The Marvel Lucky Bag - September 1986.

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

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It is time, once more, for me to cast a beady eye across the cinemas of the world, in order to ascertain just what was filling them exactly forty years ago.

And what was filling them was Restless Natives, Blue Velvet, The Name of the Rose, Crocodile Dundee, Half Moon Street, Avenging Force and 'night, Mother.

Of those, I've only seen Blue Velvet, The Name of the Rose and Crocodile Dundee. I'm going to assume The Name of the Rose was the best, although it's so long since I saw it that I can't remember if it was any good or not.

A brand-new graphic novel hits our lives - and our newsagents - when J. M. DeMatteis and Dan Green bring us a story so awesome that it can only be described by two words: Into Shamballa.

Granted, I don't know what actually happens in it but I do know that it's 62 pages long and features first appearances for someone called Maya and someone called the Lords of Shamballa!

But what's this?

We've reached the last-ever issue of Marvel's Star Wars comic?

What can be the explanation for such a cancellation?

Have the people of the world grown tired of the Wars that are Starred?

I have no idea but I do know the Alliance wages its last battle against the Tofs and that it's brought to us by Jo Duffy and Cynthia Martin.

Doc Strange isn't the only one who's landed himself a graphic novel. So has Daredevil, and 63 pages of Miller/Sienkiewicz drama await us when the Kingpin kidnaps a psychologist's wife, in a bid to force the man into helping the voluminous villain's own infirm spouse!

Excitement bubbles over with the arrival of a brand-new limited series containing The Evil Dr Frankenbeans and Cornered in which the Madballs are accidentally created after falling into RUIN Labs' toxic pond. And, then, Colonel Corn, a corncob mutated by that selfsame pond, kidnaps some children as part of his bid to take over the world!

All I can say is it sounds like a life-changing experience.

Web of Spider-Man gets its second-ever annual. One in which Warlock of the non-Adam variety visits New York and causes all sorts of TV-related chaos. I just hope he and the Impossible Man never encounter each other. I don't think the world's ready for that kind of anarchy.

The backup tale, meanwhile, is a thing called You're Lying, Peter Parker! A tale of which I know nothing.

You can never have enough X-Men comics in your life.

And - just to prove it - a new one has appeared.

But it's one that's got me confused. It appears to relate the tale of how the New X-Men were formed when the old ones were captured by Krakoa the Living Island, forcing Professor X to recruit a new team to rescue them.

However, it seems not to be a reprint; drawn, as it is, by John Bolton but with contributions from Dave Cockrum.

It all sounds a rum thing to me, and that's for sure.

Yet another of Spidey's books is demanding to know where the star of the show is.

At least there doesn't seem to be any mystery about where Peter Parker is because, in this one, he tells Mary Jane just how he got back from Appalachia.

But that's the end of his good news because he's later pushed in front of a subway train by an assailant who shall later be revealed to be Venom!

It's not just Star Wars that's about to shake off this mortal coil. Howard the Duck's mag has also hit its final issue.

And it does so with a 30-page epic in which we get to discover just how its star won $10 million and then blew the lot.