The Marvel Lucky Bag - May 1974.

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

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Mere days ago, we were recalling the output of Hammer Studios and its impact upon our lives.

How appropriate, then, that May 1974 saw the release of one of their myriad classics with the unleashing of Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. How we gasped as the unscrupulous scientist created a monster that looked like he'd been experimenting on the corpses of five cavemen, three orangutans and a carpet.

But that wasn't the only cinematic release that May because we were also granted our first chance to see both Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, neither of which have I ever seen but, even in my reclusive abode, I have heard talk of both, oft conducted in hushed whispers.

Cap's looking ready to fly into the fray on that cover but what I need to know is whether it is, as I suspect, the issue in which the Kree clobberer first turns cosmic?

Even if it isn't, I do know it's the one in which we first discover the origin of Moondragon.

I'm assuming, therefore, that this means we also learn the origin of Drax the Destroyer.

A brand new mag hits the shelves, with what appears to be the only issue of it that'll ever be published before it transforms into Giant-Size Fantastic Four.

But what a way to make its mark, with yet another clash between the Hulk and the Thing.

However, unless my memory fails me, this is a clash with a difference, as, by some means I no longer recollect, the pair manage to swap bodies, leaving the Hulk, for once, as the weaker combatant.

Not that he lets that stop him.

We also get a whole fistful of super-villain pin-ups as created by Jack Kirby way back in the 1960s.

And another new mag enters out lives. One that's destined to last for more than one issue.

In fact, it will last for five issues.

In this one, we're presented with such yarns as The Rats!, Heartstop, The Last Man!, His Own Kind!, The Nightmare Patrol and In the Shadows of the City, brought to us by the likes of Gerry Conway, Ralph Reese, Roy Thomas, Alfredo Alcala, George Alec Effinger, Walt Simonson and a plethora of others whose talents are beyond both impeachment and reproachment.

Things notch up a gear for the king of Wakanda when Killmonger's latest weirdo Baron Macabre raises a legion of the dead to battle our hero.

Meanwhile, Zatama - Presumably no relation to Zatanna and Zatara - is murdered and, with grim inevitability, the perma-unpopular Monica Lynne finds herself accused of the deed.

It's one of those issues that demonstrates a Man-Thing comic can be made viable, as we get the never-to-be-forgotten Night of the Laughing Dead in which Darrel the Clown commits suicide then treats us to his life story before we get to watch Manny battle for the man's very soul.

Neal Adams gives us a cover that demands we buy this issue.

But what of the insides?

The main tale is Night of the Dark God by Thomas, Kane and Adams, adapted from a Robert E Howard original I've no memory of, despite almost certainly having read it.

In it, Conan returns to Cimmeria, only to discover his childhood sweetheart Mala has been abducted by Vanir raiders. It all ends with Mala killing herself while our hero receives unexpected help from a band of Picts.

There's also a look back at everyone's favourite movie Jason and the Argonauts, a Joe Maneely reprint titled Origin of the Crusader and the Barry Smith drawn Dweller in the Dark.

Seeking a cure for the condition that's left his people in a state of suspended animation, Subby explores a long-lost shipwreck - but hasn't counted on the presence of the monstrous Piranha and his army of whatever it is he has an army of.

In our main tale, someone called Papa Shorty receives the Amulet of Damballah and uses it to summon the zombie.

We're also gifted a look back at the movie White Zombie, a tale called Who Walks with a Zombie? and yarns that bear such names as With the Dawn Comes Death (Part 2), Voodoo War! and Death's Bleak Birth!

I have to say, you'd have to be seriously addicted to restless corpses to read that much material on the subject each month.

At last, a martial arts legend enters our lives when Iron Fist flashes his neon knuckles at anyone who gets in his way.

In this epic, Fisty passes the final tests in his K'un-Lun training and is granted the privilege of immortality if he so wants it.

I can only assume he doesn't so want it because I don't remember it ever being claimed that he's immortal in any issues after this one 

And because he's a man who can multitask; while he's doing it, he also conducts flashbacks into how he first arrived there, as a child, and into the death of his parents.