The Marvel Lucky Bag - December 1974.

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

***

Many were the splendours that awaited us if we dared enter a picture house as the year rapidly approached Christmas of 1974.

For instance, we could treat ourselves to such classics as Emmanuelle, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, The Towering Inferno, Young Frankenstein, The Godfather Part II, Island at the Top of the World and The Man With the Golden Gun.

It's difficult to pick a favourite out of that lot but I suspect I'm going to have to go for Young Frankenstein, even though I like The Man With the Golden Gun a lot more than everyone else seems to.

We all know there's nothing like a gorilla on the cover to boost the sales of a publication.

In which case, this month's Weird Wonder Tales must have positively flown off the racks, as it has no less than three of the beasts on the front of it!

Granted, that thing stood at the back doesn't look very much like a gorilla but, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I shall assume it to be one.

Lurking within, we uncover  a multitudinous five tales.

In the first, a doctor who transplants ape organs into humans is captured by several miffed monkeys who remove his head and place it on a gorilla's body.

In the second, an old woman adopts a doll brought to life by a freak electrical incident. For some reason, her neighbour tries to kill her but the doll sacrifices itself to save her.

In the third, a dream searches for the correct dreamer before midnight.

In the fourth, a mystic is accosted by an escaped convict.

While, in the fifth, a man asks his gangster brother for money towards creating a shrinking gas of his devising.

Readers may be startled to discover the fourth story features the first appearance of Chondu who would later reappear to pester the Defenders.

I should also add that all of these tales originated in the 1950s and '60s. 

How exciting. A brand new mag stabs its way onto our local spinner rack!

I know little of the contents of this one but I do know it holds a million and one stories from the likes of Steve Stiles, Skip Williamson, Tim Boxell, Howard Cruse, Basil Wolverton and others and is clearly an attempt to leap on the Underground Comics bandwagon, even though it's from America's biggest comics publisher and is, therefore, surely, by definition, not an underground comic?

Sadly, this title will hang around for just three issues before vanishing completely underground in the comic book graveyard.

And another humour mag appears from thin air.

Most of the stories in this issue are reprints from Crazy and/or The Monster Times but there is one new tale, thanks to Russ Jones and Mike Sekowsky.

That tale is called Fangs for the Memory! and stars the never-to-be-forgotten Count Fangula.

This title will go on to last for five issues.

The artist the world knows as JAD brings us an eye-catching cover when we're treated to such chillers as The Heart Devourer, High Midnight, The Vendetta, The Inheritance and Beware the Legions! The second and final tales star Morbius and Blade respectively.

The second Marvel Treasury Edition contemplates the deeds of the Fantastic Four.

And not just any deeds but The Galactus Trilogy itself.

Not only that. We're also privileged to encounter the thriller in which the Sub-Mariner and Dr Doom first team up.

To say nothing of the first appearance of the Impossible Man.

In Dracula's third Giant-Size issue, we discover Slow Death on the Killing Ground! I Was a Vampire, The Wedding Present, The Mark of the Vampire! and The Man Who Changed.

Only the first of those tales is a new one, having been brought to life by Chris Claremont and Don Heck.

From what I can make out, this issue contains the second part of  Marvel's adaptation of Robert E Howard's Conan the Conqueror, thanks to Roy Thomas and Gil Kane.

But there's more because we also find a reprint of Thomas and Smith's Zukala's Daughter. An adventure which was the first exposure to Conan some of us ever got, thanks to the legendary 1972/73 Fleetway Marvel Annual.

It's bad news for the magical medic because Silver Dagger's turned up!

Can it be true? Has the villain killed Dr Strange?

And if he has, is that really going to stop the Sorcerer Supreme?

And how does a caterpillar on a toadstool fit into it all?

Fifty years ago today - December 1974.

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

***

The maelstrom awaits.

I shall enter it.

It's East vs West, as the Avengers mistakenly tangle with the Titanic Three who turn out, on this occasion, not to be the wrongdoers our heroes had assumed them to be.

Which, of course, poses the obvious question of just who are the bad guys?

That, I fail to remember but I do know this is the month in which we experience the Swordsman's funeral.

Judging by that cover, Conan must overcome the glummest-looking monster he's ever encountered.

I've never read this one but it seems the world's favourite barbarian and someone called Laza-Lanti kill the thing but then Laza-Lanti and someone called Timara commit suicide.

It all sounds quite depressing.

The Owl's back and making a nuisance of himself in San Francisco where Matt Murdock has gone in an attempt to reunite with the Black Widow.

However, their meeting is interrupted by muggers who work for the floating fiend!

"We can't stop him from exploding!"

They don't write dialogue like that anymore.

But is it true? Was this, as claimed, "The mightiest FF saga ever!"?

And was Mahkizmo the worst name in history for a villain?

These are questions I ask as I contemplate the nature of reality, from my mountaintop eyrie.

When it comes to plot, the testosterone terror gloats that our heroes can't thwart his plan to merge his world of Machus with that of Thundra's Femizons.

And, to prove it, he forces them to fight big monsters!

Hammer and Anvil make their first appearance when an injured alien mistakes their attempts to kill it for a successful attempt to help it.

Thus it is that it grants them super-strength and a lifelong bond that can't be broken.

Until the Hulk breaks it.

More importantly, this is the issue in which we meet Crackajack Jackson.

And then wave goodbye to him as he, sadly, snuffs it.

I sometimes think I'm the only person alive who appreciates the Grizzly but I've always had a soft spot for him, even if he is, basically, just a cut-price rehashing of the Rhino.

That said, I must admit I struggle to recall the actual plot of this one, beyond him being an ex-wrestler who wants revenge on someone for something or other.

And my memories of this one are also vague.

I suspect Thor's travelled to an underworld, in order to rescue the abducted goddess Krista from a villain not depicted on the cover.

Given that it's an underworld, I shall assume her abductor to be either Pluto or Mephisto.

I could, however, be wrong about that.

After visiting Professor X's funeral, Quicksilver goes back home to Magneto's lair but is plagued by doubts about having left the Avengers to rejoin his old master.

Needless to say, that can only mean an X-Men/Magneto scrap is on its way...

There's also a Lee/Ditko reprint in which a criminal kills a night watchman before fleeing into the past, with the aid of a time machine. But, there, he has a violent encounter with the machine's creator.

What's this? Steve Rogers creating a whole new identity for himself?

And calling it Nomad?

Is this a good idea or bad?

Only time - and the fashion police - can tell.

Until then, he's going to be needed because Madame Hydra's killed the original Viper and, having, adopted his name and costume, goes and reforms the Serpent Squad!

That's what Marvel's big hitters are up to.

But what of DC?

Just what will we find if we grab a random smattering of its books which bear the same cover date, from the spinner racks of our youth?

Plop! hits its eighth issue, with a Basil Wolverton image that'll inhabit your nightmares for as long as you may live.

Inside, we find a whole string of short tales of a humorous bent, from the likes of Wolverton, Steve Skeates, Dave Manak, Sergio Aragonés, Robert Johnson, Don Edwing and multitude others.

Weird Western Tales is a comic I was always tempted to buy, due to it looking like a horror comic but one I always failed to buy because of it being a Western mag.

Regardless, in this issue, Hex encounters a land owner who demands an exorbitant toll to cross his road.

This is bad news because those who refuse to meet the asking price are forced to take a detour through the deadliest of quicksand.

The Unexpected gets the 100-page treatment - and that means I'm expecting lots of reprints. 

Granted, if that proves to be the case then it won't be unexpected and the book will have failed to live up to its title.

But what was I worrying about? Upon closer inspection, it transpires that no fewer than four of its tales are brand new.

Those are the ones the world knows as Death of an Exorcist, Over My Dead Body, Panic in the Dark and Among Us Dwells a Man-Beast.

The issue's reprints, meanwhile, are blessed with such titles as The Fear Master, Bewitched for a Day, The Riddle of the Glass Bubble, The Wizard of the Diamond World, Doom Was My Inheritance, The Man Who Was Death, The Unlucky Birthstones and The Enchanted Costumes and are all sourced from the 1950s and '60s.

Nestor Redondo gives us an iconic cover, as DC's greatest swamp dweller returns to do whatever it is he does this month.

You may have surmised my knowledge of this one to be limited and you'd be right but I do know the story within is called The Leviathan Conspiracy and introduces someone called John Zero.

Can it be? Are DC's two most nocturnal crime fighters about to meet, despite the different eras in which they operate?

Yes it can when Batman sets off in pursuit of a known felon, falsely believing him to have stolen a priceless tiara.

But, of course, that's not all we're getting. This is, after all, a 100-page comic.

Thus it is that we also encounter The Great Batman Swindle!, The Strange Costumes of Batman!, A New Look for Robin, Heroes by Proxy!, Two Batmen Too Many! and The Failure of Bruce Wayne. All of which have been recycled from the distant past.

Jim Aparo gives us a cover that proves purple and green can go together.

What don't go together are the Spectre and the Third Reich. Thus it is that a self-declared Nazi field marshall meets a tentacular termination when he decides it's a good idea to try and blackmail the city, with threats of terror attacks.

Elsewhere, Aquaman must battle the deadly Bugala, a huge sea monster which is on course to destroy Atlantis itself.

But is that monster all it seems?

November 30th, 1974 - Marvel UK, 50 years ago this week.

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

***

I think we all dig looking into our ancestry but, this week in 1974, we were literally digging up our ancestry when a female skeleton from the hominid species Australopithecus Afarensis was uncovered in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia and subsequently named Lucy.

How old was she?

Only 3.2 million years.

And, you know what? That's even older than the comics I'm about to discuss.

Gil Kane gives us yet another chance to look up people's nostrils, thanks to the cover for an issue in which Spider-Man must prevent the Human Torch from killing the Lizard before our hero can turn him back into good old Curt Connors.

Iron Man, meanwhile, must tackle the returning Hawkeye and Black Widow.

That may not be as easy as it sounds, because the Widow now has a fancy-pants costume and something approximating super-powers, thanks to her new outfit's ability to stick to walls and fire string and stings from it.

Tony Stark, meanwhile, is still mithering about his inability to tell Pepper his true feelings for her.

In New York, Thor, Sif and Balder defeat Magnir and Brona while, in Asgard, Odin must face the third and mightiest of those villains, the foul Forsung.

It's a veritable battle with time when Shang-Chi finds himself trapped in a giant hour-glass filled with spikes.

That won't hold him for long but things get far worse than that when the blundering oaf manages to kill his own girlfriend Sandra Chen, having been fooled into thinking she's the living embodiment of death.

The new Black Knight, meanwhile, is trying to recruit the Avengers to help liberate his castle from the clutches of Magneto.

But, first, he has to get them to stop attacking him!

And Dr Strange is trying to rescue Clea and Victoria Bentley from Dormammu in what I suspect to be Gene Colan's first work on the strip.

Poor old Gwen Stacy. First the Green Goblin wants to kill her and, now, so does Dracula.

But I jest. She is, of course, not Gwen Stacy.

Having said that, I don't have a clue who she is.

By the looks of it, though, she won't be around for long.

When it comes to werewolves by night, I do believe Andrea Timly's captured Jack Russell, in a bid to locate The Darkhold.

And Frankenstein's Monster expresses his frustration towards his creator, by killing the scientist and his wife!

After his recent misdemeanours, Taylor's put on trial by Dr Zaius.

And, despite the jury being made up of apes, it's very much a court of the kangaroo variety.

Thanks to that sentence, I now have the word "boomerang-utan" stuck in my head but have no idea how to use it in an actual functioning sentence.

In Ka-Zar's strip, not only has the Petrified Man become Garokk the Sun God, he's also gone insane and homicidal.

Fortunately, Ka-Zar's around to fling him into his own pool of immortality and kill him.

While, on Mars, Gullivar Jones is left to ask What Price Victory?

It took forever to happen but happen it finally has, as the Hulk gets to meet the diabolical Dr Doom when the Latverian tyrant decides Bruce Banner's just the kind of bomb scientist he needs, and the Hulk's just the kind of bomb delivery system he wants.

Meanwhile, the world thinks the brute is dead, thanks to Doom having blown up a Hulk-Bot in full view of everyone.

A terrifying new villain enters the life of Daredevil when the Leap-Frog makes his bouncy debut. How can even the man without fear hope to triumph when confronted by a man wearing flippers?

Even more significantly, Matt Murdock decides to tell Foggy and Karen that, despite what Spider-Man might think, he isn't Daredevil.

And that his never-before-mentioned twin brother is!

Yes, celebrate, humanity. Mike Murdock is about to enter the building.

Meanwhile, the Thing is in sensational solo action when he thinks the Silver Surfer's getting a bit too friendly with Alicia, and decides the solution to that problem is a knuckle sandwich.

That turns out not to be the solution to the problem.

Speak Your Brain! Part 93.

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

***

Image by Tumisu
from Pixabay

Can it be?

Can another Tuesday be upon us?

Yes, it can.

And I think we all know what that means.

It means there are only three days to go until the weekend!

More importantly, it means the return of the 

feature mankind may only speak of in the most hushed of whispers and the most whispered of hushes.

It's the one in which the first person to comment gets to decide today's subject for debate.

Even I - Dark Lord of this castle - know not what that might be. Therefore, whatever it is you wish to state, enquire, query or debate, type it below and we'll shall see just what a day like Tuesday can bestow upon us.

November 1984 - Marvel UK monthlies, 40 years ago this month.

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

***

If you ventured into your local recording studio, this month in 1984, you may have encountered history being made.

At least, you might if your local recording studio was in Notting Hill.

That's because it was the month in which thirty-five of Britain and Ireland's mightiest pop stars - and Marilyn - got together in one room to become Band Aid and record the song Do They Know It's Christmas? in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

I do acknowledge that some of those stars, such as Jody Watley, were clearly neither British nor Irish.

Regardless, that track would go on to become the biggest-selling single in UK history and hit the Number One slot on more than one occasion.

Elsewhere, it was good news for all God-fearing females because the General Synod of the Church of England finally supported the ordination of women as deacons. Having said that, it still didn't agree to them becoming full-blown priests.

Also elsewhere, the British and French governments announced their intention to find private funding for the construction of a Channel Tunnel. The tunnel - which had been first proposed in 1802 - was projected to open in the early 1990s. A target which would actually be met.

Across the ocean, Ronald Reagan defeated Democrat hopeful Walter Mondale in the US Presidential Election. Reagan won 59% of the popular vote - the highest percentage since Richard Nixon in 1972 - and picked up 49 states in the Electoral College, with Mondale only securing his home state of Minnesota, and the District of Columbia.

When it came to the UK singles chart, November launched with Chaka Khan's I Feel For You holding sway before it was dethroned by Jim Diamond's I Should Have Known Better. While the accompanying album chart greeted the month with Frankie's Welcome to the Pleasuredome on top before that was replaced by Wham's Make It Big which then had to subside before the onslaught of The Hits Album by those pesky Various Artists who just couldn't stop having hits.

Colin Baker gets the rare pleasure of being allowed on the cover of the magazine dedicated to the show he's the star of.

While, inside, Eric Saward reveals just what a script editor does.

Some may express surprise to discover Doctor Who in this era has a script editor. 

But not me. I never doubted it for a second.

We also get Part Five of the comic strip The Voyager.

And we're treated to a preview of Vengeance on Varos and a look at the work of Ice Warriors' creator Brian Hayles.

It had to happen. With Conan the Destroyer rampaging through the cinemas of the world, Big Arnie makes the cover of Marvel UK's longest surviving monthly.

And he makes the inside too. Sort of. As the book gives us its adaptation of that very movie, as well as an interview with its star. And I do believe that adaptation is in colour!

But hold on. What's this? The mag seems to have merged with Mighty World of Marvel, which means we also encounter Night Raven, Magik and Showcase!

Starburst hits its 75th issue - and does so by looking at V, the television show which launched a million and one conspiracy theories about the world being ruled by reptile aliens disguised as people.

Less infamously, there's a look at the new fantasy adventure Streets of Fire, a film I've never heard of. While John Brosnan looks back at Tarzan films through the ages.

And, as if that wasn't enough for any reader, this issue also offers up reviews of The Company of Wolves and the aforementioned Conan the Destroyer.

November 23rd, 1974 - Marvel UK, 50 years ago this week.

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

***

Oh is he more, too much more than a pretty face?

I don't think so.

Then again, perhaps I do think so.

He is, after all, still at Number One on the UK singles chart, with his latest smash Gonna Make You a Star.

I refer, of course, to David Essex who's discovered what it's like to rule supreme over the British music scene.

Also having a strong sense of what it's like to reign supreme is Elton John whose Greatest Hits album, has smashed straight in at Number One on the accompanying album chart.

It is, of course, November 1974.

The Lizard is back!

And so is the Human Torch, in a comic which bears a Gil Kane cover of mystery origins. Was it drawn specially for this issue or is it a reprint from somewhere else?

That, I don't know but I do remember asking that selfsame question in an ancient post you can find right here.

Meanwhile, Iron Man's still having to endure the Mandarin boring him to death with his origin story. and then trying to spin him to death with his sizeable wheel.

But maybe Shellhead's the lucky one because, when he's done that, the villain wants to start a global nuclear war, with him being the only winner.

Fortunately, the Chinese government have something to say about that sort of malarkey.

And say it, they do.

Elsewhere, it's triple trouble  for Thor, Balder and Sif when the Enchanters Three show up in New York.

And they've brought their Living Talisman with them!

Then again, let's be honest, there wouldn't be much point in them bringing their dead talisman with them.

It took me far too many years to realise that, on this cover, the Black Knight's flying vertically, with the Avengers falling towards the skyscrapers below, rather than him flying horizontally, with the Avengers floating behind him in a disorganised manner.

I did always wonder how Goliath and Hawkeye were managing to fly.

Elsewhere, Dr Strange and Victoria Bentley are in a bizarre world, in search of Clea, when who should show up but Dormammu!

And now, Strangey's going to have to go through him if he's to ensure the survival of those two women!

As for Shang-Chi, he's in Beijing, trying to protect Sandra Chen's scientist father from the Manchurian machinations of his own fiendish father.

Shangy does such a great job of it that, by the end of this issue, that scientist's dead and our hero's unconscious. 

From what I can make out, Taj and Rachel prevent Frank Drake from committing suicide and this enables him to join their cause which I'm sure he'll prove massively valuable to.

Elsewhere, Jack Russell's furry alter-ego finally wins his fight with Max Grant .

And Frankenstein's Monster avenges the death of the Bride of Frankenstein by killing his creator's wife.

We complete the issue with a short tale from 1953's Adventures Into Terror. It's called The Executioner and features Francis Tourneau's efforts to create a more efficient means of executing people.

Unfortunately for him, the French Revolution breaks out and he becomes the first victim of his own machine.

The machine the world knows as, "the guillotine."

The Hulk?

Defeated by a blonde?

It can only happen in the pages of They Shoot Hulks, Don't They? when the brute finds himself flung from the top of the Empire State Building.

Meanwhile, the man without fear's still in England and still trying to clear the name of Ka-Zar who's been framed by his evil brother the Plunderer.

And the Fantastic Four finally overcome the Wakandan traps set for them by the Black Panther and confront him, ready for him to reveal the dynamic truth about his origin.

From that cover, I think we can all assume this is the pulse-pounding issue in which Taylor finally proves to the apes that he can speak.

Not that that's likely to do him any good.

Especially as his first words to them are so abusive.

In Ka-Zar's strip, the Petrified Man becomes Garokk, the Sun God and thwarts Zaladane's attack on the Vala-Kuri. Obviously, the highlight of this issue is Garokk coming up against a T-Rex.

When it comes to Gullivar Jones, Wayne Boring takes over the art chores but will Wayne live down to his surname?

I suspect not, as  Gullivar and Chak the pterosaur man strive to survive while the lovely but hapless Meru is taken captive by someone or other.

Speak Your Brain! Part 92. The latest thing you’ve bought, discovered or subscribed to.

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

***

Image by Tumisu
from Pixabay

What is that vile fiend I see through my window?

It's snow!

But is this a temporary abomination or is more of it on the way?

I've no idea.

But  perhaps that is good news, for there's nothing like uncertainty to warm the blood.

And uncertainty is what we have aplenty, as we're blessed by the return of the feature whose destiny none can know.

It's the one in which the first person to comment gets to decide just what the subject for debate shall be. Therefore, whatever it is you wish to state, enquire or query, type it below and we'll see just where that process takes us.

2000 AD - October 1986. Plus a vital message from the editor!

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

***

Before we begin today's breathless look at what Tharg and his gang were once up to, I have to make a pulse-pounding pronouncement that's bound to rock the world.

I'm sure you're not oblivious to the fact we've reached the 50th anniversary of the launch of Atlas/Seaboard Comics, the company that dared to take on the big boys and fail. Because of that and the fact I get the feeling we've entered an era of 2000 AD which none of us were actually reading, I'm planning for this to be the last time I look at the monthly doings of 2000 AD and that I'll replace the feature with one in which I'll, instead, look back at what Atlas/Seaboard was up to 50 years ago each month.

If people would rather I continue with the 2000 AD summaries instead, then I shall persist with them but, otherwise, I shall switch to doing the Atlas roundups.

That's what you're likely to find on this site, next month, but what was on in your local cinema in October 1986?

Children of a Lesser God, The Color of Money, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Peggy Sue Got Married, Soul Man and The Mission were what was on in your local cinema.

I must confess to never having seen any of them and can, therefore, pass no judgement upon their relative merits.

When it came to the UK singles chart, however, the month launched with Madonna's True Blue holding sway before being rudely toppled by the musical legend that was Nick Berry and his perma-popular dirge Every Loser Wins.

 
The associated album chart, however, saw no change at all in that spell, with Paul Simon's Graceland sitting prettiest of them all for the entire duration of October.

And what of that aforementioned comic? 

It was still giving us Strontium Dog, Sooner or Later, Tharg's Future-Shocks, Sláine, Judge Dredd, Ace Trucking Co and Metalzoic. I do believe that, in one of the issues, Judge Dredd finds himself up against the menace of a 50 Foot Woman.

I'm assuming that's a woman who's fifty foot tall. Not a woman who possesses fifty feet. I'm not sure anyone needs to possess fifty feet. Especially if they've only got two legs to attach them to.