Fifty Years Ago Today! The 1973 Marvel UK annuals for 1974.

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

***

Yo-ho-ho, boys and girls. I hope you've all been good, this year, because it's the very Eve of Christmas itself!

And that means we're all going to be finding a very special something in our stockings.

Nothing less than 1973's Marvel Annual 1974!

But that can wait. First, we need to discover just what were we watching on Christmas Day of that year.

That morning, BBC One turned its back on wokeness and gave us the spectacle that was its Black and White Minstrel Show. I'm kind of feeling it won't be repeating that one this Yuletide.

In the early afternoon, we were treated to the Festive Top of the Pops in which Tony Blackburn and Noel Edmonds fronted a special edition of the nation's favourite music show. That meant we got the biggest hits from such stars as Suzi Quatro, Slade, the Simon Park Orchestra, 10cc, Peters & Lee, Wizzard, Dawn and David Cassidy.

And, of course, it was all visually supplemented by the permanently traumatising never-to-be-forgotten dance moves of Pan's People.

Later, we got Billy Smart's Christmas Circus, Christmas Pantomime: Robin Hood, Bruce Forsyth's the Generation Game, The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show, The Morecambe and Wise Show and The Odd Couple.

And, because it was that time of year, we ended the day with Lost Hearts, one of the BBC's legendary Ghost Stories for Christmas. In this one, an orphan goes to live with his uncle but finds himself haunted by the ghosts of two children.

Tragically, despite my love of Christmas ghost stories, I missed it.

However, I had a very good reason to do so.

One that has shaped my mind to this very day.

Over on BBC Two, the morning offered us White Christmas before we were treated to a cartoon version of A Christmas Carol followed by Far From the Madding Crowd, Buster Keaton's The Railrodder, Swan Lake and Alice Through the Looking-Glass.

However, all of that paled into insignificance next to what the day's schedule ended with.

And that was Quatermass and the Pit!

And that broadcast is why I missed the ghost story on BBC One. And it's why I shall always associate Christmas with a man plunging a tower crane into the heart of Satan.

But what of ITV?

The commercial behemoth treated us to an episode of Rainbow before offering up Chipperfield's Christmas Circus.

The Afternoon Movie was Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows. A film I've never heard of in my entire life.

Then we got Queen of Hearts with Danny La Rue and Peggy Mount.

That was followed by All-Star Comedy Carnival which appears to have been a Jimmy Tarbuck-hosted compilation comprised of Man About the House, My Good Woman, Sez Les, Billy Liar, Spring and Autumn and Doctor in Charge. I must confess that My Good Woman and Spring and Autumn are totally unfamiliar to me.

After that, we got Tommy Cooper's Christmas, Von Ryan's Express and, if we lived in Yorkshire, The Odd Couple. This means the BBC and ITV were both showing The Odd Couple, that evening. However, the former was showing the movie, while the latter was offering us the TV spin-off.

Hooray! It's the sequel to the classic 1973 Marvel Annual. And I have to say its cover's not a patch on its predecessor's 

Opening it up, the inside seems far less themed than that had been. All but one of the stories in its forebear were from the very early days of the 1960s, with three of the tales featuring our heroes vs alien menaces.

This year's selection of tales seems far more arbitrary.

We kick off with On Wings of Death! the tale in which the Beetle abducts Aunt May, and Spidey has to confront him in a swimming pool.

Then we get The Origin of Daredevil.

That's followed by something called The Star Raiders, a Lee/Ditko intriguer in which a group of convicts-turned-pirates are tricked into attacking a planet they believe defenceless. Only for them to discover the inhabitants are not the midgets they thought they were!

Next, is the aquatic drama of When Attuma Strikes! When Hank Pym snaps at the Wasp for making a mistake during an experiment, she flees. But, when her plane's captured in Attuma's latest bid for world conquest, only Giant-Man can save her.

For those who've not got enough of Giant-Man from that tale, we then get Special Feature: All You Want to Know About Giant-Man. To be honest, I'm not sure there's that much I want to know about Giant-Man but it's nice to know the info's there, should I ever need it.

Leaving the man of size behind, we stumble across And Then Came Electro! in which Spider-Man agrees to guest on a chat show but - wouldn't you know it - Electro just happens to be working at the studio and decides this is the perfect time to wreak his high-voltage vengeance.

Fortunately, Spidey survives that tale.

Just as he survives the next one which is The Terrible Threat of the Living Brain!

Now we get The Origin of... ...The Hulk as drawn by sturdy Steve Ditko.

And, finally, the Hulk has his first-ever meeting with the Fantastic Four.

I'll say one thing for that book, it might not have the thematic cohesion of the previous annual but it gives us plenty of (admittedly baffling) variety.

Also, it's a Marvel annual. Who cares what's in it? It's a Marvel annual!