July 12th, 1975 - 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. 

***

Has any man ever been drowned by a water bed?

More to the point, has any man ever been drowned by a pillow?

If there's one man who has, it's probably Johnny Nash.

That's because no man's pillow is more drenched in tears than his.

You guessed it, this is my way of building up to announcing that, this week in 1975, the man himself hit the top of the UK singles chart, thanks to his smash hit Tears On My Pillow.

Over on the parallel album chart, top spot was retained by none other than the Carpenters and their platter that shattered; Horizon.

Tears On My Pillow is an appealing song but there were other tracks I also approved of on that week's UK Hit Parade. Among them were:

Misty - Ray Stevens

I'm Not in Love - 10cc

Give a Little Love - the Bay City Rollers

Whispering Grass - Windsor Davies and Don Estelle

Listen to What the Man Said - Wings

and

Someone Saved My Life Tonight - Elton John.

Should one wish to peruse the matter in greater depth, that UK singles chart can be found here.

While the adjacent LP rankings dwell herewithin.

Now what's Spidey supposed to do? While he's been pining over Gwen Stacy, the Beetle's only gone and kidnapped Aunt May!

I suggest that what he can do is fling the villain into a swimming pool and hope Aunt May doesn't decide to get engaged to him.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark has plenty to worry about, as well, because the Crusher intends to live up to his name when it comes to how he deals with Iron Man.

Not only that but Happy and Pepper have decided to get married!

To each other!

And I do believe this may be the issue in which Don Blake discovers he never existed and Odin just made him up, to teach Thor a lesson!

Can it be true?

Yes it can!

Because you The Reader demanded it, Conan's book's been cancelled!

And merged with The Avengers!

Granted, that might not be quite what's happened but I'm sure that's how it'll be marketed by a cunning editor.

Needless to say, as someone who never got his hands on a single issue of the weekly Conan comic, this is good news for 11-year-old-me, as it means I can now get a weekly fix of Barry Smith's artwork, on top of all the other treasures this publication can offer.

And the issue kicks off in fine style with Conan on a ship, prepping for the siege of Makkalet in which a bid shall be made to steal back the Living Tarim from its denizens.

Elsewhere, the Avengers are in space, with gangster Barney Barton, looking to bring the knuckles of justice to the faces of Egghead, the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master. One of these characters will be dead by the end of this tale.

And I think we can guess which one.

Even more elsewhere, Shang-Chi's sister's trying to get her brother to join forces with her in her vendetta against their father.

Needless to say, our hero's having none of it.

Its all great stuff, of course but I suppose we should stop to reflect upon the fact that it's the first time Marvel UK's suffered the indignity of having to merge two comics because of poor sales.

Could it be that dark clouds are beginning to lurk upon the horizon?

"Don't count on it, Baldy!"? Are they sure the Hulk now has the mind of Bruce Banner? I don't recall the scientist ever talking like that.

I do, however, believe this signals the not-so-brutish brute is back in the land of Jarella and, possibly, heading for a showdown with himself.

Alicia's finally got to meet the cocoon that contains a being so awesome he can only be referred to as Him!

And the Fantastic Four are finally on the way to doing something about it.

And it's bad news for us all when a brand new villain enters the life of Daredevil

And that villain's called the Jester.

And his main weapon is a yo-yo.

And he bears no spiritual resemblance at all to any villains Batman may have ever encountered.

It's the clash that had to happen, when the lord of vampires meets Marvel's premier werewolf!

And all sorts of stuff's going off in the strip that belongs to Frankenstein's Monster but I don't know just what.

I do know, though, that it involves the criminal organisation ICON and a big robot called the Berserker!

Despite what that cover claims, this is an issue in which Brent manages to flee Ape City, not one in which he forces his way into it

It's also the instalment in which he finally discovers he's still on Earth, thanks to finding himself in the underground ruins of somewhere famous in New York that featured in Hello Dolly.

On the same planet but in the distant past, Sinbad finally completes his mission to defeat Tom Baker and restore a Vizier to full facial health. 

Adam Warlock, meanwhile, is still battling the evil New-Man Apollo who's now revealed himself to be a giant, talking warthog!

A beautiful but curiously undramatic John Buscema cover greets us and I believe it heralds the tale in which the Surfer finally manages to find a way through Galactus' space barrier...

...only to discover he's in the future and the universe has been completely ravaged by a charmer called The Overlord.

Following that, the X-Men have a scrap on their hands when their mansion is invaded by the Juggernaut!

Faced with a crisis like this, it seems they're going to need help from the Human Torch!

Forty years ago today - July 1985.

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

***

Come, let us descend into the maelstrom and see what awaits us there.

I don't think anything much happens in this one, apart from Thor and Frigga hanging around with some kids, and Sif and Beta Ray Bill hanging around with each other in New York.

Speaking of that city; not for the first time in their lives, the people of it have turned against the Fantastic Four.

And this time, it's the fault of Psycho Man who not only performs that act of vile iniquity but uses his powers to turn the Invisible Woman against the rest of the team!

It's not just Thor who's hanging around with kids, this month.

So are our favourite mutants, in the X-Men/Power Pack crossover I'm sure someone somewhere must have dreamt of.

Anyway, for reasons I don't recall, the Power Packsters' parents forget who they are and this leads the youngsters into the clutches of the Morlocks beneath the streets of New York.

Surely, only the X-Men can rescue them now!

It's the return we've all prayed for, as the Rocket Racer is back! He just needs to commit one last job to pay his family's debts.

The only problem is there's a bounty hunter out to get him.

I'm struggling to recall just what happens in this one. I think the Hulk and a trio of odd little creatures are stuck in a desert while, for the first time in ages, the green one starts to show some signs of intelligence.

Nomad decides to get a job but his first day at work is interrupted by a villain called Madcap who literally can't be hurt and causes nothing but chaos wherever he goes.

Terminus is also causing no end of chaos. And he's doing it in the Savage Land. He can, however, be hurt, as he discovers when he encounters the fists of Hercules.

Meanwhile, in space, Captain Marvel has an eventful day, as she - and - we meet Nebula for the first time.

It's not a great evening for Matt Murdock - nor for Heather Glenn who kills herself when he rejects her.

Meanwhile, it turns out her apartment was robbed shortly after that, and the Man Without Fear sets out to bring the crooks to justice.

The barbarian takes on a tribe of Picts who are not noticeably Scottish and have kidnapped the father of the latest distressed damsel Conan's decided to come to the rescue of.

I think we've all wondered what would happen if Marvel's various amphibian-based villains battled each other and, this month, we get a partial answer, as the Toad and Frog-Man get jealous of each other's, "friendship," with Spider-Man.

It can only mean a scrap between the pair. One that's then joined by Spider-Kid.

Happily, by the tale's end, the trio are all friends and have decided to form a brand new super-team together.

How many Iron Men does one story need?

Seemingly, three because that's what we get when when the armour Rhodey abandoned in last issue's strange dimension is possessed by something called Omnos who comes to Earth, looking to return it to its rightful owner.

Elsewhere, Dr Demonicus gets his hands on another discarded suit of Iron Man's armour and then gets into a fight with Omnos.

Needless to say, all this unauthorised Shellhead action leads Tony Stark to don another suit of armour, in a bid to sort it all out.

The Marvel Lucky Bag - July 1975.

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

***

I don't know about you but I spend half of my free time singing Hooray for Hollywood.

Granted, I spend the rest of it singing Say Goodbye to Hollywood, Hollywood Nights, random songs by Frankie goes to Hollywood, and being the only person alive who remembers Hollywood Beyond.

You could almost think I was obsessed with Hollywood.

But was that district giving me anything to get excited about, this month in 1975?

That, I cannot say but I can say it was a month which saw the unveiling of such motion picture behemoths as The Apple Dumpling Gang, One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing, The Drowning Pool, Cleopatra Jones & the Casino of Gold, and Mandingo.

To be honest, I'm struggling to form an opinion of any of them.

In the absence of that, I shall therefore see if I have opinions about a random selection of mags unleashed by everyone's favourite comic company, bearing a cover date incorporating the month in question

Up until now, I'd been totally oblivious to the fact the Marvel/Curtis monochrome mags ever spawned annuals.

Now I am fully aware that they did.

Sadly, it turns out that Tales of the Zombie Annual #1 consists entirely of reprints, mostly from the recently defuncted black-and-white mag of the same name.

But there's none of that reprint nonsense for Marvel's 2nd-most famous werewolf!

Instead, a new chapter begins in his life as he finds himself in space!

Admittedly, he's been in space before, what with him being an astronaut.

However, I suspect that, in his current form, he's not aware of that fact.

Speaking of people who hang around in space, Captain Marvel's at the trial of the Watcher who's finally been nabbed by the rozzers, for obsessively interfering in the affairs of other worlds despite being under orders to never interfere in the affairs of other worlds.

However, by the looks of that cover, the Captain of the marvellous variety is more likely to come out of it in a coffin than the defendant is!

It's the first Killraven story I ever read and, therefore, the one in which I first noticed his remarkable resemblance to Apeslayer.

Did I like the tale?

No. I found it too pretentious for my tastes and vowed never to buy it ever again.

However, upon re-reading it, I decided I did like it and set out to get my hands on as many Killraven comics as I could.

From what I remember, our hero and his band battle a monstrously big mutant beast, along with having to contend with the Sacrificer and the mud-phobic Atalon while, elsewhere, Eve 3031 gives birth.

I do believe the McDonalds arches also play a prominent role in this tale, although, at the time, I didn't know what McDonalds was. Therefore, whatever allegory, subtext and metaphor Dauntless Don intended was lost on me.

You may have guessed that I've selected this one for Bob Larkin's eye-catching cover, although I'm sure the insides are also packed with goodness, as we get more of the company's take on Beneath the Planet of the Apes, plus Kingdom on an Island of the Apes: Part II.

We shall also encounter an article titled Finding the Future on the Fox Ranch!

But what's this? Surely the most dramatic cover to ever grace the front of a 1970s Marvel comic?

As far as I can remember Jack and Buck go on a winter vacation with Bucks's love interest and her daughter, and Buck has to risk his life to save the child from the claws and fangs of his best friend.

The Grim Reaper, Yellowjacket, the Circus of Crime, Ultron, the Vision, the New Masters of Evil and the Valkyrie!

All of them try to kill our heroes in this book.

All of them fail.

And they do it on very large pages packed to the gills with pictures drawn by John Buscema at the height of his powers.

It's a Bob Larkin cover that demands we buy the book it's attached to.

Sadly, the insides are composed of reprints sourced from the recently cancelled regular mag of the same name.

Masters of Terror #1 enters our lives.

And guess what?

It's made up of reprints.

This time, taken from the likes of Supernatural Thrillers, Chamber of Chills, Tower of Shadows, Vampire Tales and Journey into Mystery.

I'm starting to get the suspicion these new Curtis mags sending our spinner racks in a spin are just excuses to use up old material from recently demised comics.

But what of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #4? Will it give us anything new to read?

Too right it will.

It gives us The Enchanted Village, A Conversation With SF Master A.E. van Vogt, A Vision of Venus, Fantastic Worlds, Good News From The Vatican, Encounter at War, Kick the Can, Epilogue and various other bits and bobs created specially for it and specially for us.

Neal Adams delivers a cover of subtlety, mystery and intrigue.

Inside, various hands give us more action from Shang-Chi and the Sons of the Tiger, as well as new info on Bruce Lee.

Intriguingly, there's also an article called The Art and Non-Science of Jeet Kune-Do.

Frankly, I have no idea what Jeet Kune-Do is. To be honest, the only martial art I've ever mastered is No Can-Do, of which I'm a black belt 7th dan.

July 5th, 1975 - 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. 

***

Have you ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?

10cc haven't.

They've never been in love with anyone.

Or at least they haven't, if you believe what they tell you.

And, this week in 1975, they were telling you it from a lofty height.

It's true. Their most famous song was still keeping them aloft at the pinnacle of the UK singles chart.

But what of the accompanying album chart?

It had a brand new Number One.

And that was the Carpenters' Horizon which is a record I couldn't claim to have ever heard of but it seems plenty of other people had very much heard of it and they clearly liked what they'd very much heard of it.

My Spider-Senses tell me this is the Beetle-related tale in which John Romita and Sal Buscema get to to re-tell Spidey's origin, as the boy wonder mithers about Gwen Stacy having left him to move to London.

I do believe that's followed by a tale which retells the origin of Iron Man, thanks to Gene Colan and Johnny Craig.

Once that's done, Shellhead finally defeats the Melter, by making his gun over-heat from overuse.

And Spidey and Irony aren't the only ones delving deep into their origins, because so is Don Blake, as he tries to work out just who he is and why.

It's trouble for Shang-Chi because Denis Nayland Smith's gone and got himself kidnapped - and the master of kung fu's sister may be the villain behind the deed!

But there's really big trouble for the Avengers because Egghead, the Mad Thinker and Puppet Master have got their hands on a satellite and are using it to extort money by threatening to blow up cities, with its massive great death ray.

But what's this? Local crime boss Barney Barton wants in on the Avenging action?

And he's an old friend of Hawkeye?

But how can this be possible? Surely a man of Hawkeye's quality would never have hung around with any criminals during his days as a criminal.

Dr Strange meanwhile, finds himself having to visit a small but sinister town on the coast, at the insistence of a man called Ethan Stoddard...

I've never read this one but I like to think it's a tribute to the legendary movie Horror Express.

I have no reason to think it is.

But I do believe Jack Russell wraps up his first encounter with Taboo and recruits a new ally, in his daughter Topaz.

And Frankenstein's Monster finds himself paying a visit to a warehouse which houses the deadly crime syndicate we know only as ICON.

Not yet having managed to get beneath the Planet of the Apes, space explorer Brent manages to get himself shot in the shoulder.

Fortunately, Doctors Zira and Cornelius are available to help - and to tell him what happened to Taylor and the others. 

Adam Warlock, meanwhile, finds himself up against a fancy fiend called Apollo who I remember having a submarine and turning out to be a pig!

Porcines are nowhere to be found in the latest chapter of Marvel's version of Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Instead, our hero finds himself facing a statue of Kali - and its six arms of death.

Despite what the cover tells us, that's no thing in a temple. It's the dreaded Cancellation Monster that's closing in on our hero because it's a fearful reality that this is the last issue of Marvel UK's weekly Savage Sword of Conan comic!

Refusing to go down without a scrap, the barbarian and Fafnir complete their adventure on Bal-Sagoth, just in time for a volcano to destroy the island.

Meanwhile, King Kull's having trouble with A Kingdom by the Sea!

Drama ploughs into overdrive when Dr Doom's henchman has the Shaper of Worlds turn him into Nazi super-heel called Captain Axis. A man who has more than enough power to destroy the Hulk, with his bare hands!

Or has he?

And brace yourself. It's the news we've all been praying for. It's the death of Mike Murdock!

And it all happens during Daredevil's climactic battle with the Exterminator and his Ani-Men!

But, on a mysterious island, Alicia Masters is about to meet a mysterious being known only to the world as Him!

The Stranger's back, and causing no end of trouble for the board-happy misery.

It seems the Surfer's latest attempt to break free of Galactus' space barrier alerts the Stranger who promptly plants a bomb on Earth, designed to kill all life on the planet

That, to me, seems a slight over-reaction to the Surfer trying to break through Galactus' space barrier.

Elsewhere, we experience yet more of The Origin of Professor X!

Fifty years ago today - July 1975.

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

***

There are times in this life when no introduction is necessary.

Which is a good thing because I don't have one. 

I seem to recall this being the one in which the Avengers keep leaping into exploding floating balls, for no good reason at all. Until the Beast rescues them by coming up with the radical plan of not leaping into exploding floating balls.

No wonder he was seen as the intellectual of the X-Men.

And, speaking of intellectuals, doesn't it turn out the villain of the piece - the Stranger - is nothing of the sort and is really the Toad disguised as the ever-antagonising antagonist?

It's the first colour Conan comic I ever owned, bought at an indoor market in Blackpool. That market was on Lytham Road. Maybe, from now on, I ought to declare on which street I bought every single comic I've ever owned

As for the story inside, I recollect it features the usual attempt to rob a tomb or somesuch.

And that prompts a giant golden scorpion to come to life!

And that means Conan must kill it!

As if that's not excitement enough for us, I do believe this thriller sees the return of Murillo and the debut of Tara of Hanumar.

I don't have a clue if this Demon-Druid's related to the Demon Druid who once fought Thor. Nor why he's wearing an outfit that doesn't in any way, shape or form suggest the word, "Druid," to me.

Either way, it all looks like trouble for Cap.

It looks like the Black Widow and Man Without Fear have loads of trouble on their plates, as they try to rescue Foggy Nelson from the clutches of Hydra!

I've never read this tale but am familiar with Arkon and have long been of the opinion that he needs a good slap.

I do believe it's the first-ever Hulk story to be narrated in the first-person, by the Hulk. Which, as the Hulk normally tends to refer to himself in the third-person, is a strange concept indeed.

More importantly, the brute must face the forces of the Mole Man, as he tries to find a cure for a young girl's blindness.

I'm not sure I've ever read this one.

Unless it turns out the "Hulk" is actually a robot built by the Mandarin, and bursts out of a crate.

In which case, I have read it.

It does raise the question of just how many robot Hulks there are. There was one in Fantastic Four #100. Dr Doom once built one as decoy. One even turned up in The Eternals. By Gadfrey, you could put together a veritable army of Marvel's robot Hulks!

It's not just Conan who's having trouble with scorpions this month. So is Spider-Man.

But his real problem is trying to discover just how Gwen Stacy's managed to be suddenly alive again.

Another story I'm not sure I'm familiar with and whose contents I can shed little light upon - other than to say it clearly features Ulik. Plus, its Marvel Value Stamp features Volstagg.

Regardless, I like to think Ulik wins this time. For some reason, I'm always disappointed when he loses.

That's Marvel's big-hitters accounted for.

But what of another big hitter?

A company that's an ever-present rival to Marvel?

That company is, of course, DC.

Therefore, let us see what a random selection of its publications which bear the same cover date are looking like.

As is instantly apparent from that cover, we're being granted access to a reprint of an early issue of All-Star Comics.

But not just any issue.

Indeed, it's none other than issue #3, from 1940. The one that featured the first meeting of the Justice Society of America.

Yet another Sword-and-Sorcery thwarting hero hits the spinner racks of this fair world when Stalker erupts from the imaginations of Paul Levitz and Steve Ditko.

I've not read this issue but it seems that, in a bid to become a great warrior, our hero sells his soul to someone called Dgrth, not realising it'll be taken from him while he's still alive!

Sometimes I think it's like you can't trust people who show up, trying to buy souls.

At last, a legend arrives, as Lady Cop hits the beat and deals with so many incidents in her first day at work that it's a scandal they don't give her a medal and let her retire.

But will she ever find the man in boots who killed her friends in the incident which prompted her to become a police officer in the first place?

What's this?

King Kong has a comic of his own?

No. He doesn't.

Instead, we're treated to some sort of Ka-Zar type strip that I assume to be set in the dim and distant past.

In this pterodactyl-pounding publication, someone called Attu and her new-born son Kong are banished from their tribe, by someone called Trog.

Attu's then rudely murdered by a bunch of beast-men, and Kong swears to avenge her death.

However, no sabre-toothed tigers seem to be involved in that revenge bid.

Sadly, this book will last for just five issues before becoming extinct.

Forget anything Marvel can offer, this month.

Why?

Because DC brings us the greatest super-hero of them all!

God!

Yes, it's true. Sheldon Mayer, Nestor Redondo and Joe Kubert treat us to their adaptation of all your favourite tales from The Bible; including Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and his Flood, and the Tower of Babel, amongst many others, all crammed into just 68 pages.

It's the one we've all been praying for, as the Shadow gets to battle and then team up with The Avenger.

But who's the true villain of the piece?

That's Shiwan Khan, a man who reckons he knows all the Shadow's tricks.

But, as the man of mystery demonstrates, there are some tricks he didn't learn in Tibet...