January 3rd, 1979 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

Is there one place in this world that you know it's fun to stay at?

You know there is.

Is there one place where they have everything for young men to enjoy?

You know there is.

Is there one place where you can hang out with all the boys?

You know there is.

And that's why the first week of January 1979 saw the Village People storm to the Number One spot on the UK singles chart.

Few records say, "1979," to me more than Y.M.C.A. does, although I did, at the time, have a friend who refused, point blank, to believe there was any gay subtext to the song.

Over on the LP chart, it was great news for those who didn't like 1970s-style 1950s revivalism because, at last, the Grease soundtrack had been knocked off the top slot.

Admittedly, it was also terrible news for people who didn't like 1970s-style 1950s revivalism because the album that replaced it was Showaddywaddy's Greatest Hits (1976-1978). Much as I love Showaddywaddy (or, "The Wad," as I know them), a greatest hits package that only covers two years seems a little redundant to me. I mean, you could just buy their last two albums.

Over on BBC One on this very night of forty years ago, we were being treated to Let's Go Naked, a documentary about the rise in popularity of naturism. I do remember my Religious Education teacher, the next day, complaining that, when it came to the naked people it featured, "None of them were beauties." It's weird the things that stick in your memory for four decades.

With all that nude trauma out of the way, let's see just what our favourite comics were up to, with just three issues to go before the Marvel Revolution.

It's that rare thing, an issue of Star Wars Weekly whose cover I actually remember.

Admittedly, I remember nothing of the Star Wars tale it represents.

I do know, however, that, deep in the depths of space, Adam Warlock is becoming aware of the existence of the Universal Church of Truth. But who can be the evil genius behind it? Who?

In this action-packed issue, we get a tale in which Conan goes back to Cimmeria, only to discover his childhood sweetheart's been abducted.

At the end of the tale, she's dead and her abductors are also dead. What a happy little world it is that Conan inhabits.

We also get an article about the upcoming Conan movie.

On top of that, there's an adaptation of Robert E. Howard's Black Abyss. I assume that's a Kull tale. It would appear to feature a giant, man-eating slug. How a slug can move fast enough to eat a man, I have no idea - unless he's already dead, in which case he's not going to care if he's being eaten by a giant slug.

Red Sonja, on the other hand, is up against a werewolf - something that I suspect she is going to care about.

Moonstone's still causing nothing but trouble.

Back in Manhattan, the Baxter Building's been taken over by Klaw and the Molecule Man. Fortunately, the Impossible Man's on hand to sort them out - but not before the Molecule Man takes possession of Reed!

Elsewhere, in the slippery swamps of Florida, Daredevil's up against the Gladiator and Death-Stalker, as the treacherous twosome are involved in intrigue surrounding the disappearance of Ted Sallis and the super-soldier formula he was working on.

My knowledge of this issue is extremely patchy but I do believe Lightmaster's kidnapped Hector Ayala, in the belief that he's Spider-Man, not realising he's actually the White Tiger.

I could be misremembering but I'm pretty sure that, despite appearances, the giant eyeball thingy isn't a creature of the supernatural but is, in fact, one of the many creations that inhabit Bereet's purse. Quite why they're in her purse and how they've got out, I cannot claim to recall.

I do believe that's a Jim Starlin cover, though.

Hooray! This was the first issue of Starburst I ever owned. I got it from W. H. Smiths, on my way to being inoculated against some disease or other. Happily, whatever disease that was, I didn't get it and I'm still here to boast of it.

As for Starburst, this issue's main point of excitement for me was that it contained a lengthy interview with dalek creator Terry Nation.

As I've always wanted to be a dalek, this was a very pleasing thing for me indeed. Needless to say, he also spoke about Davros and Blake's 7.

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2000 AD - November 1980.

It's time once more to leap into the far past, in order to visit the comic of the far future, as we get to see what the Galaxy's Greatest Comic was up to in the November of 38 years ago.

It was a month in which three songs topped the UK singles chart. They were Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand, the distinctly non-autumnal The Tide is High by Blondie and ABBA's Super Trouper which was that band's ninth and final UK Number One.

Amazingly, after that, they only had two more singles make the Top 20 before their demise. I think I've mentioned before the strange phenomenon of major acts following up a Number One single with a dramatic collapse in sales. I believe the last time I mentioned it was in relation to 10cc and their fate after Dreadlock Holiday.

But how different it wasn't on the LP front because, that month, there were just two albums which topped the UK album chart. They were Guilty by Barbra Streisand and Super Trouper by ABBA.

Those were the stars of the pop charts but what of the stars in outer space? The ones that burn brighter than any mere singers? Were they up to anything interesting that month?

I've no idea but I do know that, between November 10th and 12th, the space probe Voyager flew within 77,000 miles of Saturn's cloud tops and sent back the first high-resolution images of that world. Although I suspect that, logically, what it actually sent back were high-resolution images of its clouds, which doesn't sound quite so exciting.

But, of course, even photos of the surface wouldn't have excited 2000 AD's editor Tharg. He was probably visiting Saturn on a daily basis, in his capacity as a space alien.

As always, I recall next to nothing of these comics' innards but I do know that, in Prog 184, Johnny Alpha and Wulf kidnap Hitler. For what purpose, I have no idea.

When it comes to Judge Dredd, the names, "Charles Darwin Block," and, "Otto Sump," do ring bells for me though I recollect little of the stories themselves. Wasn't Otto Sump the ringleader of a fad that made it fashionable to have cosmetic surgery in order to look ugly? Or is that just my imagination?

I don't have a clue who those strange looking characters are on the cover of Prog 185.

When it comes to Prog 187, was The Mean Arena connected to the Harlem Heroes or is any resemblance between the two strips pure coincidence?

December 27th, 1978 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

You The People have spoken and at last it can be announced. Just what does the human race make of Rick Jones?

Personally, I have a soft spot for him but I'm aware that not everyone agrees with me and, last week, the entire internet was given its chance to cast its verdict on the man who thinks a harmonica is all the protection you need in a nuclear test site.

This is how the voting went:

• For Rick Jones: 2 votes.
• Against Rick Jones: 5 votes.
• Sort of vague and not clear if they're for or against Rick Jones: 3 votes.

I therefore declare Rick Jones to be officially unpopular.

That done, I can look at just what excitement the world was inflicting upon us on this day of exactly forty years ago.

This day in 1978 was a great one for all lovers of TV sci-fi. That morning, BBC One was showing the original Larry (Buster) Crabbe version of Buck Rogers and also The Fantastic Journey, that short-lived series about a group of people trapped in the Bermuda Triangle and having a string of adventures together, starring Roddy McDowall and Jared Martin as a man with a magic tuning fork.

Not only that but, that afternoon, the same channel was giving us a dose of Blake's 7, as the intrepid troublemakers get their hands on Orac for the first time.

Ultimately, none of this matters.

What matters in life is comics.

These are they:

I genuinely have not one clue what happens in this issue, other than that it contains a Star Wars story and, presumably, more action from the life of Adam Warlock.

The Hulk's still up against Moonstone, and the FF are still in Agatha Harkness' hometown, in the process of busting out of jail and about to get into a scrap with Salem's Seven.

Daredevil, meanwhile, is in the Florida swamps and on the trail of the Gladiator who's kidnapped Candice Nelson.

And, where the Florida swamps are, can the Man-Thing be far behind?

This issue also features the second part of the Marvel Mastermind 1978 contest. The title of this feature rings a bell but I've no recollection of what was actually involved.

There's also a one-panel ad which features the Human Torch boasting that, "1979 is the year of the Marvel Revolution!" Have any words ever been more designed to strike terror into the hearts of grown men?

Now Spidey's in trouble because Lightmaster is...

...well, I'm not really sure what Lightmaster's doing. By the looks of it, he seems to be physically separating Peter Parker from his Spider-Man alter-ego and shrinking him down to the size of a Labrador but I suspect that's merely artistic license and isn't what he's doing at all.

My knowledge of the rest of this issue is sketchy but I do know the world is waiting, with bated breath, for news from the Avengers Mansion where the team is discussing its future. Thor's already announced he's leaving and, to the Wasp's annoyance, Yellowjacket is in the process of doing likewise.

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For all those who demanded it, here's the Human Torch's Marvel UK house ad which announced the impending arrival of Dez Skinn's Marvel Revolution.

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1978's Marvel UK Annuals for 1979.

What were you doing on Christmas Day 1978?

I know what I was doing. I was playing with my Christmas presents and watching TV.

Yes, those were the days when you'd watch whatever was on television, no matter how bad it was, because they hadn't invented the Internet yet and you didn't have a choice.

But just what were we watching?

That morning, ITV gave us Christmas Clapperboard which I would assume was presented, as normal, by Chris Kelly.

At noon, the channel gave us Living Free, the sequel to Born Free, followed by the no-doubt thrilling Christmas Day at Crossroads Motel. I do always feel they should have done a crossover between the Crossroads Motel and the Bates Motel, in order to make it more fun.

Mid afternoon, ITV gave us Battle for the Planet of the Apes and their early evening film was Diamonds Are Forever.

That was followed by The Morecambe and Wise Show, guest-starring Harold Wilson.

Most promisingly, late night, my local ITV station was showing Twist in the Tale. I suspect this may have been a retitled broadcast of the 1977 show Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected but cannot guarantee that.

BBC Two, that afternoon, was broadcasting an adaptation of The Snow Queen.

That evening, it treated us to the not noticeably Christmassy Anne Hughes: Her Boke, in wiche I Write what I Doe, When I Have thee Tyme. Apparently, in the 18th Century, a young farmer's wife wrote a diary. She wrote about her cooking, her quarrels, her butter making and the love story of her maid, and this film re-created it all.

Later on, the channel gave us Fred and Ginger in Swing Time. I must confess I do associate Christmas more with Fred and Ginger than I do with 18th Century farmers' wives.

Meanwhile, that morning, BBC One was treating us to The Spinners at Christmas. They were, of course, the UK Spinners, not to be confused with the US Spinners who were always referred to in Britain as the Detroit Spinners to avoid confusion. It is a strange thing that, all these years later, my only memory of the Spinners is of them doing blood transfusion adverts.

Later that morning, that selfsame channel treated us to Elvis Presley's Clambake. I'm not an expert on The King's cinematic oeuvre but isn't that supposed to be his worst ever celluloid outing?

Early afternoon, before he went completely weird, Noel Edmonds introduced Top of the Pops '78.

Around teatime, the channel gave us the first ever UK television screening of The Sound of Music. This brings back strong memories for me, as I do remember building a Meccano clock while it was on.

Sometime after that, we got The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show. Poor Mike does tend to get a lot of stick these days because all his impressions basically sounded like Mike Yarwood but, let's be honest, all our impressions of famous people from the 1970s are based on his impressions of famous people from the 1970s, rather than on what those people actually sounded like. That's how much impact he had.

After that we got True Grit? A Further Adventure, a TV movie about which I know nothing but it starred Warren Oates as Rooster J. Cogburn.

Later that night, we got the nightmarish sounding Parkinson at the Pantomime, as Michael Parkinson and Arthur Askey explored the world of Panto, with help from Charlie Cairoli, Les Dawson, Lauri Lupino Lane, Little and Large and Pat Kirkwood. I must confess to not previously having heard of Pat Kirkwood but a quick Google search reveals her to have been an old-style British movie star who looked strangely like Marilyn Manson.

But, of course, for all Horror fans and traditionalists, the highlight of BBC One's Christmas Day schedule was bound to be that year's Christmas Ghost Story which was The Ice House by John Bowen. I've no memory of it at all but I can pretty much guarantee I must have watched it. After all, who could turn down the chance to watch a ghost story on Christmas Day?

Well, that was all spiffing and dandy but, before we could sit through all that, we had to read that year's Marvel UK annuals.

And these are what they were:

Up until researching this post, I never even knew this annual existed.

I do now know that, in its first tale, something's changed human history and the FF have to go back in time to team up with the Invaders, in order to prevent the Nazis winning World War II.

Many will be happy to know this tale's drawn by John Buscema and not Frank Robbins. It had originally appeared in the US Fantastic Four Annual #11.

The book's other tale would appear to feature the FF's Human Torch fighting his Golden Age predecessor in the Mad Thinker driven tale that originally appeared in The Fantastic Four Annual #4.

And here's another one whose existence I was previously unaware of.

As far as I can make out, it reprints the Hulk's first encounter with the Inhumans, from Incredible Hulk King-Size Special #1, the one with the Jim Steranko cover depicting the Hulk straining to support his own name on his back.

The second tale looks to be from The Defenders #52, in which a dodgy Russian called Sergei is plotting to turn himself and the Red Guardian into god-like super-beings.

The story features a punch-up between the Hulk and Namor, hence the cover image.

Unlike the above annuals, I actually had this one.

If memory serves me correctly, it features a very long and not overly interesting tale in which Daredevil and the Panther team up to rescue a youthful kidnap victim, and then a shorter, more interesting tale in which the Beetle and Gladiator attack a train for some reason I can't remember.

Needless to say, the man without fear ensures the dastardly duo end up having to face justice.

The lack of any Mighty World of Marvel regulars apart from Daredevil was a major disappointment to me at the time, although I do now realise it was because the Hulk and FF had their own annuals this year, rather than appearing in their more obvious home.

I had this one as well.

This annual's taken up almost entirely by a team-up between Spider-Man and the Human Torch as they go to Hollywood in expectations of movie fame but end up having to tackle the Wizard and Mysterio who have a plan I can't remember.

I do, though, recall that it was drawn by Larry Lieber.

The rest of the book was taken up by various pin-ups, mostly drawn by John Romita, depicting such things as the gang hanging around in the Coffee Bean.

Again, it was a majorly disappointing annual, as the Spidey/Torch tale wasn't exactly awesome.

I'm not sure to what degree this is genuinely a Marvel UK annual but it is built around a reprint of Howard Chaykin's Marvel adaptation of the movie and features the words, "Stan Lee Presents," on its introductory page, so I assume it must have some kind of link with the company.

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