September 29th, 1976 - 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. 

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Nurse! Bring me my chart!

Thank you, Nurse. I see that ABBA are still holding sway over the UK Top 40, as they have been for several weeks, thanks to Dancing Queen.

But there's a new king on the neighbouring album rankings, courtesy of The Best of The Stylistics Vol. 2 seizing the Number One spot from the Beach Boys.

But man doesn't live by music alone. Sometimes, he needs to see grown men punching each other in the face. How fortunate, then, that September 29th 1976 sees BBC One broadcast the third encounter between Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton.

It's a truly groundbreaking storyline, as the Thing starts to turn towards the path of evil for only the nineteenth time in his career!

And it all happens because he was left in a chair for too long!

Captain America confronts Batroc, the Swordsman and the Living Laser, thanks to them having planted a seismo-bomb in Manhattan. Can America's greatest talisman defeat the villains and locate the device?

And will Batroc help him?

Far from there, Nick Fury defeats Baron Strucker and ensures that a Death Spore destroys Hydra's secret island.

But it's a bad start to the day for Prince Namor who's wrongly blamed for a torpedo attack while Captain Barracuda's trying to conquer the world with his newly acquired sonic weapon.

And the Ghost Rider - still on a quest to thwart the hordes of Zodiac - now comes up against Taurus!

Derek Zane having reached the end of his latest adventure, a brand-new series is launched in the UK's favourite publication about talking apes.

And that series is Quest for the Planet of the Apes. A series I possess no recollection of. But it seems it's a sequel to Conquest of the Planet of The Apes.

However, in a land far to the south of us, Ka-Zar and Tongah go to the aid of the imprisoned Zebra-Men. Only for someone called Sheesa to set an army of the dead on our heroes!

In the Man-Thing's strip, F. A. Schist tries to discover the secret of La Hacienda's Fountain of Youth.

And Drac is back!

But only to introduce the elderly short Gorgolla! The Living Gargoyle!! In which a student discovers that gargoyles are an alien race that's preparing to conquer our world!

Finally, Marvel's adaptation of the first Apes movie continues with an instalment called ...Run for Your Life!

From that title, I'm going to assume it covers the part of the film in which Taylor gets chased around Ape City by gorillas.

As we can guess from that cover, the Hulk quickly finishes off the Devastator.

More shockingly, an autopsy reveals that Glenn Talbot had fake fingerprints - meaning the man who blew himself up in a bid to rapidly disassemble the United States President was, in fact, an impostor!

No sooner have they liberated Attilan than the Avengers set off for the Andromeda Galaxy to rescue their friends from the Skrulls.

And, in a zone far more negative than our own, Rick Jones is about to have a run-in with Annihilus!

Readers will be relieved to hear Conan and Stefanya escape the clutches of Pthassiass!

Over in Hollywood, Karen Page has landed yet another of those acting roles that always lead to her near-death.

And, this time, it's going to be at the hands - or wheels - of the Stilt-Man who's decided it'll be a jolly wheeze to impersonate the Stunt-Master. 

More importantly, Karen chooses to pursue her acting career rather than return to New York with Matt Murdock.

Gerry Conway does like to revive old villains by having them be replaced by impostors. Hot on the heels of Fake Vulture and Fake Green Goblin, he's at it again, as Fake Mysterio seeks to succeed where the real one always failed.

Needless to say, he promptly fails where the real one always failed.

Also, this issue sees the seeming death of the Spider-Mobile.

Thor has no time to do anything about the fact that Loki's seized the throne of Asgard and wants to marry Sif, because the unstoppable Durok the Destroyer is rampaging about on Earth! And only the thunder god has any chance of stopping him!

I must confess that I do keep misreading "Durok" as "Derek." Somehow, Derek the Destroyer doesn't possess the same sense of drama.

And, speaking of drama, having survived a life-threatening heart operation, Tony Stark discovers that Madame Masque is, in fact, former Maggia boss Whitney Frost!

It's Teutonic torment for the Invaders when they must battle the Germanic gods Donar, Froh and Loga!

And those silly sausages the Frightful Four have accidentally opened Reed Richards' gateway to the Negative Zone. One which Annihilus plans to make full use of.

Fortunately, Spider-Man and the Human Torch manage to defeat the villains and prevent the insect from invading our world.