SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY COVER GALLERY - PART THREE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Time again to demonstrate my justly-famed generous nature by bestowing upon all you panting picture-lovers yet another round of sensational SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY covers and images from the early 1970s.  "Why am I so nice to everyone?" I often wonder, and the only answer I can come up with is that, basically, I'm a nice guy.  Of course, you'd likely get an argument about that from some of those who know me better than you do, but don't listen to them.  They're lucky that I still occasionally slide some toast under the door of the cellar I've got them locked up in.

Anyway that's enough way-out waffle from me - I now unleash an array of awesome images from the vast and vaunted vaults of my very own personal collection for all you frantic fans to slobber and drool over.  Don't be greedy now - take things slowly and enjoy them one at a time.

And remember - today is February 10th - 40 years to the day (which was a Saturday back in 1973) since SMCW first landed on newsagents' shelves the length and breadth of Britain.

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It's snowing outside as I type this - and it was snowing 40 years ago as I chapped a friend's door to show him my copy of the newly purchased SMCW #1.  He wasn't up and out of bed yet - and because his mother was too ignorant to invite me in to wait (as mine would've done in his case), I took shelter in one of a row of under-construction lock-ups around the corner from his house and waited for him to get up and greet the day.  He had only moved to the house a week or so before and, being quite a distance from mine, I was reluctant to make the return journey so soon after arriving.

As I stood in that grey, doorless lock-up while the flakes swirled outside, I again browsed through my latest comic acquisition, bought that snowy Saturday morning from my local newsagent's.  I have other memories associated with other copies of that same first issue, obtained at different times and under different circumstances, but that's the one which is foremost in my mind as I watch the snowflakes dancing outside my window - just as they danced beyond the opening of that cold and cheerless lock-up four decades ago today.