September 28th 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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Readers of a certain age will know that, before there was the internet, there was Ceefax, that magical service on the BBC where, with a press of a remote control, you could access the latest written information about the worlds of news, sport, weather, politics and arts. All done with hi-tech blocky graphics.

But when was this veritable miracle launched?

It was during this very week in 1974. Truly, there could have been no doubt the future was well and truly with us.

Slightly more retro was The Brides of Fu Manchu which BBC One was showing in the early evening of the 28th, followed by It's Cliff!

How strange that the fiendish doctor should appear on our TVs so shortly after the adventures of his son had disappeared from the pages of Marvel UK's Avengers comic.

The Klaatu Saga comes to its sad and mournful conclusion, as Captain Cybor and Klaatu plunge to their deaths in the heart of the sun, Xeron and his crew are stranded on a rowing boat doomed to run out of oxygen and, after a brief battle in Earth's upper atmosphere, the Hulk and Abomination come plummeting from the heavens, with the only witnesses being a small girl and her father. It has to be the most downbeat ending to a Hulk story yet.

Meanwhile, Daredevil's still having to contend with the Owl's trial of a judge the villain happens to have to have it in for. It's a trial that goes so well for the defence that both the judge and his lawyer find themselves sentenced to death.

Elsewhere, the Fantastic Four, back from their epic encounter with the Inhumans, find the streets of New York paved with chaos, as the Watcher, Silver Surfer and then Galactus turn up. Can any human mind possibly process such drama and survive?

We'll find out next week.

Spider-Man's still out to retrieve that pesky stolen tablet from the Shocker.

But he's having a bit of a shocker himself, as he falls out with Flash Thompson, thinking his old friend and nemesis is making a play for his girl Gwen when Flash was only trying to help her patch up her relationship with our hero.

Hawkeye's still having his first encounter with Iron Man but, when his brand new girlfriend the Black Widow is hit in the head by one of his arrows, the archer flees with her. No doubt, intending to return to bother Shellhead on some future occasion.

Thor, meanwhile, having barely survived their first scrap is yet again having a punch-up with Ulik. One that, if I remember rightly, goes far better for the thunder god than the first one did.

Or does it?

Because, despite winning that fight, the Asgardian, somehow, finds himself back on Midgard, without his hammer and about to transform back into the feeble Don Blake.

I do believe we're getting more of Iron Fist's origin. Having defeated a robot, last week; this week, he must overcome a dragon!

Fortunately for him - and mankind - he succeeds and ends up with a dragon symbol emblazoned upon his chest, thanks to his unique tactic of hugging the beast to death

The Avengers, though, are still in the process of rescuing the Black Widow from her former Soviet puppet masters. But, now, Captain America has been captured and is being held in a Plexiglas tube!

In his tireless quest to prise Victoria Bentley from the clutches of evil, Dr Strange is well and truly out of his wheelhouse, as he has to fight a giant robot called Voltorg.

I do believe this week's Marvel UK books feature the winners of the contest to design the most impressive possible piece of technology. A contest in which the prizes are boxes of Meccano. Sadly, I didn't enter that one and, therefore, have no anecdotes to recount about it.