The Marvel Lucky Bag - February 1974.

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

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Do you love wearing terrible outfits that make your friends curl up with embarrassment?

If so, you were in paradise in February 1974. 

It was, after all, the month in which the world first met the sartorial sensation that is Zardoz.

And it wasn't the only memorable flick to grace our screens, that February.

We also found our first chance to see Blazing Saddles and Amicus' portmanteau horror From Beyond the Grave.

Granted, I'm struggling to remember just which one that latter movie was, as, for me, all Amicus portmanteaus tend to blur into one.

Adventure Into Fear gains a brand new star, as Morbius the living vampire gets his very own strip.

I can reveal little of what happens in this tale but I do know it's brought to us by Mike Friedrich and Paul Gulacy and that it features plenty of flashbacks.

But Morby isn't alone. We're also supplied with a reprint called Midnight in the Wax Museum! which sprang from the minds of Jack Oleck and Richard Doxsee.

It's bad news for Charlie 47 because Luke Cage: Hero for Hire is no more!

Instead, he's now Luke Cage: Power Man! 

Of course, that might not prove such good news for a certain super-villain who already has that name but I'm sure that's a problem which can be dealt with in a future issue.

As for what's dealt with in this issue, that is a matter I can shed no light upon.

I'm including this one purely because the front cover's painted by John Romita and it's not every day you get to see Conan painted by the Jazzy one.

Inside, there's The Lurker From the Catacombs which, as I'm sure you already know, is Part 2 of Thomas and Smith's legendary retelling of Red Nails. It's the section in which Conan and Valeria get themselves hired to defend Olmec's half of the citadel from the other half of the citadel.

We're also granted the spectacle of The Crimson Bell, The Fury of the Femizons and three pages of Margaret Brundage's Weird Tales illustrations for Red Nails.

But what is this madness? We then get Part 3 of Thomas and Smith's adaptation of the tale, in which evil's defeated, queens are slaughtered and Conan and Valeria set off to find new treasures to steal.

It does seem strange that Marvel would use up the final two parts in one sitting, rather than saving the conclusion for the next issue.

It's another Englehart/Starlin classic, as, sent by Fu Manchu to kill our hero, Midnight makes his debut and his departure all in one tale, thanks to a battle on a construction site. 

Frankly, anyone who doesn't love this issue doesn't love fights in construction sites. I would even start to suspect they probably don't even like fights in car parks.

Someone at Marvel clearly has faith in the selling power of Morbius, because, not content with dominating Adventure Into Fear, he also bags a starring role in Vampire Tales.

Or does he?

Despite him bossing the front cover, this issue's lead story's actually The Kiss of Death starring Satana, in which a preacher ungallantly tries to have our anti-heroine killed.

We also encounter such tales as The Collection, Don't Try to Outsmart the Devil!, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Satana, Bat's Belfry and - at last - we get to Morbius' tale, a thing called Demon Fire!

It's brought to us by Don McGregor, Rich Buckler and Klaus Janson but, tragically, I can shed no light upon what actually happens in it.

It's a comic only a fool wouldn't want, as Marvel's premier sci-fi mag produces its adaptation of A E van Vogt's The Black Destroyer in which an alien gets aboard a spaceship and proceeds to bump off the crew, one by one. I can't help feeling that plot seems familiar from somewhere...

But we don't only get that. There's also They Wait in the Shadows! A tale reprinted from 1956's Journey into Unknown Worlds #47.

Now the world's greatest non-team are in trouble. That's thanks to the return of Xemnu the Titan who's inconveniently taken over a small town!

On the plus side, this would appear to be the issue in which Valkyrie first acquires her sword Dragonfang.