Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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This week in 1982, history was made, as Northern Ireland defeated hosts Spain 1–0 in the World Cup. Could the plucky province go on to win the whole tournament and shock the sporting world to its very foundations?
No, it couldn't. Like England, it went on to exit in the quarter-final stage but would be able to do so with head held high.
Someone else who was holding his head high was Captain Sensible who, that week, found himself at Number One on the UK singles chart, with his unlikely cover of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Happy Talk.
Rather more sober fare ruled the UK album chart, with Roxy Music's Avalon retaining the top spot it had seized the week before.
Except it did.
And had a zillion-issue story arc dedicated to it.
How could the Watcher not know this?
Clearly, he needs to spend less time interfering and more time watching.
Not that I care. I'm too busy planning on how I'm going to use the 10 football alarm clocks this issue's giving me a chance to win.
Not that that takes much doing. Sandy's clearly outmatched by the Hulkster.
Once more, Iron Man has a back-up strip in this comic.
Once more, I don't know what happens in it.
As has happened before, a cover for Hanna Barbera's Scooby-Doo and His T.V. Friends has proven to be impossible to track down.
This time, it's issue #19.
And that means we can only guess at what magic and mayhem break out within its cheery pages.
Charlie thinks Captain Sensible and Kate Bush would have been well suited for each other.
ReplyDeleteCharlie Votes for the Hulk cover as the best of the bunch. It’s easy to imagine it being a fun cover in it’s original format with art by Happy Herb!. The current blue framing does nothing favorable for the green characters though, I must admit.
ReplyDeleteThe way the framing cuts across Sandman's shoulders so it looks like he's some sort of stiff, angular robot doesn't do much for that Hulk cover either, Charlie.
ReplyDeletePlus, I don't care for Sandman's glam look. Put him in a stripey jersey or don't bother, Marvel.
Steve, iirc 'Northern Ireland' played quite a bit of that game against Spain with ten men, so I suppose they did quite well. Although I've never understood why somewhere thats only part of a country gets to enter international competitions...
-sean
Sean
ReplyDeleteAre you saying each union should only have a single representative at the world cup? That seem a bit rough on the EU countries, although I guess the EU representative team would feel pretty confident.
DW
Sean, I won't get into the NI being part of another country thing ( too risky if you mean Rep of Ireland or UK). But the world cup is technically for football association's of which the 4 UK Nations were the first 4 associations ever and we hold the "rules"...kinda. We used to use the winner of the British championship to qualify for the WC so if Scotland or England ( who won 90% of these ) won in a WC year they would qualify. But on several occasions at that time with Scotland or England as runners up were ask to attend as well ( we always refused). Of course the WC has become massive in years since and more political. There are other similar type Nation set ups that could qualify that are part of larger regions the Faroe Islands are part of the Kingdom of Denmark etc. They tried to represent the UK at the Olympics and let's just say that did not go down well especially in Scotland as we boycotted it and few folk supported the UK team at those games. As I say very politicsl.
ReplyDeleteI bought the What If issue this week's Spidey reprints and, having missed quite a bit of Spiderman continuity, it greatly confused me at the time. Wasn't it an ill conceived attempt to bring Gwen back? The fact they used it as the basis of a later extended storyline seems a bit like throwing good money after bad.
ReplyDeleteBut that's probably just me...
DW
It's seems strange that Marvel UK were publishing Hulk and Spider-Man tales from vastly different times - the ( excellent) Hulk tale from 1968 and the (daft) Spidey story from around 1981.
ReplyDeleteMcScotty, I can only assume they'd run out of Hulk material and felt they had to plunder the back-catalogues, whereas Spidey's various mags enabled them to use more up-to-date material.
ReplyDeleteDW, I think I'd read somewhere that Stan had insisted on Gwen's return, and the cloniness was Gerry and Ross's way of doing that without actually undoing her death.
Charlie, I agree that the Hulk cover is the best of the ones posted above.
Sean, I've just been reading-up on Cyprus' status as a footballing nation and, given that island's divisions, I don't have a clue how they manage to make that work.
Paul, the 'first 4 associations ever'? I think maybe you're glossing over the Irish Football Association/Football Association of Ireland split a bit there. But anyway, you're probably right that this isn't really the place to get into it.
ReplyDeleteExcept to note that in the post Steve referred to the north as a province rather than a country. Good for you Steve (;
-sean
Yeah but due to Southern Ireland's independence the FAI was founded ( refounded) in 1921. NI took the heritage date of 1880 for the association as most of the association was represented by the north. So technically it could be the joint 4th oldest after England, Scotland and Wales but NI is officially noted as the fourth oldest.
DeleteSteve-
ReplyDeleteDidn't it turn out the clone DID LIVE, hence the horrible Spidey clone saga in the 90's? Didn't read much of that, but remember there was 2 clones during that crap, Kane & the Scarlet Spider. Unsure if either was the original clone the Jackal created.
Sandman is alot more formidable than you realize. If he had a better writer, when the Hulk had his mouth open, he could have filled his lungs. Sandy is one of my favorite Spidey villains. One of the best things, and more comic accurate, characters in Sam Rami's SPIDER-MAN 3.
Trimpe was a great Hulk artist, almost as great as Kirby, Ditko, and Severin. ANYONE was better than "Our Pal" Sal.
-Killdumpster
Have no idea who Captain Sensible is. Never even saw any albums during my 30 years in the music industry. Must be a continental thing.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first things mentioning him/ them that came to my mind was Captain Beyond. Never heard the stuff, but it seemed to be in a staple of my stoner friends' record libraries back in the seventies.
The second thing that came to mind was a superhero parody TV show called Captain Nice, back in the 60's. I believe that was written or produced by Buck Henry, who was teamed with Mel Brooks to create Get Smart.
It aired after Adam West's Batman series was cancelled.
It's not that funny or clever. Buck Henry did a little better job on his Star Trek parody, QUARK. There was another hero TV parody in the 60's titled Mr. Terrific that was shown at the same time. It was much more enjoyable.
Captain Sensible was (still is?) in the punk band The Damned, he was a bit of a novelty act at this time.
ReplyDeleteKD, as far as I remember, the Spidey clone did indeed live and spent decades (our time) convinced he was the real Peter Parker, until the original version reappeared and the shocking truth came to light.
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ReplyDeleteGwenn’ s Death, Gwenn clones, Peter Clones, peter’s parents cloned (?), Marvel’s clones started off at the age of their donater with full memories. Gwrnn having twins From the Norman Osborne (real not cloned) Gerry Conway = Marvel antichrist.
ReplyDeleteAnon, was it the "real" Gwen or the clone that had children to Osbourne? I'm so glad I stopped reading Marvel and DC comics at this time where's the fun in a storyline like that. What a daft concept. 😶
ReplyDeleteHi McScotty,
ReplyDeleteCharlie here!
Well, I dare say that killing Gwenn was one of those things that, if you were reading Spidey contemporaneously, it was the real demarcation point of "where is the fun in that?"
But I've noticed that most of the gents here got on board Spidey when Pete and MJ were together, really only reading about Gwenn in the past tense or via reprints. So, they are not bothered as I was.
But you have to be one weird dude to think that kids would dig a storyline of death, clones, etc.
Regarding Soccer AKA Football, lol...
ReplyDeleteI understand the general reasoning why the UK has 4 teams competing for World Cup. I just don't see it in the UK's interest thought. Imagine if Bayle had been playing on a UK team instead of Wales these past 8 years with Harry Kane. Good lord... the possibilities.
Or imagine how different the French, German, Spanish, and Italian teams, having won the last 4 world cups IIRC, had they been broken up into provincial Football Associations? They'd have been far weaker competing as Bretagne, Bavaria, Basque, etc.
I guess from this side of the pond, I don't see why the UK doesn't just decide to compete as the UK and win a WC?
I'll go sit in my corner now, as I get toasted for my naif remarks, lol.
Charlie, I think its because 3 of those 4 UK teams are actually countries.
ReplyDeleteSo for instance Scottish fans might not want their team to be subsumed into one dominated by England.
Even though a few years back they voted for the country in general to be dominated by England (I don't know why - Stockholm syndrome I guess).
-sean
It sounds a bit dubious but I've read several time that entering a combined British team into the World Cup (and presumably European Championships) would lead to Britain having a single vote in FIFA and UEFA rather than four. Institutions as honourable as FIFA and UEFA would surely would have used such an outcome for nefarious purposes, and it occurred.
ReplyDeleteI'd given Marvel away years before the mid 90's extended clone storyline but the wiki summary makes it sound stupid enough that I'm surprised Marvel didn't go broke...
DW
*would surely have never used such an outcome for nefarious purposes, had it occurred.
ReplyDeleteI need to spend less time being a smart arse and more time on grammar...
DW
The different UK team thing goes back to well before the formation of FIFA, DW - officially the first ever international game was England v Scotland, in 1872 (I would love to be able to write that England lost on penalties, but it was a 0-0 draw. Which I suppose is the next best thing).
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction to your four vote claim was that its only to be expected the Brits would cheat a bit to get more of a say, but that it probably doesn't make much difference given the number of football associations in FIFA. So, yeah - a bit dubious.
But with a quick look online it suddenly becomes plausible, as it makes a BIG difference to the IFAB, where between them UK associations can veto FIFA -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Football_Association_Board#Operations
-sean
DW! I think marvel did indeed go broke in the mid 1990s. I don’t know that it was due to the comic books per se as much as that owner Perlman trying to leverage the company for an IPO or some such nonsense. That said, that was the time when all of the comic book companies were publishing multiple covers in financial advisors were talking about creating comic book portfolios, L O L, for your retirement.
ReplyDelete