The Marvel Lucky Bag - June 1983.

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

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It's June 1983 and you're going to be spending a lot of time in the cinema.

That's because it's a month that sees the release of virtually every film you associate with the 1980s. The cinematic onslaught includes The Man with Two Brains, Psycho II, WarGames, Trading Places, Octopussy, Superman III and Twilight Zone: The Movie.

It's a terrible admission but I'd have to say that, of those, Octopussy is probably my favourite. Not that I have a high regard for the thing. It doesn't even have a theme tune anyone can remember. It's just that I prefer it to those other films.

Not many of the series Marvel launched in the early 1970s hung around for very long but Shang-Chi's certainly did, lasting for a good decade before its demise.

That's an even more remarkable feat when it's remembered the character was created purely to cash in on a fashionable craze.

But, at last, even the Rising Spirit has to run aground and so it is that this is his final issue.

Does he go out in style?

I don't remember but I do know it's a book with 52 pages. So, I assume there's plenty going on in it.

I'm assuming that cover's a tribute to John Romita's legendary panel from Amazing Spider-Man #50. If so, the lack of a dustbin seems an egregious oversight.

I'm not sure I've ever managed to sit all the way through the movie but I might have more luck with the comic, as the power and majesty of Krull hits a spinner rack near you.

But what's this? It's not just Shang-Chi who's hit the buffers? So has The Thing, as Marvel Two-In-One celebrates its hundredth issue by, erm, being cancelled.

Yet again, we get 52 action-packed pages. This time, the Thing travels to an alternate reality where he cured his other self - only to find it's been taken over by the Red Skull and his Nazi hordes!

And it's another book with 52 pages.

But, this time, there's no cancellation in sight.

What there is is the question of what would happen if Thor battled Conan.

I think all common sense suggests Thor would flatten the barbarian in less than a second but this is a Marvel mag. So, I've no doubt it'll somehow be contrived to be a draw.

It'll probably involve Conan having a magic sword or an amulet, or something.

Anything Shang-Chi and the Thing can do, Spider-Woman can equal!

And so it is that her book too gets cancelled this month.

Sadly, all I know about the contents is there are 52 pages and the tale inside is called Lifeline.

I'm not convinced that's what you could call a good cover by Bob Larkin and Eliot Brown but it's certainly one you can't fail to notice.

Howard Chaykin gives us a dynamic cover, while, inside, Marion opens a club called The Raven's Nest.

However, after numerous, "accidents," there, it becomes clear that someone's out to kill her.

But who?

Who?

Celebrate, humans! Not only has Rom's mag not been cancelled, this month but it has a new lease of life, with our hero being, at last, freed from his armour!

But will this piece of luck last?

Of course it won't. Barely has it arrived than his new body begins to deteriorate.

Meanwhile, Quasimodo possesses Rom's empty armour and launches into battle with the Wraiths he's, until now, been allied with.