August 1984 - Marvel UK monthlies, 40 years ago this month.

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

***

The UK singles chart, in August 1984 was a battleground between two acts, with Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Two Tribes starting the month at Number One before it was overthrown by George Michael's Careless Whisper.

However, there was no argument as to what ruled the roost when it came to the accompanying album chart. That's because the month saw just one LP claim the top spot. And that was the behemoth the world knew only as Now That's What I Call Music 3.

The nation's favourite magazine dedicated to speculative fiction returns to bring us, among other things, a preview of the movie 2010.

Those other things include an interview with Ron Moore about his low-budget movie Futurekill, John Brosnan's review of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and multiple interviews with various cast members from Star Trek.

But that's not all. There's also a preview of the film version of Dune, a look at The Company of Wolves, an inspection of Italian Fantasy movies, and reviews of Supergirl, Romancing the Stone and Star Trek III.

With all that, I think we can safely say we're getting our money's worth.

It would appear this issue's dedicated to Malcolm Hulke, the writer who gave us the Silurians, Sea Devils and Draconians.

There's an interview with Tegan actress Janet Fielding.

And we get Part 2 of the comic strip The Voyager in which the Doctor's hanging around with a talking penguin called Frobisher.

But is that where our luck runs out? I notice there's also a review of Colin Baker's first story The Twin Dilemma. I don't want to prejudge that review but I am aware it is often cited as being one of the worst Doctor Who serials ever broadcast.

Will this mag go against the grain in its assessment of it?

Some days, you can't even atone for things in peace - as Captain Britain discovers when he visits the Scott family to apologise for Micky Scott's death and, while he's there, Meggan re-appears and everybody gets attacked by robots!

Following that, we get Night Raven Pathology II.

Then, there's a four-page Showcase tale titled Crime Passionelle as brought to us by Graham P Cousins and Mark Lockett.

Next, we're treated to Superheroes on Celluloid; Pete Scott's 3-page article on that very subject.

And, as though anyone could ever forget, the Micronauts and X-Men are still trying to survive the combined menace of Baron Karza and an evil Professor X.

I know little of the contents of this one except the story inside is called The Colossus of Shem and is the handwork of Bruce Jones and John Buscema.

I do know though, that that has to be the dullest cover I've ever seen on a comic that stars Conan.