Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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It was a case of, "Carry on as before," on the UK singles chart, this week, fifty years ago, with Tony Orlando and Dawn's Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree still at Number One.
However, there was a change on the corresponding album chart, with The Faces' Ooh-La-La swooping in to grab the top spot, despite Rod Stewart's diminishing interest in the band.
I do believe the Hulk's still in the future and battling the Executioner but, back in the present, Rick Jones may well be letting slip to Glenn Talbot that the green grappler is, in reality, none other than his love-rival Bruce Banner.
In present-day New York, Daredevil's having his first encounter with Mr Fear and his gang.
And the Fantastic Four have their maiden punch-up with the Mad Thinker who, from what I recall, decides to invade the Baxter Building and steal Reed Richards' scientific secrets - including the one that lets you build giant androids.
As if that wasn't enough for any sane human, there's still the chance to win a free Chopper bike.
That's a better-drawn cover than we've grown accustomed to from Dick Ayers, of late - and it lets us know we're getting the yarn in which Spider-Man attends a fan club meet-up arranged by Flash Thompson, only for it to be crashed by that flying fiend the Green Goblin.
Not only that but the Human Torch is there too!
Elsewhere, in order to fight Thor, a Chinese scientist irradiates himself. And, thus, is born the awesome Radioactive Man!
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25 comments:
People know what I'm going to say, don't they?
In that DD story here are loads of scenes in a waxworks museum with models of all sorts of Marvel heroes and villains. This would have included loads that would not have appeared yet in Marvel U.K. Some FF villains we'd not seen yet and some villains from strips we'd not seen at all (Iron Man, X-Men, Ant Man, Human Torch, Dr Strange, …). And I guess superheroes we'd not seen like X-Men, Iron Man, Captain America, Ant Man, Wasp and Dr Strange. And someone's been in and changed the artwork to remove every single character that had not been seen with someone who had.
At some point Marvel U.K. gave up on this partial ordering (to give it its anal mathematical name). I still fume about how MTU #4 with Spider-Man and X-Men vs Morbius was reprinted as a Spider-Man story with flashbacks to MTU #3 (Spider-Man and Torch vs Morbius) without bothering to reprint MTU #3 first.
Is there any fanzine, book, youtube, etc. that had a good interview with the Marvel folks responsible for the decisions on how to role out Marvel USA characters, subsequently deleting them until rolled out, and whatever kookiness Marvel UK experienced 50’years ago?
And just fo refresh what Charlie has asked before, there was no DC UK? DC simply shipped the US versions to the UK and then the UK sellers just changed the price? There are no DC UK “price variants” unlike for Marvel UK that can command a pretty penny per Overstreet Price Guide?
Dangermash, it was a veritable form of madness.
Charlie, there was indeed no DC UK, although there were UK publishers in the 1960s who'd reprinted DC stories for British consumption. As for pence copies, as far as I'm aware, there were no DC pence variants.
Charlie, as Steve says, there was no DC UK and in the '70s the only DC characters I'd heard of were Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman.
My local Tesco has now gone into full-on coronation hype with bunting in the aisles and coronation t-shirts for sale. Get yours while you can!
I'm a bit aghast, to think that you guys in the U.K. didn't have much access to D.C comics in the '70's.
...or not as much access as we did, at any rate.
Those comics had a goofy charm all their own. Ah, those were the days of the spinner rack.
In the summer of '76, I got lucky. I was seven, and my aunt gave all of her son's D.C. comics to me. They were great! Justice League, World's Finest, All-Star Comics...
Her son, my cousin, wasn't much of a reader. (snort!)
...probably still isn't...kind of an ape-like dude.
M.P.
As regards DC...
In the mid-70s, my bro & myself got a Superman & Batman UK annual (Adams reprints).
In 1978, in my local indoor market, I got 'Shade the Changing Man' # 6.
I was mightily impressed.
In terms of Steve Ditko weirdness/surrealism, it was off the scale!
Also, in 1978, I got 'Return of the New Gods' # 16, because Orion, on its cover, looked a bit like Captain Marvel. It was good, but not up to Marvel standards, somehow.
My brother got Green Lantern # 102, probably because it looked Captain Marvel/space story ish. To a little kid, Green Lantern had a strange charm. My bro' also got a Legion of Superheroes (?) comic. I'm not sure.
Decades later, I got another Shade, as a back issue. It didn't seem good at all. Maybe # 6 was the charm!
And after the 1st Superman movie (?), we got a Superman annual, which I enjoyed a lot.
My brother got Karate Kid # 15 (lobster men surfers issue) in a school sale (the last issue will be first theme), and a Secrets of Haunted House (?) which spoofed Hamlet. Both were good.
That's about it for my very meagre experience of DC in the 1970s!
Phillip
I also got a Superman & Batman annual in the 70s, Phillip. Was yours the same as mine?
All I can remember is a story about some guy who dresses up as Superman for a living, maybe to appear on stage. He has all sorts of beanbags tied to his body under his costume to look like muscles but is a skinny wimp underneath it all. Superman goes to visit him and the guy does some sort of mind swap. And once he's in Superman's body, he makes a big thing out of tearing off the costume and bean bags from what's now Superman's mind inside the wimpy body. I can't remember how it all turns out or whether there were any Batman stories in the annual.
Dangermash - no, sounds different. In mine, on the cover, either Superman or Batman had some kind of goad/pronged stick, to fend off a tiger (or something). Superman met this strange being, who emerged from a volcano, and sapped Supe's strength. Was the being made of sand? I forget. In the final Batman page, Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia appeared, giving Bats a sloppy kiss. Strange what you remember!
Phillip
The first time I ever heard of Green Lantern was in an episode of 'Seinfeld' in the '90s on BBC2.
Phillip, at the start of the 70s there was a reboot of Superman that involved an ongoing storyline about the 'Sand Superman', actually a non-corporeal being from the Qwarm dimension that gained physical form by attaching itself to the psychic imprint Superman left in the sand after a nuclear accident that destroyed most of the world's Kryptonite and... well, let's say it wouldn't have been that easy for a new reader to pick up exactly what that was all about from the one story.
M.P., newsstand distribution of US imports was variable in the 70s, but don't worry - there were plenty of DCs in the whole round my way and, unlike some of the unfortunates commenting here, I read loads of them. Kamandi and OMAC, JLA/JSA crossovers, Superman v Muhammad Ali, Lois Lane, mystery anthologies with stories drawn by the mighty Alex Nino, First Issue Special featuring the Dingbats of Danger Street... great stuff!
-sean
*There were plenty of DCs round my way...
Apologies for the slightly garbled result of poor editing there.
-sean
Sean - let us hope and pray that Steve, of Steve Does Comics, posts “Dingbats” at the appropriate 50 year mark!!! Fingers crossed!!! It could be Pulitzer worthy!!!
Only time will tell, Charlie.
Sean and Phillip, I've read a few of those Sand Superman issues and I've never had a clue what was going on in them.
Colin, I'm struggling to recall what my first exposure to the Green Lantern was. I suspect it might have been in an issue of Justice League but I don't know which one.
Dangermash, I'm pretty sure I've read that Superman story somewhere.
MP, I can't speak for anybody else but, personally, as a kid, I had no difficulty getting my hands on DC comics and had as big a pile of DC comics as I did of Marvel.
Steve, the Sand Superman had a kind of symbiotic relationship with Superman, turning up to draw energy from him to maintain itself. I think basically it was a narrative device to depower Supes during the stories, so the villain or whatever of the month would be more of a threat (without actually changing DC's main flagship character permanently).
-sean
I stand corrected!
I should have guessed that you guys had access to D.C. comics, as often as they've been showcased here, Steve.
For me, growing up in a rural backwater, they were sometimes hard to come by, my ape-like cousin notwithstanding. He's still around, apparently. Not much of a conversationalist, that one.
'76 was a great year for D.C., particularly Action Comics and Batman.
M.P.
MP, Steve and Sean lived in cities (Sheffield and London) so it was easy for them to find DC comics!
Did any UK readers hear the debate "Do We Need The Monarchy?" on Radio 4 last Tuesday? I didn't but it's being repeated at 5pm tomorrow (April 30th) so I'll be listening. According to recent polls 52% of the British public are not interested in the coronation and only 32% of 18-24 year-olds want the monarchy to continue.
I didn't hear it, Colin but it's a rare thing to hear the BBC even acknowledging there might be republican sentiment out there.
M.P. Apart from pretty good distribution of their US comics here, DC had a bit of a presence in the UK. The Batman newspaper strip was reprinted in the weekly Smash comic in the 1960s for a few years and there was also a UK DC weekly comic in the late 1960s called "Super DC" by Top Sellers . In the 1980s there was the monthly "The Super-Heroes" mag by London Editions . In the 1990s London Editions launched quite a few DC mags etc.
Colin, young Brits are not as daft as I thought. Good for them!
I've now drunk my bottle of Hooper's alcoholic Dandelion & Burdock and I can report that it was very nice. Whatever happened to Dandelion & Burdock anyway? When we were kids it was a very popular drink but you hardly ever see it nowadays - I loved Dandelion & Burdock and that's why I snapped up that bottle when I stumbled across it in Tesco!
I loved Dandelion and Burdick as well Colin. I've seen it in the Coop and Sainsbury's and occasionally I will pick up a small bottle ( my sweet tooth isn't what it was).I will look out for the alcoholic version, that sounds interestimg.
Colin - Morrisons has been selling its own brand Dandelion & Burdock for years! I miss the bare-faced cheek of Morrisons' outrageous knock-off version of Dr.Pepper, entitled: "Dr.Pop". They stopped selling it a few years ago, possibly because it was too close to the original!
Phillip
Paul, I found the alcoholic D & B next to the Babycham and mini bottles of wine and cans of wine.
Phillip, Tesco sold D & B too in huge 2 litre bottles but I haven't seen any for quite a while. I didn't want to buy the big bottles because the pop would go flat before I'd drunk most of it (the alcoholic Hooper's bottle was only 500 ml so I drank it all in one go).
Strikes, inflation... and now Dandelion & Burdock making a comeback, Colin. It's just like the early 70s! And some people say Brexit isn't working out...
-sean
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