September 20th, 1975 - 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. 

***

Is there anything good that can be said about bad hotels?

Yes, there is. If not for them, we'd never have had John Cleese and Connie Booth's sitcom Fawlty Towers. And then where would we have been?

We'd have been watching a channel other than BBC Two.

But, as it was, we were watching BBC Two because it was this week in 1975 that saw the channel broadcast the first-ever episode of that show. 

This week's cover is not very useful to me, as regards revealing what occurs within this particular publication but I do believe Spidey's still inhabiting the tale in which he stops a prison riot and then talks about prison conditions, on a chat show.

And I think Iron Man's still on that Maggia gambling ship and still trying to survive his first encounter with Whiplash.

But, hooray! It looks like Thor finally defeats Pluto and his mutates on a far-flung future Earth!

Which means he can now get on with meeting Him.

Unless I miss my guess, this issue sees the conclusion of The Song of Red Sonja in which Conan and the Sonj get to fight a giant snake that used to be a diadem, before the Titian-tressed tormentor of fighting men goes her own way.

Following that, the Avengers are set up for the fight of their lives when taken to a distant tomorrow in which Kang has made a bet with the Grandmaster. A bet that requires the team must battle the Squadron Sinister if the Earth is to survive.

Dr Strange, on the other hand, is in Cornwall, looking for the undersea city of Kalumesh and has to confront the terror of Dagoth in a tale that I suspect has drawn as much inspiration from the Vincent Price movie City Under the Sea as it has from The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

The Hulk gets to visit Counter-Earth and encounters an alternate version of Bruce Banner who has a wife and kids.

But Hulkie, perhaps, has more to worry about on the original Earth where, in our hero's absence, Betty Ross is marrying Glenn Talbot!

Following that, the man without fear visits Vietnam, in a bid to entertain the troops, and meets a man called Willie Lincoln whose war wounds promptly send him blind.

That man then has to return to America where he falls foul of gangland bounder Biggie Benson who wants him dead.

And the Fantastic Four are still trying to put a stop to the Thing's latest rampage!

What's this? Drac shows up in London and somehow manages to gain diplomatic immunity?

Well, he might do but I doubt he's got immunity from the attacks of his own daughter Lilith who I think may be making her first appearance in this mag.

And, speaking of early appearances, we get one from Tigra, as she and the Werewolf by Night must take on the hordes of Hydra for reasons I'm not sure about.

And I do believe the Living Mummy's been sent to Egypt, by evil Elementals, to retrieve an ancient artefact that will, doubtless, make them all-powerful.

But it's an act that may bring the Living Mummy into conflict with none other than the Living Pharaoh!

Forget snakes on planes, Doug Moench and Tom Sutton are giving us apes on ships!

This week, while the orangutan elite are feasting to celebrate an impending peace deal with the gorillas, an assassin kills an orangutan. I can't help feeling this is all going to lead to plenty of sea-going melodrama.

And Sutton inks Gil Kane for this week's dose of Adam Warlock, as Him and Dr Doom find themselves in an adventure called Death Sting!

Captain Marvel, meanwhile, is still on Earth and battling the Super-Skrull.

Galactus is looking somewhat worried there. Just what can the Surfer be up to that could cause he and Mephisto such consternation?

He could be up to deciding to ask the Fantastic Four for their help in getting him off this planet.

And, because everyone in the Marvel universe has a short fuse, that, inevitably, leads to a scrap with the Human Torch.

Speaking of having a scrap, the X-Men continue to battle the Sentinels but are saved by the intervention of Professor X and the self-sacrifice of Dr Trask!