November 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. 

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If you ventured into your local recording studio, this month in 1984, you may have encountered history being made.

At least, you might if your local recording studio was in Notting Hill.

That's because it was the month in which thirty-five of Britain and Ireland's mightiest pop stars - and Marilyn - got together in one room to become Band Aid and record the song Do They Know It's Christmas? in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

I do acknowledge that some of those stars, such as Jody Watley, were clearly neither British nor Irish.

Regardless, that track would go on to become the biggest-selling single in UK history and hit the Number One slot on more than one occasion.

Elsewhere, it was good news for all God-fearing females because the General Synod of the Church of England finally supported the ordination of women as deacons. Having said that, it still didn't agree to them becoming full-blown priests.

Also elsewhere, the British and French governments announced their intention to find private funding for the construction of a Channel Tunnel. The tunnel - which had been first proposed in 1802 - was projected to open in the early 1990s. A target which would actually be met.

Across the ocean, Ronald Reagan defeated Democrat hopeful Walter Mondale in the US Presidential Election. Reagan won 59% of the popular vote - the highest percentage since Richard Nixon in 1972 - and picked up 49 states in the Electoral College, with Mondale only securing his home state of Minnesota, and the District of Columbia.

When it came to the UK singles chart, November launched with Chaka Khan's I Feel For You holding sway before it was dethroned by Jim Diamond's I Should Have Known Better. While the accompanying album chart greeted the month with Frankie's Welcome to the Pleasuredome on top before that was replaced by Wham's Make It Big which then had to subside before the onslaught of The Hits Album by those pesky Various Artists who just couldn't stop having hits.

Colin Baker gets the rare pleasure of being allowed on the cover of the magazine dedicated to the show he's the star of.

While, inside, Eric Saward reveals just what a script editor does.

Some may express surprise to discover Doctor Who in this era has a script editor. 

But not me. I never doubted it for a second.

We also get Part Five of the comic strip The Voyager.

And we're treated to a preview of Vengeance on Varos and a look at the work of Ice Warriors' creator Brian Hayles.

It had to happen. With Conan the Destroyer rampaging through the cinemas of the world, Big Arnie makes the cover of Marvel UK's longest surviving monthly.

And he makes the inside too. Sort of. As the book gives us its adaptation of that very movie, as well as an interview with its star. And I do believe that adaptation is in colour!

But hold on. What's this? The mag seems to have merged with Mighty World of Marvel, which means we also encounter Night Raven, Magik and Showcase!

Starburst hits its 75th issue - and does so by looking at V, the television show which launched a million and one conspiracy theories about the world being ruled by reptile aliens disguised as people.

Less infamously, there's a look at the new fantasy adventure Streets of Fire, a film I've never heard of. While John Brosnan looks back at Tarzan films through the ages.

And, as if that wasn't enough for any reader, this issue also offers up reviews of The Company of Wolves and the aforementioned Conan the Destroyer.