Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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For once, my awesome memory fails me, as, this week in 1973, there sat atop the UK singles chart, a track I have no recollection of ever having existed.
And that track was Young Love by Donny Osmond. To satiate my curiosity, I must hasten to the jam-packed pages of YouTube to discover just what this monster smash sounded like.
But, before I do, I must note herewithin that I do believe that man also had a hit with a tune called Puppy Love. If so, I'm starting to spot a formula at work when it comes to his song titles.
Over on the British album chart, the top spot was gripped, as it had been the week before, by Peters and Lee's We Can Make It. Just what unthreatening delights did that LP contain and just what was it they could make? I suspect we'd have to buy the album to find out.
The Space Phantom visits our dear old homeworld, in a bid to overcome the Avengers. After all, If he can destroy them, then nothing can prevent his people from invading!
It's weird how I must have read this tale at the time but have no recollection of ever having done so.
Also getting too big for his boots is the Mole Man who causes the Fantastic Four's neighbours to complain about their activities, so the team'll be keen on relocating to an island he's put up for sale.
Needless to say, when the quartet visit the island, the villain and his stick are there, waiting for them.
I do recall a later Fantastic Four tale in which the team inadvertently move into a house owned by the same miscreant. The lesson is clearly that you should never let the FF recommend a property to you.
But, even more importantly, this is the tale in which the Invisible Girl first develops the power to create force fields! Look out, villains, your days of kidnapping her are over!
And, more importantly than even that, we can still win £1 per week pocket money for a whole year!
It's nothing but high drama when Kraven dresses up as Spider-Man, in order to lure our hero into emerging for a rematch.
Needless to say, the rematch goes as well as the first match and Spidey promptly clobbers the wildlife-bothering fool.
Thor, meanwhile, is tackling Mr Hyde and the Cobra who've appeared, menacingly, at Jane Foster's bedside.
And, this time, their powers have been boosted by Loki!
Even more meanwhile, this issue's back page offers us the chance to buy three transfers featuring Thor, Spider-Man and the Hulk.
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34 comments:
I can confirm that I've now listened to that Donny Osmond single. It seems to be modelled on such pentatonic mid-60s Beatles fare as Michelle, with a bit of the 1950s randomly flung in.
As well as Puppy Love, and Young Love, Donny also had 'Soldier of Love', when he reinvented his pop image - laughably - as a leather jacket-wearing bad boy!
Phillip
Well of course there were rubbish hits, when records like 'Urban Guerilla' were being suppressed! But fear not, even though the deep state kept Hawkwind out of the singles chart this week 50 years ago, you could go and see them for nothing, when a load of degenerates turned up in the Queen's back garden uninvited to hold the Windsor Free Festival.
Theres some cool pics of the event here -
www.ukrockfestivals.com/windsor-73-dave-walkling.html
Thats a good one of Hawkwind at the top there, in a line up with Michael Moorcock and Lemmy.
I wonder if her majesty could see them from her back window...
-sean
Sean - The faces are indistinct. Is Moorcock the guy dressed in white?
Phillip
Normally I only got the Spider-Man comic every week. But I might have had this issue of MWOM. Because I remember the space phantom story and the invisible woman showing off her new powers (which I vaguely remember were only her personal force field and making other things invisible and didn’t include putting force fields around others). I don't remember much about the Mole Man story but I'm guessing most of his action is in the second half of the story next week.
I'm not sure when I'm back to being a regular Spider-Man reader. The next story I can remember reading is Romita's first one with the goblin. I don’t remember any of Ditko's last stories. But if I had MWOM this week, maybe I had SMCW too.
Oh, and I almost forgot to make my usual comment on this week's Spider-Man story, which is that it was the inspiration behind that Aurora model of Spider-Man model standing on a stair rail casting a web over a knocked out Kraven.
Moorcock is the one in the middle with the beard and hat, standing in front of the drums, Phillip.
-sean
Steve, as well as Young Love and Puppy Love Donny Osmond had a third #1 hit called The Twelfth Of Never which I assume you've heard of? Back in the '80s I owned several pop trivia books such as The Guinness Book Of British Hit Singles, The Guinness Book Of British No.1 Hits and similar books covering the US Billboard Hot 100 so I was quite knowledgeable about the pop charts. I also bought a book covering the UK charts of the '70s and all the pages fell out!
At Christmas a few years ago Radio 2 had two documentaries about Donny Osmond and his great rival David Cassidy. Osmond had three solo #1 hits in the UK (plus one with The Osmonds) and Cassidy had two and they both got a documentary each which were presented by Nina Myskow, anyone remember her? Funnily enough I was watching Nina Myskow on YouTube just a few days ago when she was referring to Brexit supporters as Little Englanders because she was in a furious argument with a Brexiteer at the time.
About 15 years ago Donny Osmond staged a concert in a park not far from my house. I didn't go to the concert but I could hear it from my back garden!
Colin, I've just listened to The Twelfth of Never on YouTube and I recognise the song but I'm fairly sure the version I'm familiar with was by somebody other than Donny. I used to have a copy of the Guinness book that celebrated the first 500 Number One UK hits. I seem to recall that Nicole had the 500th.
Dangermash, thanks for that Kraven model kit info. I'd always assumed it had come from a John Romita drawn issue. So, it's a revelation to learn it came from a Ditko one.
Sean, thanks for the Dave Walklings link.
Phillip, when I first read your comment, I misread, Soldier of Love as Spider of Love. Spider of Love; that's a Donny Osmond track I want to hear.
The " Twelve of never " has been covered by a few artists Steve including Cliff Richard, Olivia Newton John and Elvis, all released as singles . I think Johnny Mathis recorded the original.
I've heard there might have been a very short non-canon Romita drawn Spider-Man comic that came with the Aurora kit but I don't remember seeing it. But for me, the Ditko story was the real influence. Maybe Steve was still in Stan's bad books and Jazzy Jonny was told to put something together to keep the attention away from Steve.
In that BBC 'In Search of Steve Ditko' doc there was a bit where Jonathan Woss went into a toy shop pointing out Spider-Man - and Dr Strange - toys that were still using Ditko's artwork on the packaging in the 21st century (without any acknowledgement), dangermash.
Presumably there'd also have been some still using Romita's too.
My guess would be a mix of both has been fairly constant for marketing Spidey since the end of the 60s. Although after Ditko left Marvel it would have to have been Romita that drew a new story for a one-off comic, for obvious reasons (seems unlikely being in Stan's bad books or not would make much difference to re-using old work that had already been paid for).
I wonder if they still use any of the Toddmeister's work to sell Spidey toys...
-sean
A well made point Sean. But on the subject of using old stuff that had already been paid for, I've heard a diametrically opposite opinion about Stan's reluctance to use Scorpion or Molten Man in a Spider-Man Story for years because Ditko had such a big part in their creation! It was only after Stan (and Roy) handed over to Gerry Conway that they came back. Who knows what went on though? I wonder whether Stan was already starting to lose it in the 1970s.
Stan Lee's creative contribution to Marvel Comics... ooh, thats a controversial subject you've raised there, dangermash!
-sean
dangermash:
Yes, Romita did indeed draw the (all new / not a reprint) Spidey comic that came with the Aurora “Comics Scenes” kit. He also drew the Captain America one. The others were:
Hulk by Herb Trimpe
Batman by Dick Giordano
Superboy by Dave Cockrum
Tarzan by Neal Adams
Lone Ranger and Tonto by Gil Kane
I’m not sure who did the Superman one. For sone reason I want to say it was by Curt Swan and Frank Giacoia but I won’t swear to it.
b.t.
b.t. The Superman Aurora superhero scene comic book was indeed by Curt Swan and Frank Giacoia. There was also a Robin one by Dick Giordano.
Steve, I too had that 500 #1 Hits book and the 500th #1 was indeed Nicole. The 600th #1 was T'Pau's China In Your Hand.
Speaking of Donny Osmond, I was a very young kid when the Donny and Marie Show was on T.V.
My older sister told me that the Osmonds were Satanists.
I think I actually half-believed it. I was somewhat alarmed. Satanism was a thing in the 70's, something to be wary of. Whether my sister had confused Mormonism with devil-worship, or whether she was simply screwing with my head, I dunno. I rather think the latter is more likely. She once told me that what keeps people from flying off the Earth into space was the planet's rapid rotation, which sucked us down. If the Earth's spin ceased or even slowed down we would all be flung screaming into the icy black void.
If anybody was "Satanic", it was my sister.
Still, something was...off, it seemed to me, with the Osmonds. I'm not talking about their religion, who cares about that. Something almost robotic...
Those teeth, the hair, and there were so goddam many of 'em....
M.P.
Dangermash and b.t.- that Romita model kit comic is nice, as one would expect from JR. In the story Kraven steals a bunch of antique tapestries; then Spidey catches him in his webbing. Unfortunately the chemicals in the web fluid destroy the stolen tapestries, a fact which oddly seems of little consequence to our hero...
Incidentally, the model kit is very cool- but detailing all those webs was challenging...
MP, your sister's explanation of gravity was completely correct so I don't know why you think she was being satanic for explaining it to you!
At least she told you the truth unlike some American christians who believe that "gravity" is caused by God's hands pushing down and keeping us all from flying into space!!
Colin, all I know about gravity is this: get four people to each hold a corner of a bedsheet. Have them back away from each other until that bedsheet is taut. Pulled tight. Flat.
That bedsheet is time/space.
Then have somebody toss a basketball onto the middle of that bedsheet. The sheet gets distorted. It ain't flat no more.
That basketball represents matter. Like a planet, say, or a star.
And, for the record, my crazy bitch of a sister is still screwing with people's heads.
One of her hobbies is staying overnight in famous haunted houses.
And something weird always happens, of course...
M.P.
Wasn't M.P.'s sister describing centrifugal & centripedal (?) force, not gravity? Maybe she connected the two because of those fictitious late 60s/early 70s rotating donut-shaped space stations (like on 2001), whereby rotation was supposedly creating gravity (or something). I remember starting school, in the mid-70s, and kids' books having pics of astronauts & such things. Anyway, from SDC's science (& engineering) guys more informed comment may be derived!
Phillip
Gravity keeps us down when the Earth's rotation would otherwise throw us into space. If the Earth span a bit faster, then we might all get thrown off.
But I'm with MP on gravity being a mere side effect of the way that matter and energy warp spacetime. Newton's theory of gravity is all well and good but it can't explain why planets' orbits drift slowly around the sun making Spirograph patterns rather than just tracing out the same ellipse again and again and again.
See Mum. I did learn something at Uni.
Maybe the donut-shaped space stations' rotation "counteracting" gravity, would be a better way of putting it. Leonard Rossiter was on the space station!
Phillip
Ulp - not gravity, but "zero gravity", was what I meant to say. Damn typos!
Phillip
All I know is that if the Earth stopped spinning we'd be in some serious sh*t so let's hope it doesn't!
Apparently Earth used to spin faster than it does now so a day lasted for about 22 hours 400 million years ago and I assume the further back in time you go, the shorter a day on Earth was.
No need to worry about the end of the world if you take Newton seriously, Colin - he claimed that couldn't happen before 2060 at the earliest. He was an expert in biblical prophecy, especially the Book of Revelations, supposedly one of the select few chosen by God to understand that stuff (thats protestants for you).
He also searched for the philosophers' stone, knew where Atlantis was, and - in his capacity as an MP - supported making William of Orange king. So like dangermash I'd be a bit sceptical about his theories too...
-sean
The most recent theory about gravity I've heard is that gravity's caused by the mass of an object slowing the flow of time in its vicinity. This causes the flow of time to push other objects towards that object, in the same way that a river's water flowing more slowly near a river bank than it does in the middle of the river makes the water push floating sticks towards the bank.
Time does slow down the closer you get to massive objects, Steve. That analogy with the floating sticks borders on genius and is guaranteed to turn any astrophysicist catatonic at one of your many Sheffield drinks soirées.
Its a known unknown, Steve - we can describe it, but can't really explain it.
A bit like West Ham currently being top of the Premier League.
-sean
This conversation has been hilarious!
And educational.
...Sort of, anyway.
I doff my cap to all of you, gentlemen. Goodnight!
M.P.
I think the premier league table is reasonably explicable. It’s descending based upon points, goal difference and goals scored. Three points for a win and one for a draw. Goal difference is calculated by goals scored less goals conceded. Obviously goals scored is self explanatory. Pretty straight forward.
DW
Yes, the Premier League table is easily explicable, DW.
So is measuring the acceleration of free falling objects, but its not the same thing as a theory of gravity.
And don't forget, you also have to account for Spurs being second!
-sean
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