Forty Years Ago Today! The 1983 Marvel UK annuals for 1984.

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

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What is this madness? It seems like it was mere days ago I was looking at Marvel annuals and, now, here I am, doing it again.

But, as always, there's nothing like a good dose of delayed gratification.

Therefore, I shall stall for time and reveal what we were watching on Christmas Day in the Lord's great big year of 1983.

Early on, BBC One was gifting us such fare as The Christmas Raccoons and something called The Glitterball.

Then, we were, as always, treated to the Christmas Day Top of the Pops. This time, featuring performances by such greats as Michael Jackson, Shakin' Stevens, Men at Work, Bonnie Tyler, Duran Duran, Bucks Fizz, Lionel Richie and David Bowie.

Later, Terry Wogan hosted a Blankety Blank special which guested Sabina Franklyn, Roy Kinnear, Ruth Madoc, Patrick Moore, Beryl Reid and Freddie Starr. I do believe that, of those, mentioned, Sabina Franklyn is the only one still alive.

Following in its wake were such delights as Treasure Island, The Two Ronnies, All Creatures Great and Small and Only Fools and Horses.

Finally, the channel's day was brought to a close by The Spinners at York. These were, of course, the British Spinners, not the ones of Detroit fame.

BBC Two, meanwhile, struck early with Nobody Minded the Rain...: Impressions of Coronation Day.

It also gave us The Book Game in which Anthony Burgess, Germaine Greer, Susan Hill and Adam Mars-Jones tried to identify extracts before giving vent to their literary likes and dislikes. I have to say that sounds a right barrel of laughs.

Later, we got The Great Palace: the Story of Parliament, Meet Me in St Louis, an operatic version of Cinderella, and The Bob Monkhouse Show.

And the station ended its day with the Marx Brothers In Duck Soup.

But what of ITV? Christmas is, after all, a love-in for commercialisation. So, what was the commercial channel up to?

Early doors, it offered up Roland Rat's Winter Wonderland.

As the day progressed, it also provided us with The Capture of Grizzly Adams, Superman, Jimmy Tarbuck's Christmas All-Stars and The Revenge of the Pink Panther before shutting down with The Streets of San Francisco.

Well, TV's all very good but what we all want at Christmas is alcohol a singalong. So, that in mind, what was the UK's Number One on that special day?

It was The Flying Pickets' a cappella cover of Yazoo's Only You which was bravely holding off the challenge of Slade's anthemic comeback ballad My Oh My. Interestingly, even though it was a full decade after the band's commercial heyday, that week's Top 100 featured no less than four Slade songs.

Over on the British album chart, sway was being held by Various Artists' Now That's What I Call Music while Paul Young resided at Number Two, thanks to his LP No Parlez.

Marvel's biggest money-spinner returns for another round of hardback action.

And it gives us the company's adaptation of the third film in the trilogy, as brought to us by Archie Goodwin, Al Williamson and Carlos Garzón.

I'm going to be honest, if I was asked to guess which Marvel characters would get a UK annual, this year, Spider-Woman wouldn't have been on the list.

However, I'm clearly some kind of fool because she does get her own annual.

Info about it and its contents is hard to come by but I do know it provides us with plenty of Carmine Infantino action, as Jessica Drew stars in a tale called The Bounty Hunter.

There's also a guest appearance from the Hulk but whether that's in the same tale or a different one, I cannot say.

Rather less surprisingly, the Hulk gets his own annual.

And it's one which reprints his first encounter with Tyrannus, just as the 1972/1973 Marvel Annual did. But, this time, in colour.

We also get the tale in which the Hulk and Avengers must unite to tackle the Leader who seems to have concocted a plan to turn everyone into replicas of himself, via the city's water supply.

The book also seems to contain some of the material created for Marvel UK in the Sez Dez's Revolution era.

I know who's not going to have a merry Christmas.

And that's Spider-Man.

And that's because this year's annual reprints the death of Gwen Stacy and the death of Norman Osborn. Blimey, it's a miracle they didn't fling in the death of Captain Stacy while they were at it.

It also contains at least two text stories, and multiple photos from the 1970s Spider-Man TV show the kids are, no doubt, still talking about in 1983.