Fantastic Four #7. Kurrgo and Planet X.

Fasten up your seat belts, check your oxygen tank and hit that booster because it's time to dip once more into the 1972 Fleetway Marvel Annual, for the Fantastic Four's big day out in Space.

Confronted with the inevitable destruction of his world at the hands of a stray asteroid, Planet X's ruler, the beach-ball headed Kurrgo sends his own personal robot to Earth to turn mankind against the Fantastic Four so they'll consent to flee to Planet X where Kurrgo hopes Mr Fantastic'll be able to concoct a plan to save his world.

When they get there, Reed Richards, being Reed Richards, takes just hours to invent a potion to shrink the entire population of Planet X, so it can climb aboard the planet's only spare space ship and flee.

As they flee, Kurrgo - refusing to leave behind the potion that'll make him full-size again and thus leave him dwarfing his fellow X-ians - is left behind to die, a victim of his own megalomania.

One of the things that always strikes me about Marvel stories from this era is just how long they seem. For years I labelled under the misapprehension that this and the annual's other tales were much longer than later outings, but a quick check tells me it's only 22 pages long. So much does it cram in.

I complained in a recent post that Jack Kirby seemed to be basing his later Fantastic Four tales on whatever he'd seen most recently on TV - but clearly there was nothing new about that because, with its giant robot and its abducting of our heroes to a doomed world, it's pretty obvious this tale's inspired by the 1950s movies The Day the Earth Stood Still and This Island Earth. And it's great, filled with splash pages and divided into chapters, just to really add to that feeling of a 12 cent epic.

Kirby's depiction of Planet X - and its destruction - are great too. But I also love the earlier scenes on Earth, covering the FF's discomfort at having to attend an official dinner in their honour, and the squabbling and bickering that precede it. It's easy to see in these scenes the reason for Marvel's 1960s' success. Can you really imagine Batman, Superman and the Flash of this era fighting amongst themselves about having to attend a dinner engagement? Marvel's heroes simply had a life and a character that DC's more socially adept stars couldn't match.

Of course, in the end, it's a very silly tale. The idea that a super-advanced civilisation needs the scientific know-how of an Earth-man to solve their problem - and the idea that Reed Richards can knock up a shrinking potion in a few hours - is ludicrous. But then silliness is half the fun of a Silver Age comic book. And, if you don't want fun, why are you reading about people in spandex?

Conan the Barbarian #5.

I'm pretty down with the street gangs, winning them over instantly with my mammoth break-dancing skills. "Gordon Bennett!" they declare, "We've never seen anyone spin on his head like you do! Please become the leader of our crew and teach us your skillz so we can save our local youth club from closure, with the winnings from next week's National Street-Dance Disco Dancing Competition!"

Sadly, not everyone's as popular as me; and the evil sorcerer Zukala's among them. He keeps sending his daughter Zephra into the nearest town to demand taxes from the locals.

This might not sound like much of a problem for the said locals. Can they not just show her pictures of sad kittens until she cries?

But Zephra's no ordinary gal. Like 1960s pop legend Lulu, she can turn herself into a tiger.

Unfortunately for Zukala, on this particular occasion, Conan the Barbarian just happens to be in town, and one look at his horny helmet sends her so horny she decides to side with him against her father.

After being promised lots of money by the locals, Conan sets off to Zukala's castle and takes on the wizard - but not before Zukala summons the demon Jaggta-Noga to collect the taxes his daughter so miserably neglected to gather.

It all ends with Zephra fighting Jaggta-Noga before, to protect her, Zukala sends the demon back to where it came from, and he and his daughter vanish off to some mystic dimension, leaving Conan to help himself to the collected taxes they've left behind.

This was the first Conan story I ever read - in the pages of Fleetway's Marvel Annual 1972/3 - and it was love at first sight. How could I not love a story with a sorcerer, a tiger and a demon in it? How could I not love a story with a castle?

Granted, I didn't at that point have a clue who Conan was and, because Thor got mentioned in an article elsewhere in the annual, I somehow convinced myself the star of this tale was Thor - even though everyone kept calling him Conan.

It's from the strip's early months and thus features Barry Smith's art when it was still partway between his days of badly imitating Jack Kirby and his more ornate later style. But even here there's a class about it - an appreciation of "camera-angles", perspective and poses - that hints at the true potential behind the pencil. Smith's renditions of the tiger, and Jaggta-Noga are especially appealing. Frank Giacoia's inking doesn't best suit Smith's pencils, being too crisp and harsh, but it's not enough to spoil the enjoyment.

The more observant may notice the colouring in the images I'm posting here isn't quite the same as in the original comic. Those devoid of marbles might think it's because I have a priceless and rare edition re-coloured by the great man Bazza himself.

They'd be wrong.

It's because at some point as child I decided it'd be a good idea to colour-in the otherwise black and white reprint with felt-tip pens. Comic book colouring? Break-dancing? Truly I am the Renaissance Man.

Help needed. Fleetway's Marvel UK Annual 1974.

Wherever shadowy men gather in dockside bars, to speak of dread secrets and crazed travellers' tales, hushed whispers are spread that one of the most futile and pointless successful features on this blog is where I ask readers for help in tracking down a comic.

Well, in this case, I don't need help tracking one down. The comic in question, I already know what it is and I know where to get it. The only question is one of content.

Bearing in mind my affection for Fleetway's Marvel Annual 1972/1973, whenever I see their 1974 annual up for sale, I get this urge to buy it. So, if you happen to know what stories are in it - so I'll know if the sound of it grabs me - I'd be delighted to hear from you.


PS. Don't forget. The results of our battling amphibians poll are now in. Did everyone else agree with your selection?

There's only one way to find out.

Marvel style, done the Fleetway way. Marvel Annual 1972.

I was in the grip of madness. A madness that had led me, for long and bewildered years, to believe that, long before the Mighty World of Marvel comic hit UK news stands, I'd had three issues of TV21 that featured the Silver Surfer fighting the Abomination.

Apart from the fact that this meant "Abomination" was probably the biggest word I knew at the age of six or seven, such a thing made no sense. After all, TV21 famously published Gerry Anderson stories, and in what way was the Silver Surfer either TV or Gerry Anderson?

So, over the years, I decided I must have got confused and that it must've been a comic like Terrific, which did indeed publish Marvel reprints and, crucially, also began with a T.

But the Internet's a wonderful thing and, through it, I recently discovered that, in its dying days, TV21 did indeed publish Silver Surfer adventures. It seems Fleetway had a deal with Marvel to reprint their tales and no longer had the rights to the Gerry Anderson shows. Hence we suddenly got the likes of Spider-Man and the Surfer in the pages of TV21.

It also explained my Christmas disappointment of 1972 when I eagerly received that year's Marvel Annual, only to discover that most of the tales therein had been published in the Mighty World of Marvel just a few weeks earlier. Given their massive back catalogue of stories, what had possessed the House of Ideas to make such a perverse decision?

I now know the answer to both mysteries was the same. That year's Marvel Annual wasn't published by Marvel at all but by Fleetway, taking advantage of their reprint rights. I admit, you don't have to be a Sherlock Holmes to know that. After all, it says on the front cover that it's a Fleetway publication and, even at that age, I knew Fleetway and Marvel weren't the same thing. Fleetway, after all, did Whizzer and Chips. But I assumed Marvel'd got Fleetway to publish it on their behalf, because Marvel didn't traditionally do hardback annuals and Fleetway did.

Time, however, heals all wounds and while I felt let down as a kid, I now see the book as a treasure trove of ancient Marvel tales. It doesn't hurt that it features some of my favourite outings of that era. Spidey's first meeting with the Scorpion's always been my favourite Spider-Man epic of the Ditko run. It's so hard and violent, with Spider-Man nearly beaten to death twice by his specially created nemesis, and Ditko's art's at its peak here. I also love the Terrible Tinkerer's debut for its off-beatness. The Hulk comes up against Tyrannus, a cross between Alexander the Great and the Mole Man. The Fantastic Four come up against Kurrgo and his robot, and the Hulk comes up against the Toad Men.

I have to admit the Hulk v the Toad Men might not be Marvel's greatest achievement but it was drawn by Jack Kirby and inked by Steve Ditko, and Bruce Banner looked like Eric Morecambe in one panel, which always gave me great pleasure. The book also had a Barry Smith Conan tale. I'd never seen Conan before and, for some reason, had it in my head he must be Thor - who I'd also never seen before - even though everyone kept calling him Conan!

What really stands out about the annual though is that, in its pages, it has a couple of articles. One deals with the various villains in Spider-Man's life. The other gives an overview of the world of Marvel and those who inhabit it. Given that they still had the rights, using the reprints made sense but it does seem odd that, through those articles, Fleetway was needlessly giving publicity to a rival publisher's entire pantheon but perhaps, it being Christmas, they were in a generous mood.

The other matter of interest is the cover. What a thing of beauty it is. Who did it? I don't know. Is it by a British artist?

I only ask because I've always felt there's something oddly continental, maybe Italian, about the thing. I base this on no knowledge whatsoever of Italian comic book covers of the early 1970s but, for some reason, whenever I look at it, the world "Italy" always bursts into my head.

That aside, I always felt there was something oddly camp about the soldiers in this picture and, looking at it now, it's suddenly occurred to me what it is.

It's the footwear.

Were those men really sent into battle with those things on their feet?