Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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If there are two songs in the world I get confused with each other, they're Don't Rock the Boat and Rock Your Baby. Possibly, that's inevitable, as they were on the UK chart at the same time.
However, only one of them could triumph.
And that one of them was George McCrae's Rock Your Baby which, this week in 1974, achieved the distinction of hitting the Number One slot on the UK's singles chart.
A man not unfamiliar with hitting Number One on music sales listings was Paul McCartney. And so it was the week saw his Band on the Run hit the pinnacle of the British LP chart, as it rapidly headed towards becoming one of the biggest-selling albums of the decade.
What can be their intention?
And can Jim possibly stop them?
Elsewhere, Daredevil and Spider-Man are the only duo who can halt the brazen rampage of the Masked Marauder as he continues to commit a string of felonies around the streets of New York.
But to do that they, they first have to stop fighting each other for five minutes. And that's a big thing to ask of two Marvel heroes.
Speaking of fighting, the Fantastic Four have double trouble on their hands, as both Dragon Man and the foot-stomping enigma that is Gorgon are busy demolishing abandoned areas in America's biggest city.
A total madman. That's who.
In this breathless issue, Spider-Man manages to find the Hulk - per the Avengers' instructions - and even manages to knock him for a loop, thanks to the beast not reaching full strength immediately after his transformation from Bruce Banner.
Surely, nothing now can prevent the masked wonder from becoming a member of the world's mightiest team!
However, Spidey can't bring himself to hand his prisoner over to them and, instead, helps him escape, telling the gang that he totally failed to even locate his quarry.
Meanwhile, a brand new foe enters the life of Iron Man.
And that foe is a fiend so acidic that they named him after an orange.
That's right! It's the Mandarin!
At the request of the Pentagon, our hero invades the Chinese villain's castle, looking to give him the quick punch up the bracket that'll bring an end to his threat to the West. But will Shellhead even be able to escape with his life?
With Odin having forbidden Thor to marry a mortal, there's only one thing for it.
And that's for the thunder god to convince his father to turn Jane Foster into a goddess.
But is the incident-prone nurse really constructed of the stuff of which gods are made?
It's another issue I didn't own but I do know Shang-Chi visits a theme park - where people instantly try to assassinate him. Life really is Groundhog Day when you're a master of the martial arts.
The Avengers are now not just up against the Mad Thinker and his lackey Hammerhead. They're also having to contend with Piledriver and Thunder-Boot. The latter of whom has the same powers as Gorgon in this week's Fantastic Four.
Fortunately, even though this mighty trio may be too much for the Avengers, they're no match for the dumbheaded brawn of Hercules.
My knowledge of this week's Dr Strange epic is sketchy but I do believe the sorcerous surgeon's still battling with Zom, and that the Ancient One's hanging around Stonehenge for reasons that escape me.
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21 comments:
IRON MAN: Aww, widdle Spider-Baby couldn’t even FIND the big bad Hulk! HAW HAW!
HAWKEYE: Called it! (Snort)
THOR: Verily!
CAPTAIN AMERICA : Twerp probably just chickened out and didn’t even look…
WASP: Jeez, you guys.
GIANT-MAN : Who wantsh an-uhh…anna-anuhh…HIC!…anudder beer ? Sh-shell-head?
IRON MAN: Got anything stronger?
b.t.
Was Giant Man / Yellow Jacket a boozer? I thohe was mostly a wife beater ?
Nah, I was just treating the Avengers as if they were obnoxious frat boys hazing a pledge. Call it dramatic license :)
Steve, you’re not alone in mixing up those two songs. I have a pleasant memory of hanging out with my girlfriend in the park that summer, while one of those songs played on a nearby radio — I’m pretty sure it was “Rock Your Baby” but I can’t swear that it wasn’t “Rock The Boat”.
To further muddy the waters, Andy Kim’s “Rock Me Gently” was also climbing the charts that summer, and would reach the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 in September.
b.t.
Charlie(?) - have you watched The Stepford Wives yet? It's a total classic so you MUST see it!
COLIN- No STEPFORD WIVES yet! On the list for sure! We have a busy few days which means squeezing a movie in may be tuff: Olympic Watch Party in 4 hours, visiting my 89 yo parents in Indiana tomorrow , old-man’s soccer game… and we are moving in a month so packing boxes! But maybe tomorrow night Saturday? Cheers!!!
lol Charlie was recently humiliated at a concert in. front of a few thousand people for mixing up song names!!! BEATLES group “YESTERDAY AND TODAY” let the audience fill out request cards online for the concert . Though intending requesting “EVERY LITTLE THING” Charlie typed in “EVERY LITTLE THING SHE DOES”
At the show they said “Is ‘Charlie’ in the crowd?” I stood up and they launched into into the POLICE’s song with exaggerated McCartney and Lennon accents for a verse then stopped and razzed my ass up one side and down the other in their accents!
The crowd was in hysterics! My wife said I was loving every second of it but red as a beet!
Then they launched into an impeccable version of “EVERY LITTLE THING .”
My particular interest was it was written solely by Paul but sung by John, one of the very rare Beatles examples where the primary writer did not sing the song. So I had requested “Paul” sing it.
So… who were the boozers/ drunks in the world of comics besides TONY STARK???
YELLOW JACKET was just a wife beater… no chemicals were involved?
Wasn’t ELONGATED MAN off the rails for a while?
Fortunately for Charlie I think most of the badly-behaving character changed happened in the 80s, through which, Charlie would have taken a good 15 year hiatus from comics.
Charlie doesn’t need that much reality in comics to enjoy them.
Charlie - Brian Braddock became a drunk (bad writing era). Pip the troll was partial to a flagon of ale.
'Rock the Boat' was later a hit for Forest, too (late 80s/early 90s?)
This week's DD vs Spidey scrap (Masked Marauder story) was reprinted during the Marvel revolution. To me at the time, it was top notch, not being a fudge in any sense. Although DD acquitted himself well, Spidey totally out-classed him, this being made clear in no uncertain terms.
Phillip
Charlie, Captain Marvel (Carol Danvers) also had a drink problem.
I remember hearing that Namor drank like a fish.
(That one’s for you, Phillip :D )
b.t.
Man oh man… why didn’t Great Britain have it’s own boat for the Olympic ceremony? France had one, USA had one… GB shared one with Ghana and Guam? You GB guys deserve your own boat!
Really nice rendition of JOHN LENNON’s Imagine near the end !
I've been watching CAT PEOPLE (1942) and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943) on BBC iPlayer and I wondered if either of those films had ever featured in the famous BBC2 horror double-bills from the '70s and early '80s so I did some research and both films did indeed feature and they were even broadcast on two consecutive weeks on July 4th and July 11th 1981. What a strange coincidence!
Charlie, after Brexit and 14 years of Tory government we Brits are too poor to have our own boat.
Ghana and Guam, Charlie? Is that because it was alphabetic order, and Great Britain also starts with a 'G'?
Oh dear. That would put Ireland in a boat with Iran and Israel. Awkward...
-sean
Charlie, we all make mistakes!
I was unaware there was a Beatles song titled "Every Little Thing." Maybe that cover band was too.
As far as Hank Pym goes, all that shrinking and growing and shrinking and growing would mess with anybody's head. And body.
I'm not even gonna get into the LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS, which states that (as I understand it) matter or energy can't be created or destroyed.
No wonder Pym went nuts. He didn't need booze to go crazy.
He was defying a basic law of physics.
You're not supposed to do that.
But, so was every shape-shifter in comics, now that I think about it.
All I can say to you all, my friends, is that I promise from this point forward to obey all the laws of physics, even the obscure ones.
Whether I want to or not.
I don't want any trouble.
M.P.
Steve, the Ancient One was at Stonehenge to see Hawkwind at the free festival.
Obviously I'm kidding (sure everyone knows the Peoples' Free Festival was still in Windsor at this point, and suppressed by the cops in '74).
The real reason was that Stonehenge was the site of an old battle the Ancient One had with the dread Dormammu, so thats where he agreed to confront Umar. If there was any other significance, I don't recall. Which is probably just as well, as knowing Stonehenge was also a portal from Earth to Otherworld, a launchpad for the Demon Druid's spaceship, and built by the Caretakers of Arcturus is quite enough to remember as it is.
(I wonder if Marvel writers ever did any actual research? They all appear to have been under the impression Stonehenge has always in Wiltshire...)
Anyhow, because Umar was more powerful than Dr Strange and the Ancient One - even though she was female (seriously, that actually gets mentioned in the story) - the only way to defeat her was by freeing the even more powerful Zom from his other dimensional prison. Unfortunately that meant that once she was out of the way they then had to deal with the even deadlier Zom. D'oh!
The good news though was that Doc was able to get the omnipotent Living Tribunal to turn up and sort out Zom. The bad news was that having done that, the Tribunal decided to destroy the Earth...
-sean
PS Come to think of it, didn't Shuma-Gorath have something to do with Stonehenge too...?
-sean
MP - Beatles did “Every Little Thing” while 20 years later the Police did “Every little thing she does.”
So that’s why the Beatles band was razzing my ass… They were screwing around singing the Police song with John and Paul accents!
The kicker to this is the Beatles song actually goes, “every little thing she does, she does for me. “.
I've seen photographs of Stonehenge taken in the late 19th Century which show the entire site was just a jumble of toppled stones at that time so the Stonehenge we see today is a modern reconstruction. The idea that Stonehenge has been a sacred and revered national monument for many centuries is utter cobblers - it was ignored and forgotten about until quite recently.
Charlie, the Police song is actually called Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and it reached #1 on the UK singles chart in 1981.
As the Paul Cartney song goes, Colin - give Stonehenge back to the Irish, don't make them have to take it away.
-sean
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