November 29th, 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 this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

No. It's Steve Does Comics, which is neither real nor fantasy but, rather, inhabits a hinterland located exactly midway between those arbitrary poles.

More importantly, this week in 1975, Queen smashed their way to Number One on the UK singles chart, thanks to Bohemian Rhapsody forcing You Sexy Thing by Hot Chocolate to settle for second place.

I can forgive Queen for many things but how can I ever forgive them for keeping a sexy thing off the Number One slot?

When it came to the album chart, it was neither Queen nor Hot Chocolate who ruled the roost. It was Perry Como with his 40 Greatest Hits, although I'm willing to bet Perry Como never had 40 hits in Britain.

Hooray! After a couple of weeks' absence, The Avengers reappears in my local newsagents, meaning I actually get to read this issue.

And how impressed I am by the artwork of John Buscema and Tom Palmer.

More importantly, how struck I am by Arkon's resemblance to Conan, even if REH's battler never got to throw lighting bolts around!

Speaking of the Cimmerian; when it comes to his adventures, my knowledge of his comings and going, this issue, are vague but I remain convinced that sorcery will be involved.

And an attractive woman.

When it comes to Dr Strange, I do believe the spooky surgeon has problems with Shuma-Gorath trying to invade our Earth, via the mind of the Ancient One.

Or via his body.

Or via both.

Or something.

I never had this issue but, from that cover, I'm convinced it features the tale in which the Red Skull brainwashes Cap into trying to kill America's top general!

Elsewhere, in The Inhumans, the soft-hearted gang release Maximus from captivity - only for him to instantly rob Black Bolt of his memory and to seize control of the Great Refuge!

The Sub-Mariner, meanwhile, manages to rescue Lady Dorma from the Faceless Ones - and gets his hands on Neptune's Trident! Now can he use it to defeat Warlord Krang?

On land, Nick Fury's still battling whatever evil plan Hydra have come up with now.

And Captain Marvel's up against some dire menace or other.

The lord of all vampires is on a quest to find a missing statuette.

And it would appear he's about to get wet.

A, presumably, drier Jack Russell's still having trouble with Atlas, the Hollywood star who's miffed about having become disfigured.

And I have no doubt the Living Mummy's up to something thrilling, as well.

Now there's trouble for Zira and Cornelius, when their human hosts discover that, back in their own time, they were in the habit of experimenting on humans!

But this issue's even more thrilling news is that we see the arrival of two brand new strips!

Granted, the first one's not that new, as the adventures of Ka-Zar featured in the book's very earliest issues. But, now, the lord of the Savage Land is back with tales we have not yet read. 

And, that means were about to encounter his first encounter with the Everglades, Man-Thing and the forces of AIM!

As for the other new feature, that's none other than Don McGregor's Panther's Rage, an epic drama worthy of the finest works of Shakespeare himself, as T'Challa returns to Wakanda to discover murder and rebellion are on the menu!

We even get a map of Wakanda thrown in. And Shakespeare never gave us a map of anywhere.

Speaking of Kevin Plunder, Spidey's still messing about in the Savage Land. But, at least now, he has the king of the jungle on his side, in his quest to prevent Kraven from taking over the world, with the aid of his humongous great Gog!

Elsewhere, Iron Man must deal with the return of the Unicorn.

On live television!

Having finally reached the end of Galactus' life story, Thor's sent back to Earth, by Odin, to deal with the threat of the Thermal-Man, a malevolent robot whose rampage across New York, the Warriors Three have signally failed to halt.

As that cover makes clear, the Hulk continues to encounter Captain Omen and his undersea kingdom - and finds himself trapped on the seabed, with nothing but an oxygen helmet for company!

Meanwhile, the man without fear is trying to prevent Starr Saxon's robot from killing the incarcerated Biggie Benson.

And, in a bid to prevent Galactus from re-hiring the Silver Surfer, Reed Richards sends the pewter powerhouse into the sub-atomic realm we all know so well.

Hold on. Can it be? An Old X-Men story that actually looks interesting?

Admittedly, I only think that because the cover depicts them up against villains you wouldn't normally expect them to come up against.

In fact, that's one of the most random collections of super-criminals I've ever seen.

Apparently, it's all down to the machinations of Count Nefaria who's assembling a gang of lackeys and assumes the X-Men will be willing to join it.

Elsewhere, the Porcupine's out to revenge himself upon Giant-Man, having previously been thwarted by him in his Ant-Man days.

And the bounder drags the Giant-Man fan club into it!

But what's this? Marvel UK may have run out of Cat stories to use but that's not going to stop it.

No, it doesn't decide to redraw Killraven adventures as Cat tales. Instead, we're presented with a reprint of a Marvel Team-Up yarn in which she and Spider-Man must defeat a female assassin called the Man-Killer.

Speak Your Brain! Part 113.

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

***

Image by Tumisu
from Pixabay

Once again, mystery, drama and intrigue descend upon the hallowed halls of Steve Does Comics, in much the same way that a dread mist descends upon every moor top in this land whenever there is a devil-hound on the prowl.

And that's because no man can know what is to happen next.

No one but one man.

Or possibly, one woman.

Or even one household pet.

Because whomsoever posts tonight's topic for debate, in the comments section below, can know.

Therefore, if you are that person, make sure to do just that and disperse those nightmarish mists of intrigue, in order to allow through the revealing rays of uncanny enlightenment.

November 1985 - 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. 

***

This month in 1985 was great news if you were an aircraft that was tired of flying round and round over the sea, looking for somewhere to land before your arms got tired.

And that's because it was the month in which the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was commissioned by the Queen Mother.

Elsewhere, in the UK, unemployment for September fell by nearly 70,000, bringing the total to less than 3,300,000.

When it came to board games, in an all-Soviet match, 22-year-old Garry Kasparov defeated Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest-ever undisputed World Chess Champion.

And there was epoch-making news for computers everywhere when the Microsoft Corporation unleashed the first United States release of Windows 1.0.

When it came to music, November launched with Jennifer Rush's The Power of Love still hogging the Number One spot on the UK singles chart. However, even Jennifer's cast iron lungs weren't enough to save her from an attack by Feargal Sharkey whose A Good Heart managed to depose it, before that track itself had to make way for Wham!'s I'm Your Man.

Things were decidedly more soothing on the accompanying album chart, with the month beginning with George Benson's Love Songs ruling the roost before that was gently dethroned by Sade's Promise which then had to make way for The Greatest Hits of 1985 by those always unstoppable Various Artists. 

After their recent jaunt to Africa, the good Captain and Meggan visit the far cooler climbs of the Russian wilderness in which they encounter legendary folkloric character Baba Yaga.

Up against far more metallic opposition is Abslom Daak who gets caught up in a tale the world knows as The Dalek Killers.

Elsewhere, Night-Raven finds himself in not one but two adventures. The first being Showdown and the second bearing the title Midsummer Madness.

And, then, as far as I can make out, Cap Brit's back for a five-page thriller called Playgrounds and Parasites! 

Jon Pertwee may be on the cover but, inside, the star of the show is 5th Doctor Peter Davison who grants the mag an interview!

And that's appropriate because this issue also contains a look back behind the scenes of his serial Resurrection of the Daleks.

We also encounter a look at some of the strange planets the Doctor's visited, uncover an interview with the show's Production Associate Angela Smith and visit a retrospective of the villains of the 1970s.

But all of this, I'm sure, pales into insignificance before the true highlight of the issue. 

Which is that we get the announcement of the winners of The Doctor Who Songwriting Competition!

If two young lads called Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty don't win it, there's no justice in the universe.

As we may have guessed, from that cover, the UK's Number One source for news of sci-fi, Fantasy and horror is, this month, carrying Interviews with various people involved in the making of Mad Max III.

And they're not the only ones, because we also stumble across a chat in which Ridley Scott talks about the creation of his film Legend.

Speaking of which, a man named Martin Asbury talks about visualising scripts for that film - and for Labyrinth and Greystoke.

For fancy people, there's a look back at Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast.

And there's a retrospective of The Man from Uncle.

But the issue closes with a feature upon which I can shed no light at all; The Filing Cabinet of Dr Sally Gary. Just how Expressionist that turns out to be, I cannot say.

November 22nd, 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. 

***

On November 22nd, 1975, BBC One showed The Vengeance of She, a film that made such an impact on my soul that I can recall nothing of it other than that Ursula Andress wasn't in it.

My Googling tells me this was the most interesting thing that happened anywhere in the world on that day.

Clearly, I was going to need to fling myself into the pop charts, for excitement.

And what excitement I got, with a brand new Number One on the UK singles rankings.

Granted, that brand new Number One was D.I.V.O.R.C.E. by Billy Connolly but perhaps I could find more thrills atop the accompanying album chart.

No, I couldn't because the peak of that listing had now been claimed by the Godfather of Punk himself Perry Como, with his 40 Greatest Hits.

Perhaps I could find, within the pages of that week's Marvel UK publications, the excitement I craved.

Except my local newsagent only had one of them in stock.

What kind of madness was this?

I'm getting the feeling this week's Inhumans tale may pivot around Black Bolt using the devastating power of his voice.

So, that's basically the same as every Inhumans tale ever.

But what is new is that Jack Kirby's departed the strip and a new artist has taken his place.

And that artist is Nefarious Neal Adams who adds a whole new visual sophistication to events.

The Sub-Mariner, meanwhile, has tracked down Lady Dorma and must now liberate her from a vast horde of unfriendly sea-creatures they call the Faceless Ones.

I do believe Nick Fury and SHIELD are up against Hydra.

Meanwhile, it's deadly peril for the free world, as Captain America's been captured by the Red Skull and brainwashed into wanting to kill a big-shot American general!

And Captain Marvel is having to battle a giant robot created by Walter Lawson, the man the captain is pretending to be in his bid to avoid detection by the humans!

I don't remember much about this week's Conan thriller other than that the barbarian famously wrestles a horse into submission.

But, of course, the big story is one which involves another barbarian.

One who comes from another dimension and can throw lightning bolts at you.

You guessed it. It's the electrifying debut of Arkon! 

And that,'s not all because we're also treated to the thrilling return of the Scarlet Witch and her brother!

Not to mention that of the mighty Toad!

Meanwhile, Dr Strange's Shuma-Gorath epic drags on and on, as the master of mystic arts now encounters a giant monster that probably doesn't exist.

Rather like an end to this saga.

What's this? I do believe this is the first issue of Dracula Lives not to feature the book's title character in the main cover image.

In London, the lord of all vampires gets caught up in an investigation into the theft of a statuette.

But, first, he must see-off a gang of muggers.

No problem for a man with the power to mesmerise the feeble-witted.

Speaking of which, Jack Russell continues to have trouble with Atlas, the Hollywood star who's more than miffed about having become disfigured.

And the Living Mummy's still having to contend with the fact that the Elementals have taken over Cairo and are lording it over the local populace, like the wrong 'uns they undoubtedly are.

Cornelius and Zira have escaped the Planet of the Apes but how are they going to escape the Planet of Mankind now mankind knows the truth of what happened to Taylor and his friends?

Not to mention knowing the fate of the world itself?

I have no doubt this issue is where we'll start to find out.

Following that, I think we reach the final part of Man-Gods From Beyond the Stars, with their leader departing for other worlds, after getting a cavewoman up the duff.

And we finish the issue with a Tony Isabella, Robert Shaw, Gene Colan short called The Star-Magi, although I struggle to recall anything of what happens in it.

It all starts off as fun and games in the Savage Land, for the crew from the Daily Bugle - until a giant reptilian space alien called Gog shows up to poop the party.

Meanwhile, Iron Man's trying to cure Happy Hogan of being the deadly Freak.

But that's soon going to be the least of his worries - because the Unicorn's back and looking for trouble!

Speaking of which, Thor's found the biggest trouble in the universe, in the form of Galactus!

But, fortunately, the planet-eater's too busy, determined to tell the thunder god his origin, to do any of his usual devastating.

The Super-Heroes is still trundling along, inoffensively.

And is doing so by offering us the second part of Giant-Man's first encounter with the Black Knight. One which takes place in a funfair!

Elsewhere, The Cat must fight the Man-Bull after bumping into him in a bar.

And, this time, he's got a herd of cows with him!

And, not having to deal with any cows, the X-Men defeat Dominus and Lucifer by destroying the robots that have been doing all the work for them.

I may never have had this issue but I did have a copy of its Hulk tale, thanks to the 1975 Marvel Annual. So, my sense of deprivation is not as great as it might have been.

As for what happens in it, the Hulk only goes and bumps into a man called Captain Omen and, as we can all spot, "Omen" is "Nemo" backwards.

And that gives us a clue as to what kind of tale we're heading into.

A very watery one.

On far drier land, Daredevil's in his gym and still fighting Starr Saxon's murderbot!

And, in the Fantastic Four's strip, Galactus has taken a break from chatting with Thor, to scour the Earth for the Silver Surfer, so he can re-hire him as a herald.

Speak Your Brain! Part 112. Patterns, coincidences, duos and corn.

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

***

Image by Tumisu
from Pixabay

Can it be true?

Can there really be barely more than a month to go before Christmas is once more upon us?

Yes, it can.

But is that what's on the minds of dear visitors to this dear journal?

That, I cannot say.

But I know how to find out.

And that's to fling the doors of Speak Your Brain open to the world again!

That's right. It's the return of the feature in which you The Reader get to decide just what the topic for debate shall be.

Therefore, waste no time in posting that topic and we shall see in just which direction our collective wind is blowing.

2000 AD - October 1987.

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

***

How much do you love new countries?

Is it as much as I do?

If so, you were no doubt as thrilled as I, in October 1987, to hear Colonel Gaddafi announce that Algeria and Libya had agreed to a proposed union of the two states, with the brand new nation being called Algibya.

40 years later, we're still waiting for that to actually happen.

What we didn't have to wait for was Fiji becoming a republic. That's because it happened that very month.

When it came to the UK, it was a period in which the Great Storm of 1987 hit southern Britain - as well as northern France - and was one of the strongest storms to ever hit the region.

And there was more bad news. This time, financially, because it was a month that saw the arrival of Black Monday in which stock market levels plunged, notoriously, all around the world.

But the bad news didn't stop there.

At least not if you were a legendary British jockey called Lester Piggott because, if you were, you were jailed for three years, after being convicted of tax evasion.

And what of the cinema? Could we find refuge from all that calamity in there?

We might do, should we possess a hankering to watch such brand new fare as Near Dark, The Princess Bride, Someone to Watch Over Me, The Glass Menagerie, The Killing Time, Prince of Darkness, Suspect and The Sicilian.

The only ones of those that I've seen are Near Dark, The Princess Bride and Prince of Darkness. Of those, I shall vote for The Princess Bride as my Film of the Month.

And what of the UK singles charts?

October began with M|A|R|R|S' Pump Up The Volume at Number One but that soon had to make way for the irresistibly crunching beat of the Bee Gees' You Win Again.

When it came to the accompanying album chart, the month crept in with Michael Jackson's Bad in pole position before that was deposed by Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel of Love which then had to make way for Sting's Nothing Like the Sun which then had to flee before the might of Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night.

And the galaxy's greatest comic?

It was still bringing us a steady flow of such strips as Zenith, Universal Soldier, Strontium Dog, Judge Dredd and Tharg's Future-Shocks.

But there was also innovation to be found in the form of a three-page tale called Bradley which appeared in Prog 545, brought to us by Alan McKenzie and Simon Harrison. While Prog 542 saw the debut of Freaks, as delivered by Peter Milligan and John Higgins. As far as I can make out, Freaks is a series in which a young man called Carl Woolf is abducted  by hostile aliens who demand he gives them Earth's military secrets, even though he doesn't know any of them.

Needless to say, this can only lead to trouble.

November 15th, 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. 

***

On November 15th, 1975, BBC One's Model World taught us how to modify toy soldiers for use in other scenarios.

I suspect it may have been Bob Symes who was teaching us.

This may not be the most riveting piece of information you've ever heard but, apart from the formation of the G6, it's the most interesting thing I can find that happened on that day.

"But wait!" I hear you cry. "What about the pop charts? What was happening atop their twin luscious peaks?"

I can sensationally reveal that David Bowie's Space Oddity was still over the moon on the UK singles chart, while we had a new Number One on the LP rankings, thanks to Max Boyce's We All Had Doctors' Papers.

And, speaking of models, this is the tale in which Gwen beats Mary Jane at her own game and becomes a model as well when half our regular cast decamp to the Savage Land and find themselves re-enacting King Kong, as Spidey goes up against the gargantuan grip of Gog.

Following that, Iron Man triumphs over the Freak by gassing him in the back of a van.

And Thor bumps into Galactus who insists on telling the thunder god - and us - his origin.

In this week's thrilling edition, the Sub-Mariner's still wasting his time, looking for Neptune's Trident, when a bunch of eels tell him Warlord Krang's handed Lady Dorma over to a bunch of creatures called the Faceless Ones!

Now our hero's going to have to abandon his search for the trident, in order to save his beloved!

Having staged a daring attack on SHIELD's barber shop, last week; this week, Hydra launches a daring attack on an empty warehouse - only for it to turn out to be a trap. And, now, their crack Futile Attack Squadron is a prisoner of SHIELD!

Far away from that, the Inhumans are fighting the Mandarin but Black Bolt thwarts the sinister son of Seres, thanks to his power of hypnosis.

Following that, Captain America encounters the origin of the Red Skull.

And Captain Marvel discovers that the late Walter Lawson - whose place he's secretly taken - was building a great big death-bot in his house. Which seems like a normal thing for a man to do.

Hooray! After a couple of weeks of me being denied the pleasure of owning the latest Avengers issues, the book mysteriously returns to my local newsagents, for one week, which means I've actually read this one.

And I believe it was the first time I ever saw the combination of John Buscema and Tom Palmer on an art job. Needless to say, I was most impressed.

But, first, Conan.

And I have strong memories of his story too. One which features him blundering around in Zembabwei, rescuing a hapless blonde and fighting yet another of those man-apes that are always described as being rare but which seem to lurk behind every Hyborian tree.

The aforementioned Avengers, meanwhile, are having trouble with an impostor running around, masquerading as the Black Panther, in order to commit a crime spree, while the real one is being held hostage by the Sons of the Serpent!

I suspect it's in this issue that we get the shock revelation - on nationwide TV - that the two leaders of the notoriously racist gang are, in fact, a white man and a black man!

Dr Strange, meanwhile, is being bothered by the Demons of Shuma-Gorath!

Thunderbolt Ross is chasing the Hulk around the icy wastes of Canada when the pair of them are abducted by the Gremlin who conducts tests on the brute's abilities, in order to better improve his lackeys' Super-Trooper suits.

Back in New York, Starr Saxon's robot is still engaging in fisticuffs with Daredevil, before Saxon accidentally sends it off to kill his employer Biggie Benson.

And the Silver Surfer's still facing the prospect of having to return to the role of being Galactus' herald.

Good God, what's going on on that cover? Is everyone fighting everyone, this week?

We'll soon find out.

As far as I can make out, the good news is that Drac's not involved. He's too busy fighting Hannibal King.

And the Werewolf by Night's not fighting the Living Mummy, at all. He's too busy fighting an embittered ex-Hollywood actor called Atlas.

And the Living Mummy's still fighting the Elementals in the streets of Cairo.

I can, therefore, decree that cover to be pure clickbait and not at all an accurate representation of what transpires within.

It's helpful of the authorities to put pictures of Zira and Cornelius on that Wanted poster, so we won't mistake them for any other talking apes we might encounter.

Inside the comic, the two chimps are having a whale of a time getting to know the world of humans.

But, then, naughty Dr Hasslein gets Zira drunk and she lets slip just what the future has in store for those humans.

And, of course, the United States isn't going to take that sort of thing lying down.

That's followed by a four-page feature on Roddy McDowall

And we get the latest instalment of Man-Gods From Beyond the Stars.

But there's a bonus because we also encounter Barry Smith's first stab at drawing barbarians for Marvel when fictional antediluvian swordsman Starr the Slayer sets out to kill his creator before his creator can kill him!

I assume Starr the Slayer isn't related to Starr Saxon even though they both feature, this week, in stories drawn by Barry Smith.

Interesting to see The Super-Heroes, using the style of split cover The Mighty World of Marvel will later adopt in its merger-happy era.

You have to hand it to The Super-Heroes. It doesn't even have to merge with anything for it to act like a merged comic. That's how ahead of its time it is.

In this thrilling issue, despite what the cover claims, Giant-Man must find a way to thwart the Black Knight, a man who's decided to put on a suit of armour and create a winged horse after seeing a statue of a man on a horse.

Then, the Cat must find a way to stop the charge of the Man-Bull.

And the X-Men are still being pestered by both Dominus and Lucifer.