Fifty Years Ago Today! The 1974 Marvel UK annuals for 1975.

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

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As every fool knows, Christmas Day means food, presents, TV, booze, arguments, the pub burning down and annuals.

Frankly, I can give you just two of those things.

Therefore, here they are.

When it came to Christmas Day TV in 1974, BBC One presented us with a whole heap of output including but not confined to:

Carols from Canterbury, Dame Flora Robson's Christmas Appeal, Rolf Harris's A Stocking Full of Stars, Laurel and Hardy: Way Out West, Holiday on Ice, Jimmy Savile and Tony Blackburn hosting Top of the Pops, Billy Smart's Christmas Circus, True Grit, Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show, Bridge on the River Kwai and Michael Parkinson's favourite interviews with Morecambe and Wise.

BBC Two, meanwhile, offered up such fare as Golf 74, La Traviata, Henry V, Evel Knievel trying to jump over the Snake River Canyon, Ronnie Barker's Futtock's End and the quiz Face the Music.

Determined not be left behind by its public service rival, ITV stumped up Sooty's Christmas Party, Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, Christmas Rock With 45, David Nixon's Christmas Magic, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, Meet Peters and Lee and The Tommy Cooper Hour, while the late movie was The Undefeated.

But what of those annuals?

Change was afoot. Whereas previous UK Marvel hardbacks had been published by IPC's Fleetway subsidiary, this year's were compiled by World Distributors Inc.

And did that make a difference?

Too right it did.

For a start, this time, they were in full colour!

And there was a much more focused feel to the choice of material, with the previous randomness discarded.

The Avengers get their first annual - and do it with peril - when they must tackle the menace of Magneto in a tale which first appeared in the US Avengers #110.

Fortunately, Daredevil and the Black Widow show up to rescue them from Magneto's mind control, and the Widow's rewarded by finally becoming an official member of the team.

Then, we get the 1965 Captain America pulse pounder in which Nazi agent Sando, posing as a stage act, lures Cap and Bucky into a trap that involves mental projections.

And we finish the book with its titular team taking on the maned mischief of the malevolent Lion God.

The observant will have noted that most of these tales are drawn by Dashing Don Heck himself.

And will find, within, a number of pin-ups.

Spidey swings into action to liven up our Christmas morning!

And he does so by having his first encounter with the Punisher!

Then he gets together with the Human Torch to create the Spider-Mobile. But he must face the menace of Hammerhead on his own. And then he must gatecrash the wedding of Aunt May and Doc Ock!

Bizarrely, for a Spider-Man annual, the final tale of the book is one which stars Giant-Man and the Winsome Wasp.

However, they do, at least, get to battle Spider-Man, having been tricked into it by Egghead who's out to distract them while he robs an armoured car.

I suspect that is a plan that's going to come back to bite him on the bottom.

And, of course, there are several pin-ups.

But it does all raise the obvious question of why the Green Goblin is on the cover when he doesn't seem to feature at all in the book.

Here it is, the only one of these annuals I ever owned.

And what a book it is, giving us two dollops of Herb Trimpe at his finest, as the Hulk comes up against Captain Omen and then Zzzax the living electric monster thing.

On top of that, we're treated to our hero's first encounter with the Silver Surfer, when Hulkie tries to force the pewter-plated board hopper to take him away from the planet Earth in a yarn pencilled by Mirthful Marie Severin.

And even more on top of that, we find a number of free pin-ups. One of which seems to have been drawn especially for the annual. Admittedly, it isn't a good pin-up but it is, at least, original.