July 13th 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. 

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Football fever's hit the nation, with Engerlund having reached the finals of this year's European Championship.

However, that sport was also the talk of the day, fifty years ago this week, with West Germany defeating the Netherlands, 2–1, to win the 1974 World Cup. That event, just like this one, was played in Germany.

That may have been big news in all our lives but what wasn't news was that Charles Aznavour's She was sitting pretty at the top of the UK singles chart. That's because it had also been top of the pile the week before.

There was, however, change at the summit of the British LP listings, thanks to Elton John's Caribou entering at its very pinnacle.

I must have been hiding beneath a rock for the past half-century because, even though it was a Number One album - and by one of the biggest stars of the last sixty years - I've never even heard of it. Clearly, this matter deserves further investigation on my behalf.

I must confess that She is not really a song which massively fait flotter mon bateau but singles I did dig on that week's Hit Parade were:

One Man Band - Leo Sayer

Band on the Run - Paul McCartney and Wings

Wall Street Shuffle - 10 CC

Beach Baby - First Class

Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me - Elton John

If You Go Away - Terry Jacks

There's a Ghost in My House - R Dean Taylor

When Will I See You Again? - The Three Degrees

and

Judy Teen - Cockney Rebel.

Should you wish to further probe the issues raised by this week's post, that UK singles chart can be found by clicking on this link.

While the accompanying LP chart dwells within.

A titan stalks the tenements when the Hulk lands in some city or other and encounters a teenager called Jim Wilson who's down on his luck but does, at least, have a bar of chocolate he's willing to share.

Possibly of even more concern to the foliage-hued fighter of felons, fiends and freakish phenomena is that Iron Man's also in town and tooled up to smash his face in.

Daredevil's still lacking a strip of his own but, this week, as with last, he's a guest at the wedding of Reed and Sue which I suspect is coming to a startling conclusion in the Fantastic Four's strip when the Watcher defies all expectations by breaking his oath of non-interference, for only the thousandth time in two years.

But that's not all because, from completely out of the blue, we get a ten-page retelling of the origin of Captain America, as presented by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby as reprinted from the depths of 1965's Tales of Suspense #63.

The Green Goblin's still out to avenge himself upon Spider-Man - and intends to do so by destroying the wall-crawler's mind, with hallucinogenic pumpkins.

The bounder.

Needless to say, our hero's far too strong-willed for that to work and, instead, turns the tables on his foe by using their effects to inflict yet another dose of amnesia upon him.

There's again no sign of Iron Man, this week but Thor's very much present and correct and battling the murderous Man-Beast in the corridors of Wundagore.

I have no recognition of that cover. Therefore, I shall assume my habit of missing every other issue of The Avengers, during this period, ran true to form.

It would appear, though, that Shang-Chi finds himself up against the Slayer of the Sewer which is not a title I would have thought many self-respecting assassins would wish to lay claim to. 

I do believe this is is the issue in which Hercules gets banished to Earth by Zeus who's clearly as big a moron as Odin, forcing the prince of power to join the Avengers.

And I also believe this issue's likely to wrap up Dr Strange's search for Clea.

Meanwhile, the back cover offers us the chance to win a Meccano set by designing a gadget worthy of Reed Richards himself.

I remember trying to complete that challenge but ultimately deciding that whatever it is I'd designed wasn't up to Reed Richards' standards.

In fairness, I was ten. What did these fools expect of me?