The Marvel Lucky Bag - December 1972.

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

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Do you like riding on public transport?

You wouldn't have done after December 1972.

That's because the month saw the release of two films guaranteed to make you want to drive everywhere, from now on.

The first was perennial Christmas favourite The Poseidon Adventure, while the second was perennial Steve of Steve Does Comics favourite Horror Express which shows just what can happen when you let Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Telly Savalas get on a train together.

Elsewhere, our cinemas also saw the release of Bruce Lee's Way of the Dragon.

But perhaps the most intriguing title for a film released that month was The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Despite having heard that title many times before, I don't have a clue what the film itself's about. And reading Wikipedia's plot summary leaves me none the wiser.

Because you The Reader demanded it, here's Hero for Hire #4, in which someone poses as a phantom.

Exactly why he does that, I can't claim to recall. I've a feeling it's all to do with cinemas and theatres but I can say little beyond that.

I remember this tale from when it was reprinted in Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes comic.

His adventure with the Man-Thing concluded, Ka-Zar finds himself in the concrete jungle of New York and caught up in a turf war. Needless to say, no mere street thugs can stop the man who eats live mastodons for breakfast.

Neal Adams provides the cover, as the Man-Thing encounters two kids who manage to summon Thog the demon and, thus, endanger the world itself.

Wait. Is that The Shadow I see on yon cover?

No, it's not. It's Jack the Ripper who, our first yarn reveals, has survived into the present day, thanks to performing human sacrifices.

In our second tale, the best athletes of Westfield Heights High School are struck down by an unknown illness.

And, in our third, a scientist manages to reanimate his dead lover who promptly kills herself. Some people have no gratitude.

A sensational new heroine smashes her way through a jungle near you, as Shanna the She-Devil swings in to tackle all enemies of wildlife.

Having said that, I'm struggling to remember anything that happens in it, though I do remember that she, at times, comes across as being totally unhinged.

Not content with already having given us Man-Thing and the Glob, Marvel gives us another murk monster, as Theodore Sturgeon's It stalks the swamps.

What it does while it's stalking, I can't say, as I've never read this one. I have seen the film adaption, starring Roddy McDowall but, as that features a golem and no swamps, I suspect it bears no resemblance at all to Sturgeon's story.

On a world very similar to our own, Warlock finds himself battling the New-Man known as Apollo and his tentacular submarine of terror.

I must confess I've only picked this one because the cover tells me Oog lives again!

Not that I know who Oog is but I do feel that any monster with a name like that deserves acknowledgement.

As well as that masterpiece, we get a tale in which a man finds a doll and gives it to his daughter. What he doesn't know is the doll's an alien child waiting for its parents to come and take it home.

There's also a tale in which an inventor makes time stand still for everybody else. He then takes the opportunity to rob the populace before restarting time but it turns out they could all see what he did and he's promptly arrested.

And we bow out with a yarn in which a mine foreman, concerned a robot might take his job, scrambles its wires, which turns out to have been a mistake when he's caught in a cave-in and the damaged robot's not able to rescue him.

Is this the one in which a bunch of homeless, red skinned aliens arrive on Earth, and Namor promises them they can live in Atlantis but the Atlantean guards take one look at them, decide they're up to no good and shoot them dead?

If so, it's that one. If not, I don't know which one it is.