UK's Western Gunfighters Winter Special. That's who.

And so it is that we're offered such majestic dramas as Call Them… Renegades, The Coming of Gunhawk, Tales of Fort Rango, The Man from Cheyenne and a whole bunch of other material reprinted from 1970 and 1956.

And now it's Spider-Man's turn to be granted a winter special. This time, reprinted from the pages of Marvel Team-Up #109.

According to the Grand Comics Database, in this one, Spidey and friends confront that dastardly creep Thermo who's now the leader of a Satanic cult.

It's billed as a Fantastic Four winter special but it's more a Dr Doom one, as the world asks what would have happened had Vic become a hero.

We already know that, don't we? The one on Counter-Earth was a good guy and we saw how that played out.

Howmsoever, this time we get a tale involving our own version of the good doctor and, it would appear, his struggle with Mephisto.

But, just to make sure they're not totally neglected, there's also a chance for us to relive the origin of the FF.

It's fun fun fun, as the Spider-Man Playtime Fun-Book hits a newsagent near you.

Dragonslayer. What is it? How is it? Where is it?

It's right here. In front of us. And we can experience the joy of Marvel's adaptation of it, as brought to us by someone or other.

Scooby-Doo, where are you?

He's right here.

And he's got a magic boomerang with him. Which is yours, if you buy this comic.

Marvel UK just can't stop flinging Dragonslayer at us. And so it is that we also get a poster magazine dedicated to the thing.

I don't think I've ever seen Dragonslayer but I highly doubt it can match the power and majesty of Krull.

Let's face it, nothing can match the power and majesty of Krull.

It's all kicking off in Captain Britainland where he and Saturnyne thwart the Status Crew by dousing them with a liquid that Luna plan on using to push the public into a new sense of enlightenment.

This makes the Crew stop fighting when they realise what a terrible country they inhabit.

The Avengers have plenty on their plate too. I think they're in that Russian power plant that's accidentally created a quintet of monsters called Carbon, Chlorine, Phosphorus, Radium and Vanadium.

Elsewhere, the Shroud finds he must Walk a Crooked Mile.

And we finish off with a three-page Paul Neary story called Death's Divide.

Our travels through the universe continue apace, with the mag supplying a preview of new serials The Visitation and Kinda. Which is good news for some of us because they're two of my favourite stories from the Peter Davison era.

Hooray! Paul Darrow writes for me... EXCLUSIVE!

I wonder if he writes the way he acts? That'll certainly be an experience.

But that's not all we're given this month because we're also in receipt of a full-colour poster of Glynis Barber. She who'll later go on to star in Dempsey and Makepeace.

The penultimate issue of Marvel Classics Comics gives us the company's adaptation of HG Wells' Food of the Gods, that tale of giant animals and giant children. All brought to us by the talents of Doug Moench and Sonny Trinidad.

I must confess I'd been under the impression the film version of it starred Joan Collins but it seems I was mixing it up with Empire of the Ants, the adaptation of the HG Wells tale, of that name, about giant insects. In all fairness, given their subject matter and authorship, I think that's a reasonable mistake for me to have made.

The magazine they said would never make ten issues has made its tenth issue - and does so by providing us with the side-splitting mirth of King Konk.

I'm going to take a wild guess that this one features the group's encounter with the Monocle, that ruthless but classy assassin who's out to bump-off some vital person or other, with his deadly camera.

This is exciting. We can win a Spidey speed boat!

We can also read the adventures of Devil-Slayer, the Defenders and, of course - because that's what we all care about - Jet Lagg.

Just what Spider-Man himself is up to, this week, I don't have a clue.

It looks highly likely to me that we're going to get the titanic epic in which John Jameson's astronautical activities lead to him gaining super-strength and losing his marbles.

What with this and him later turning into the Man-Wolf, he really doesn't have a lot of luck, does he?

Come to think of it, in his first-ever appearance, didn't his outer space return module spiral out of control?

But I do believe something else lurks within this issue. For, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't this the story in which Mary Jane Watson makes her first full appearance?

Thor becomes enmeshed in racial conflict between residents of the neighbourhood Don Blake is currently working in and the police.

We get a Wolverine poster and the chance to win yet more speed boats.

Iron Man's up to something or other.

And so is Captain America who's after a gang who've stolen some of SHIELD's Master Matrices, needed for creating Life Model Decoys.

Because you The Reader demanded it, Marvel's almost venerable Rampage merges with Blockbuster to bring us twice the thrills but the same number of pages.

I don't know what happens in the other strips, this month - or even what they are - but I do know that, in the main one, Proteus takes over the body of his father, in order to attack the X-Men.

There's a familiar cover.

I'm sure Marvel UK's used it about four times, now.

And who can blame it? It's a fabby cover by Boris Vallejo.

However, that doesn't mean this issue contains Shadows in the Moonlight, as one might assume.

Instead, it features Conan's A Dream of Blood Part 2 and Solomon Kane's Blades of the Brotherhood. Not to mention news of the Dino De Laurentis Conan movie we're all looking forward to.

The Super-Adaptoid strikes!

And it seems that only the identically-powered Mimic can stop him!

It's that one where a skeleton comes to life and blunders all around town, bumping people off for reasons I struggle to recall.

He's probably after whoever killed him. That seems the most obvious reason for a skeleton to blunder around town.

Or perhaps he's out to clear his name.

Anyway, it's not long before Dracula's on the case and thwarting things.

More thrills, spills and excitement from the nation's favourite scarecrow.

And we get a pin-up of John And Sue.

To be honest, I don't know who they are.

Probably his next victims.

It's a special issue, as the nation's favourite sci-fi mag lends us more insights into the making of Star Wars, with never-before-published photos, and an interview with Harrison Ford.