July 14th, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

This week in 1976 was a bad week for Marvel UK, as, following in the footsteps of Savage Sword of Conan and Dracula Lives, yet another of its comics saw its last ever issue. Suddenly, the company would be giving us just four comics a week, compared to its earlier peak of seven.

But does that mean we had reason to be downhearted?

Of course it did.

Not that I knew it. At the time, I was somehow oblivious to this gradual whittling away of the company and still saw Marvel UK as an unstoppable behemoth with an endless and glorious future ahead of it.

A certain future X-Man makes his full debut.

I remember having earlier read Iceman's origin in an Alan Class comic.

Admittedly, when I say, "Remember," all I can actually remember is him confronting some angry people outside his parents' house.

Or perhaps that was Cyclops' origin. Or the Angel's. Or possibly Marvel Girl's. Or maybe Professor X's.

The last ever issue of The Avengers sees our heroes bow out in style, with Neal Adams wielding the pencils.

Next week, they'll be in The Mighty World of Marvel instead. Or, as it became known later, The Mighty World of Marvel with the Avengers and the Savage Sword of Conan incorporating Fury and Planet of the Apes with Dracula Lives.

How I recall walking into my local newsagent's and asking for a copy of that comic. In fact, the title was so long that I still haven't managed to finish asking for it yet. I think the newsagent's getting a bit bored of waiting for me to finish. Not to mention the queue that's built up behind me over the last forty years.

Every work of fiction I've ever encountered that features Mount Rushmore has involved there being a secret base hidden in the caves behind the eyeballs.

Sadly, Googling it has revealed to me that there are no caves hidden behind the eyeballs. Why can real life never be as exciting as fiction?

Hooray! It's the Spider-Mobile!

I don't care if its existence made no sense - given that Spidey could get around New York faster without it and all it did was make it easier for the police to find him  - I always had a soft spot for it.

Yet another of the Mad Thinker's infallible schemes that's guaranteed to fail.

What I never understood about the Mad Thinker was that even he called himself mad. If he knew he was mad, why did he have so much faith in his own judgement?

Forty years ago today - July 1976.

In July 1976, NASA's Viking 1 probe landed on Mars, taking the legendary Face on Mars photo on its way. But, while this was going on in Outer Space, what was happening with our favourite Marvel heroes back on the planet Earth?

Isn't this the story in which Thor flattens Orka while revealing he normally doesn't hit his foes as hard as he could, for fear of hurting them?

Given the threat posed to him by most of his foes, I find this claim very hard to believe.

June 1976 saw the launch of the ITV children's drama series The Feathered Serpent, starring Patrick Troughton and Diane Keen as the world's most Anglo-Saxon Aztecs.

One month later, this comic hits the newsagents.

Coincidence?

Or part of a grand cosmic plan beyond our understanding?

I know nothing of this tale but it certainly looks action-packed.

Isn't this the second time Daredevil's been accused of murdering the Jester?

It's that one where Galactus is using the Destroyer as a herald.

I have a feeling it might have been Thor who put this idea into his head.

If so, it seems a strange thing for Thor to be helping Galactus with.

"The most unexpected barbarian of all!"

I assume that's because, whoever he is, no one's ever heard of him before.

Personally, I always expect barbarians.

In fact, I'm positively amazed when they don't show up.

The Blood Brothers are back.

Aunt May's weak heart survives yet another incident that'd inflict a heart attack on the healthiest of people.

Looks like Thor's finally got the sense to give Odin the slap he's been asking for ever since his first appearance.

July 7th, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

It's been an exciting week for all football fans, as Wales have taken on Portugal in a European Championship semi-final.

But were our favourite Marvel heroes of exactly forty years ago having to leave the field equally thwarted in their ambitions? Or were they instead dispatching their enemies faster than you can say, "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch?"

Just two issues of The Avengers to go but there's still no rest for Conan as he encounters yet another Lovecraftian horror from beyond the other side of sanity.

If I remember right, Terror on the Planet of the Apes was the title of the first Jason and Alexander story. I therefore conclude that this is also a Jason and Alexander story.

I don't have a clue what the Ka-Zar tale is, as I don't remember him ever having problems with a volcano - except for in that tale where World War II is still being acted out by people old enough to know better. As that story was reprinted in a much earlier issue, I assume this is not the tale in question.

It's a landmark issue, as the Punisher makes his shoot-first-ask-questions-later debut.

I believe the Jackal also makes his debut.

This was the issue in which I first noticed that Gil Kane was no longer drawing the strip. I was so observant.

The Hulk gets caught up in a dastardly plot involving the Wendigo and a curse.

I suspect a certain future X-Man may be putting in an appearance before long.

I remember this tale as involving a man with a monocle and a killer camera. I also remember it as not being a classic.

I assume the Captain America tale is the one with Baron Zemo and a deadly death-ray equipped satellite with which he aims to take control of the world.

Fifty years ago this month - July 1966.

In July 1966, the British government was forced to take emergency action to prevent a potentially disastrous collapse of its currency. It's great to see how much the world has changed since then.

But what were our favourite Marvel heroes up to at that very moment?

Were they making a sterling effort in their quest to defeat evil?

Or were they merely taking a pounding?

It's that one where Goliath stumbles across a scientifically advanced lost race in the Andes.

Hold on a minute. Wasn't the Inhumans' Great Refuge originally in the Andes? It's almost like Stan Lee was reusing the same ideas over and over again and hoping no one would notice.

I do appreciate any cover that has Goliath on it.

Hooray! My favourite Daredevil villain makes his buzzsaw bearing debut, as he decides to prove his super-villain mettle by defeating... ...er... ...Foggy Nelson.

The Black Panther makes his feline first appearance.

Looking at that cover, I've come to realise that, after forty-odd years, that cape is starting to grow on me.

History is made as we get Steve Ditko's last ever issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.

It's no doubt a sign of just how hasty his departure was that the cover had to be cobbled together from panels that appear inside the comic.

If this month gives us Steve Ditko's last work on Spider-Man, I'm assuming that means this is his last issue on Dr Strange as well.

I believe this is the one where Dormammu decides to have a fight with Eternity. What a complete and total wally he is.

It's Iron Man vs Subby in a tale in which the first half is drawn by Gene Colan and the second is drawn by Jack Kirby. It would be true to say there's a fair old clash of styles involved.

Hooray! The Boomerang makes his senses-shattering debut!

How can the world's mightiest and indestructibliest mortal possibly hope to overcome a man armed with the power of boomerangs?

Thor's off to rescue Hercules from the clutches of Pluto and his hordes of Hades.

"Thunder in the Netherworld," does always sound like it should be a euphemism but I don't know what it should be a euphemism for.

By the looks of it, our mighty mutants are about to find themselves facing a bunch of villains who no one else could be bothered to fight.

June 30th, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

June 30th, 1976, was a very special day.

Why?

Because, according to Wikipedia, on that day, nothing whatsoever happened anywhere in the whole world.

It shows how little they know.

Because, even at that very moment, the heroes of Marvel UK were battling evil, left, right and often centre.

How did they do it?

Here's where we find out.

Neal Adams arrives on the Avengers, even as their comic approaches its twilight days. It seems that even the power of Adams couldn't save them.

It's just struck me that the Vision's far too big on this cover. He appears to be no closer to us than Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch but he absolutely towers over them. Has he been swallowing Hank Pym's growth serum?

That's a very dramatic cover and I remember having liked it so much when I was a youth that I whipped out my pencil and my sketchpad and copied it.

I still have no memory at all of Captain Marvel's second run in the comic. What kind of fool am I? How could I have forgotten about it?

The fake Vulture's still causing trouble and we get Thor's battle with a giant hand in space. How could anyone not love it?

The Hulk's still messing around in Canada.

I do remember virtually praying for the X-Men to disappear from the pages of Mighty World of Marvel.

Tragically, they hung around for a fair while. At the time, I wondered if my misery would never end.

Hooray! The Frightful Four are back and Agatha Harkness makes her debut.

I loved this tale as a kid, with its Gothic crepuscularity and melodramatic haunted housedness.

On top of that, we get the origin of Tiger Shark, a tale I found to be particularly stylishly drawn.

And even more on top of that; for some reason, I had two copies of this issue, which meant I could colour it in with my trusty coloured pencils and still retain a clear conscience.

June 26th, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

As mentioned in my previous post, thanks to strangeness beyond compare, this week of 1976 saw Super Spider-Man With The Super-Heroes bearing a Saturday date instead of the Wednesday date that Marvel UK's other mags bore. Was this a cunning marketing ploy? Was this a total cock-up? Was it the work of Dr Doom?

Who can know?

All we can know is that, thanks to that fact, this is going to be a very short post.

It's that noticeably odd Spider-Tale in which Mary Jane witnesses a murder and our hero comes up against a man pretending to be the Vulture.

It's a tale packed with logic holes and people not acting quite as they would be expected to in such circumstances.

I seem to remember that, not much later than this tale, we also got  a story in which the wall-crawler meets an impostor pretending to be Mysterio.

We can only conclude that writer Gerry Conway had a thing for fake super-villains.

June 23rd, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

It's a sensational day for democracy, as you The Reader have voted on the only issue that matters in the world right now.

And that's the question of how much barbarism you can believe in.

As you can imagine, it was a close contest, with tensions running high but these are the results of the poll:

• "Loads." - 12 votes.
• "Hardly Any." - 0 votes.

So, there you have it, the hardest readers of the hardest blog on the internet can believe in levels of barbarism almost beyond human imagining.

Meanwhile, in this week of 1976, something strange was occurring.

For some reason, Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes switched back to a weekend publication date before switching back to a midweek date a few days later. Whether this was a strange and baffling marketing ploy or just a mistake, I cannot say.

But, while we wait for that delayed comic to hit the racks, it's time to see what Marvel UK's other comics were doing on this day of forty years ago.

Quicksilver's awesome tactic of defeating giant robots by bouncing off them and then landing on his backside proves somewhat futile, as the early stages of the Kree/Skrull War rumble on.

He should try that tactic he used against the Sentinels. The one that involved him running face-first into a wall and nearly killing himself in the process. Granted, it wasn't the most oft-repeatable of tactics but it did actually work.

And he found a wife because of it. Someone needs to tell him he'll never find a wife by bouncing off things and landing on his backside.

The Thing's still fighting Torgo.

It's the, "Long-awaited merger of Marvel's mightiest mags!"

But long-awaited by whom? I can't remember ever thinking, "I wish they'd get on with it and merge Dracula Lives and Planet of the Apes." In fact, it was a thought that had never occurred to me.

But then again, what if it's true? What if the Marvel UK offices really had been bombarded for years with letters demanding the two mags merge? Just who were the people who sent those letters and, having got what they'd wanted, did they ever regret it?

I wonder if, even as they got their hands on this week's mag, they were composing letters to Marvel UK, demanding that they merge it with Mighty World of Marvel as well?

That's a much better drawn cover than we're used to from Mighty World of Marvel. Apparently, it's by Keith Pollard which may well explain it.

I suspect the Daredevil tale may have been Nighthawk's second appearance but I could be totally wrong.

Given his resemblance to Batman, and Daredevil's resemblance to Batman I can see why it would have struck Marvel to have the two meet.