Forty years ago today - January 1984.

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

***

Let us delve, once more, into what the world's mightiest heroes have to offer us in that far-off land that wise men know as Yesteryear.

Hooray! It's Assistant Editors Month!

And that means we can look forward to a whole pile of stories that wouldn't have seen the light of day under any sane circumstances.

The first example we consume is a bizarre one in which Daredevil meets a character who's clearly Tarzan. But a Tarzan totally devoid of the traits that might make him admirable.

When one of his wives gets run over by a car, the jungle lord decides to take it out on everybody else, despite not being that bothered that she's been killed.

Meanwhile, in the issue's backup tale, a schoolboy's in-depth report on Daredevil is interrupted by a fight between that red-clad hero and someone called Turk.

Reed Richards is still on trial for saving the life of Galactus and, thus, dooming the Skrull homeworld.

However, the prosecution hasn't counted on the Watcher, Galactus and even Eternity showing up to provide evidence for the defence.

The strangest part of this story is that its writer and artist John Byrne appears in it when he's taken along to watch the trial in person.

It's another fourth-wall breaker, as Bruce Banner decides to visit the offices of Marvel writer/editor Anne Nocenti and bemoan his lot in life, while she tries to gee him up.

However, ashamed of himself for committing treason in his vendetta against the Hulk, Thunderbolt Ross decides the best way to make amends for it is by killing himself.

Then he decides it isn't.

In our first story of the issue, a gang of kids who role-play as the Avengers expel their Iron Man stand-in, on the grounds that the real Shellhead's left the real Avengers.

Needless to say, he's not best pleased about this turn of events.

And, needless to say, events soon show them what a mistake they've made.

Meanwhile, in our second tale, Tony Stark manages to go a whole day without booze, thanks to a bet from a cop who has it in for alcoholics.

And things just get stranger, this month, as Spider-Man must deal with the return of the Fly - in a tale drawn by cartoonist Fred Hembeck, in the style of Fred Hembeck.

Meanwhile, will Spider-Man reveal his true identity to the Black Cat?

In the first of this issue's stories, Spidey completes his fight with Thunderball whose power's been amplified by his acquisition of the Wrecker's magic crowbar.

And, in its second yarn, the wallcrawler visits a young fan, explains his powers, tells him his origin and even reveals his secret identity to him.

Has the man gone completely mad?

No. He's only done it because he knows his secrets are safe in the hands of someone who's about to drop dead from leukemia.

The Mighty Thor clearly has no time for all this Assistant Editors malarkey. His book gives us a perfectly normal tale in which Odin has dwarves create a hammer for Beta Ray Bill and then sends him back into space to rescue his people.

And Thor decides he wants to tag along too!

It's all meant to be fun and games, as the surplus-to-requirements Avengers agree to make a guest appearance on David Letterman's show.

Sadly for them, would-be super-villain Fabian Stankowicz decides to try and kill them all, live on air.

Meanwhile, back at the Avengers Mansion, the Vision's attitude is getting more unsettling by the day.

In a tale drawn by Jazzy John Romita, Mystique practices fighting the X-Men, with the aid of Arcade's robots - and it's all part of her plan to free Rogue from the heroes' clutches!

However, it turns out she has a noticeable reluctance to harm Nightcrawler.

Just why could that be?

And how could it tie in with him not knowing who his mother is?

In our main adventure, Cap returns to the present and tries to prevent the Brand Corporation's planned massacre of all super-heroes.

However, in our backup tale, Bernie Rosenthal has a dream about what it'd be like if she were Captain America and in the Avengers.

In this month's thrilling tale from before the dawn of history, someone called Raskos tries to form an alliance with some man-bats.

Happily, that plan doesn't get him anywhere, because Conan leads a bunch of bird-men to victory against those man-bats.

I'm hoping at least one of the Bird-Men sounds like Brian Blessed.