Friday 11 November 2016

November 10th, 1976 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

The keen-eyed reader will observe at once that, although this post investigates comics that are cover-dated November 10th, it's being published on the 11th. I can only put this down to a nightmarish glissando in the Space/Time Continuum, otherwise known as, "A total bog up." Needless to say, I blame everyone except myself, which is a policy that's served me so well for all these years.

At least the rupturing of said Space/Time Continuum allows me to see more clearly than ever what our favourite comics company was up to almost exactly forty years ago.

And - as we all know - in my head, "Almost," is good enough.

Marvel UK, Captain Britain #5, the Hurricane

It's the beginning of a famine for me because not only did I not own this issue but I didn't own any issues of Captain Britain until he got his glossy cover and the Red Skull showed up.

Meanwhile, we can tell we're in England because we're calling each other, "Chum," on the cover.

In even more exciting news, the French Tricolour seems to have vanished from CB's stick.



Marvel UK, Planet of the Apes #108

It's the news we've all been waiting for, as we finally get the adaptation of Battle For the Planet of the Apes, which I believe was the first Apes film I ever saw. This fact could explain why I like the movie, when everyone else hates it.

I seem to remember the adaptation being completed in the pages of Mighty World of Marvel. Does that mean this comic's days are numbered?

Come to think of it, I seem to recall reading an issue of Planet of the Apes in the summer of 1977. This confuses me deeply. Surely it didn't take over nine months for the adaptation to be completed?

Mighty World of Marvel #215, Conan the Barbarian

Hooray! I think this is the one where a giant scorpion statue comes to life and then has a fight with a big evil shadow. I do remember the evil shadow being quite sinister and a serious threat to cattle.

Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes #196, the Tarantula

He might not have been what you could call a great villain but I did always like the Tarantula's costume.

In this story, doesn't he escape from prison by making himself a new pair of pointy shoes in the prison workshop? I know I've complained before about lax security in that prison but, with things like that happening, how could anyone blame me?

Marvel UK, the Titans #56, The Avengers

It's more Hellenic hi-jinks from Barry Smith, as the Avengers continue their invasion of Olympus.

I suspect the Captain America story may be the one where our star-spangled scrapper defeats the Trapster thanks to Sharon Carter having put nail varnish remover in his paste. This is after twenty pages of him declaring that his paste makes him unbeatable. Poor old Trapster. He really never had a clue, did he?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I owned all 39 issues of Captain Britain and the glossy cover/black & white pages era began with #24 but the Red Skull showed up well before that. I saw Battle For The Planet Of The Apes at the cinema in the summer of 1975 in a double bill with Beneath The Planet Of The Apes. I didn't see the original POTA film till it shown on TV in February 1977 - on my 11th birthday !! And the day before my 11th birthday the final issue of POTA & Dracula Lives came out which was #123. Yes, the adaptation of "Battle" lasted an extremely long time and concluded after the merger with Mighty World Of Marvel. But the adaptation didn't last nine months - it must have concluded in March 1977. The last ever POTA strip appeared in the issue of MWOM & POTA which came out on Wednesday, June 8th 1977 - the day after the Queen's Silver Jubilee !

John Pitt said...

And probably because " Battle" was the last of the first 5 Apes film that I saw, this could well be my least favourite out of the five. Plus it felt like they drew the comic adaptation of it out for far too long.
That Spidey / Tarantula ish was one of the few landscape issues I actually bought! ( Spidey vs. Gibbon was another, for obvious Ape-ite reasons! )

John Pitt said...

GRAMMAR CORRECTION!!
SHOULD have been :-
...."could well be WHY IT WAS my least favourite"....

Anonymous said...

The over-rated Tarantula later got his comeuppance by getting the living crap beat out of him in about three seconds on a garbage scow by Spider-man, who wondered aloud why this clown had given him so much trouble in the past, pointy shoes or no. To add insult to injury, he soon after got turned into a giant spider while attempting to gain spider-powers. It turned out to be a bad week for the Tarantula.
The space-time continuum did shift this last week, sending America back into the Stone Age. And setting up the inevitable conquest of us by talking apes. This is how it begins. All hail our new new ape overlords!
M.P.

Unknown said...

I always had a soft spot for "Battle", but could never understand why the comic adaptation used Governor Breck as the villain when he had been killed off in "Conquest".