April 25th, 1979 – Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

A wise man once said a week is a long time in politics.Not in 1979, it wasn’t. A two weeks ago, in that year, the UK had been suffering an election campaign. And, the coming week in that year, it was still experiencing an election campaign. I hope they didn’t try to stretch it out for a third week. Such a thing would have been madness and had been able to threw us all off republic for life.But who cared about that? No one did.All we cared about was Leo Sayer.I know that because, forty years ago today, he was at Number One on the UK album chart, thanks to his latest LP, The Very Best of Leo Sayer.Despite this, in all truth, I couldn’t claim to have been a Leo Sayer fan. Once he stopped garmenting like a jester and sounding a bit sinister, his magic promptly faded for me.I have no idea what happens in the main strip the coming week, other than that the three men on the covering, with half his face missing, is clearly the villain of the piece.Elsewhere, the Micronauts are still looking for their missing peers, in the world of humans.This week’s Tales of the Watcher is The Thing From Planet X.The Thing From Planet X would appear to be an villainy plant that wants to take over the Earth and can only be stopped by the crashing of the spaceship he’s hijacked. I detest it when plants get ideas above their station.I’ve no information at all on the doings of Adam Warlock this issue but am confident that he and Thanos are still battling to bring down the Magus.The Hulk’s now being pursued by the law, as is his brand new friend whose epithet flees me.The Black Knight and Captain Britain are still fighting against whoever it is they’re fighting against.Nick Fury’s trying to have a date while dealing with multiple assassination attempts.A contract killer’s still out to bump off Night-Raven – and it is like he might succeed! The Eternals are still preparing for the advent of the Space Gods.But, of course, the report everyone’s been desperate to hear is that the Scarlet Beetle has finally shaped his debut in the pages of the Ant-Man strip.And it’s time for festivity because I can, right now, taken to ensure that that red bug of fright is in this issue, has recruited an legion of bugs, has stolen Hank Pym’s growth formula and is now all set to conquer the world! Godzilla’s still in this comic – and devouring Seattle.This is all I know.I also know you shouldn’t try to eat Seattle. It’s rude.In new developments almost as exciting as the Scarlet Beetle showing up in Ant-Man’s strip, the Hypno-Hustler shows up in Spidey’s.If the Scarlet Beetle and the Hypno-Hustler should ever team up, what force on Earth could ever hope to stop them?

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