July 6th 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. 

***

By the end of tonight, the United Kingdom may well have a new boss but, back in the old days, there was only one leader of the pack.

And that was Marvel UK.

Let's find out just what it was electing to give us in this week of exactly fifty years ago.

It can't be good news for everybody's favourite martial artist when, if the cover's to be believed, he must meet the wizard of the whirling doom!

In fact, as far as I'm aware, he must face two of them! And no one wants to meet two whirling dooms!

Regular readers will, no doubt, be shocked to discover this week's adventure involves him going for a stroll - only for a pair of assassins to turn up and try to kill him!

You'd think he'd have learnt by now to stop taking strolls.

I recall little of this week's Avengers tale but I do know it involves the return of Hercules to Marvel UK, and a dastardly plot by the Enchantress.

Dr Strange, meanwhile, is still in search of Clea and is now recruiting the help of someone called Veritas who only tells the truth. In my opinion, this makes him a convenient man to ask.

It's a living nightmare for Bruce Banner, with the Hulk still separated from him, still mindless and still out to flatten him. Can the pair be reintegrated before its curtains for them both?

But no matter how dramatic that tale may be, even it pales before what's going on at the Baxter Building.

That's because we've reached a historic moment - the wedding of Reed and Sue. And, after all they've been through, who could begrudge them their big day?

Well, it seems Dr Doom could and because of that, he makes sure every super-villain who's at a loose end begrudges it too.

It can only mean one thing; a whole heap of wrongdoers descending on the event and being met by an equally whole heap of heroic fists.

Daredevil's absent from this issue - apart from in his capacity as a guest artist in the Fantastic Four's strip - his place taken by the Sub-Mariner in a short adventure which involves him encountering a gang of undersea mutant outcasts and offering them a home in Atlantis.

Only for his own city guards to chase them off.

Can it be that Atlanteans are as bigoted, small-minded and prejudiced as the surface dwellers?

Subby has to come to terms with the fact that it might.

As we can see, the Green Goblin is back and out to claim revenge upon Spider-Man.

I do believe this may be the issue which features the famously tense dinner at Norman Osborn's place, in which he gets more and more menacing as the evening progresses.

Just as Daredevil's strip is absent from this week's Mighty World of Marvel, so Iron Man is notably missing from this book.

However, we do have Thor finally getting to Wundagore, meeting the High Evolutionary's New Men - and then being there for the birth of the murderous Man-Beast!

Fifty years ago today - July 1974.

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

***

For centuries, scientists have claimed that you can't turn back time.

But they're wrong.

I can.

And I will.

Watch with whatever emotion is appropriate as I fling myself back to July 1974 and decide whether I like it there or not.

The Avengers take a break from the Celestial Madonna Saga in order to come up against Thanos.

Despite its promised awesomeness, I remember nothing of this tale and cannot, therefore, pass any judgement upon its merits or otherwise.

I've never read this one, and all I can say is our hero's visiting the lost city of Ababenzzar in which he encounters a giant devil and rescues someone called Alonia.

Rather unusually, this one's drawn by Rich Buckler. I'm assuming that means he'll be mimicking John Buscema's style, rather than Jack Kirby's.

But what's this? There's also a Lee/Ditko backup strip called The Changeling in which an ugly king threatens a sorcerer with death unless he makes him the most handsome male in the world.

And, thanks to that, the sorcerer turns him into a swan.

I genuinely have no idea what happens in this one, beyond it involving the Secret Empire.

And the X-Men.

And Cap.

And Falc.

Now there's trouble - because Black Spectre agent the Silver Samurai's captured Shanna the She-Devil!

There's only one thing for it. Daredevil must invade the Black Spectre airship and beat up the Mandrill!

Looking at that cover, I am slightly baffled, though, as to why the Samurai thinks the sky is his element. Since when is dangling from a ladder, with one hand and both feet occupied, a good place for a swordsman to be?

Still reeling from Sue's decision to stay with the Sub-Mariner, the FF now must face the Frightful Four.

Fortunately for them, help's available from none other than Thundra. 

But that's where the good news ends because, now that he's won his beloved over, Subby begins another attack against mankind!

The Hulk's still on Counter-Earth and getting more and more involved in the sequence of events which will lead to the first death of Adam Warlock.

After umpteen years, it finally occurs to someone at Marvel to give Spidey a foe called the Tarantula.

It all happens on a boat - and I do believe it climaxes with the Punisher showing up to double our hero's headaches.

The positive is that Thor and Hercules have stopped the Destroyer.

The negative is that Firelord's showed up and signalled for Galactus to return to Earth and devour it.

That's the output of Marvel all done and dusted but, in another part of New York, things are likewise stirring.

So, let us rush over to that part of New York and discover just what the company's greatest rival is offering.

Or, at least, what a random sampling of what it's offering is offering.

This feature never fails to remind me just how many issues of Kamandi I had. This being among them.

Tragically, I can remember little to nothing of what transpires within but I do know it takes place in Chicago and would appear to involve gangsters that are actually speaking animals.

Seemingly, there are also androids in this tale. I'm going to guess, that, at first, the last boy on Earth thinks they're people before he realises they're not.

In contrast to Kamandi, I've never owned a single issue of Rima.

This may have been because of my boyish bias against girls' comics or it may have been because I never actually saw any copies of it when I was perusing the various shops and markets of this land.

Sadly, I can shed no light upon the contents of this one, other than to say it's the handiwork of Robert Kanigher, Nestor Redondo and Joe Kubert which sounds like a promising team, to me.

There's also a backup yarn called The Delta Brain delivered by the minds and fingers of Robert Kanigher and Alex Niño.

It's an exciting day for us all, as Frank Robbins replaces Mike Kaluta on the strip that knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

I've mentioned before that, while I'm not normally a fan of Frank's, I do feel he was well-suited to this particular comic.

In this issue, we're delivered a tale we know only as Night of Neptune's Death!

Sadly, that's the sum total of my knowledge about it but, from that title, I shall assume it contains a ship-related plot and, no doubt, a watery grave for some criminal or other.

Superman Family is still getting the 100-page treatment and, this month, it's Supergirl who lands the main feature when she must confront the Princess of the Golden Sun!

And it happens when she moves to Florida and joins the faculty at the New Athens Experimental School.

However, not everyone's pleased to see her - because, on her first day there, she's attacked by an Aztec princess who gains the powers of anyone who defeats her.

Following that, we get Jimmy Olsen in Scotland Yard!, Superbaby's First Foster-Parents!, The Man Who Betrayed Superman's Identity!, Lois Lane's Jungle Jeopardy!, Krypto's Three Amazing Transformations! and Clark Kent, Gangster! All of them reprints from the 1960s.

It's a memorable cover from Luis Dominguez but are the insides of this mag as memorable as its outsides?

That, I cannot say, as it's yet another one I've never read. 

I do know, though, that the main story is Sacred Is the Monster Kang! as brought to us by Arnold Drake and Gerry Talaoc.

And there's also a Black Orchid adventure called Island of Fear.

I predict that will feature an island.

And fear.

And the Black Orchid.

And rubber masks.