Forty years ago today - February 1986.

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

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February. The month named after...

...

...

...whatever it is it's named after.

But will there be equal uncertainty within the pages that contain our favourite Marvel scrappers?

It's every thunder god's worst nightmare.

He's been turned into a frog!

By Loki!

Needless to say, he can't wait to get back to Asgard and sort out that pesky god of evil.

But, before he can do that, there's other matters to attend to.

Like helping a bunch of New York's finest frogs in their battle against evil rats, in some sort of remake of Watership Down that has everything in it but rabbits.

It's an odd one in which the FF encounter the Invincible Man and proceed to vince him but it turns out he's not the Super-Skrull, as any reasonable person would have assumed. He's some random bloke who wants to get into the Latverian embassy to claim revenge upon Dr Doom for stealing one of his inventions.

Or is he?

Is he, instead, Dr Doom who's tricked the team into helping him get back into that embassy, after discovering he can't access it now that his consciousness is trapped inside the body of a totally random bloke dressed as the Invincible Man?

For reasons I'm struggling to remember, Rachel Summers decides to kill the Beyonder, using the Phoenix powers she inherited from her mother.

But is even the power of the Phoenix enough to stop him?

And will she learn a valuable lesson, along the way?

But, hold on. Have I spotted a plot hole here? If Jean Grey was never the Phoenix - as recently revealed - how come her daughter's inherited those powers from her?

It looks like Rachel's going to have to wait her turn if she wants to kill the Beyonder - because the Puma's decided he wants to do it.

But, given that the Beyonder's all-powerful and all-knowing, how can the furry feline fury possibly do that?

As far as I can make out, the logic is the Beyonder's decided to fulfil the destiny of everyone he encounters and the Puma's been created to kill him. That means that, in order for the Beyonder to fulfil his stated mission, he has to let the Puma kill him.

Needless to say, the ever-interfering Spider-Man's got his doubts about it all.

Thanks to the actions of Doc Samson, the Hulk's on the rampage and has no mind that could stop him.

Fortunately, there's a whole bunch of Marvel's mightiest heroes on hand to do that for him.

Except they fail miserably and Samson, feeling guilty about his part in it all, wants to tackle the brute, single-handedly.

Meanwhile, the She-Hulk must decide whether to let doctors perform a procedure that might bring Bruce Banner out of a coma but may also kill him!

Things look bleak on the Squadron Supreme's homeworld where the team have taken over the planet and are ruling like brutish tyrants.

Due to this, Nighthawk travels to our dimension, in a bid to get the Avengers to help him overthrow them.

But will they be interested?

And will Cap and he be able to thwart the antics of a trio of Silver Age DC style super-villains who've fled to this world, seeking to escape the Squadron Supreme's thuggish rule?

Yet another size-changing character is added to Marvel's universe when a mystery woman steals Hank Pym's Yellowjacket costume and formula and, in doing so, attracts the wrath of the winsome Wasp.

In a shocking twist, Karen Page's desperation for a fix leads her to tell a crook the true identity of Daredevil.

Needless to say, it's not long before that information's sold to the Kingpin and the rotundly rapacious rascal reckons he can recklessly wreck the reputation of Matt Murdock.

Unfortunately for him, by the issue's end, the lawyer's realised just who's behind his sudden run of epic misfortune, and is on the lookout for revenge.

I'm not familiar with this one but it seems that, in a place called Becharadur, Conan finds himself being hailed as a saviour - but that's when the cheeky demon Imhotep turns up.

And I have no doubt the battling barbarian will, indeed, turn out to be a saviour.

As mentioned previously in this post: the Puma, the Beyonder, Spider-Man, destiny, furry feline fury, all-powerful, etc, etc.

Little does our hero suspect that Beth Cabe and Madame Masque have swapped bodies, meaning the woman who looks like Beth is out to kill him and the woman who looks like Masque is out to save him.

But before that, he must invade a computer, at microscopic size, in order to nobble it and regain the money Obadiah Stane stole from him.