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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 16, 2021 22:30:54 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up #23 Human Torch and Iceman vs Equinox..... Creative Team: Len Wein-writer, Gil Kane-pencils, Mike Esposito-inks, Charlotte Jetter-letters, Glynis Wein-colors, Roy Thomas-editor Synopsis: Spidey has borrowed a ride from the FF and is off doing GS Spider-Man #1.  What, no cupholders? Gip! Torch heads back inside and is promptly bored out of his empty little skull. He heads off to find some action. Spidey was briefly atatcked by someone and he told Torch about it, so that's where he is headed. there is still an ice patch, despite the weather; so, something fishy is going on. Torch gets hit by an ice block and takes to the skies to see who the wise guy is. Turns out, its Iceman. Torch blasts his ice slide and tumbles him. Bobby is all, like, "WTF , dude?" Torch is all, "Don't con me, Spidey told me about someone icy robbing this place." Bobby is, "not me, bro!" Torch is, "Shyeah, right! Off to the hoosegow with you!" The next thing you know it gets all Pat Benatar...  A limo turns up (looking like someone stuck a Rolls Royce grill on a Mustang) and the X-Men get out and try to stop the fight. The boys cool off then decide to team-up, until Bobby has to leave, at dawn. They find a wall with a hole blown through it. Inside they see the edges fused by intense heat. They poke around and get clobbered from behind; Torch by a block of ice, Iceman by a blast of fire. The spot the culprit leaving and chase him and bring him down...  ...tearing his suit and causing him problems. He strips off the suit and we see he is half fire and half ice and calls himself Equinox. First name Vern? They fight, but Equinox has both their powers. The cops show up and now Equinox is worried. What can they do that Torch and Iceman can't? Equinox blasts away the heroes and hops a bus...well, hops on top of a bus and speeds away. They follow, fight some more, the Equinox starts to overload and explodes, leaving a hole in the ground. All that is left is an atomic clock, which puzzles the heroes. They see the sewer underneath and wonder if he was destroyed or might have escaped. This being comics, they don't follow up the latter. Iceman goes off to prepare for his mission, to prevent Maverick from getting everyone killed because he is too reckless!  I prefer Iceman's college days... Thoughts: This requires you to have seen GS Spidey, which is a strike against it, though they give you a recap, late in the game. However, after the misunderstanding, they don't have time for a real investigation; so, the find Equinox too quickly, fight him in a battle that is okay, but not that spectacular and have an abrupt ending that isn't really set up well, other than Equinox's suit has been damaged. There is some dialogue just before, about his transformations between fire and ice coming more rapidly; but, that is it. There is also the sudden appearance of the X-Men, in their original uniforms, which had changed, by this point. We have no idea about their mission, though. Over at Supermegamonkey, they wondered if Len wasn't setting up the mission to Krakoa, from GSXM #1. Bobby mentions a mission, in Defenders #16, which Len also wrote; so, it's an idea, though long lead time. Kane's art is its usual fine, though not as spectacular as his bets work. Just kind of knocking out a story. Equinox actually appeared in the first MTU I ever read, though that is down the road, when Spidey teams up with Yellowjacket and the Wasp. Decent enough issue, for what it is. Could have used tome rewriting to make things clearer and give a more satisfying ending.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 17, 2021 16:39:25 GMT -5
Giant-Size Spider-Man #1 Spider-Man and Dracula! Since Spidey is here, instead of MTU, I figured I would throw these in, as they occur chronologically. Also, it helps explain what the heck was going on at the start of MTU #23. Creative Team: Len Wein-writer, Ross Andru-pencils, Don Heck-inks, John Costanza-letters, Glynis Wein-colors, Roy Thomas-editor. Synopsis: Spidey spots a flashlight inside Faversham Jewlers (I assume everything is covered by sheets and spider webs)...  Huh...flu epidemic............ Spidey goes inside, confronts someone and tries to web them, but they slip off. The person escapes and Spidey follows, but slips on an ice patch. He loses the perp and moves on to check on Aunt May, who is sick with the flu hitting the city. her frail condition makes it harder for her system to cope and the strain is resistant to vaccines. Hope is coming from overseas, by boat, as the discoverer won't fly. Spide goes to meet the ship. he stops at the Baxter Building and borrows a flying craft from Torch and tells him about Faversham's, which is why Torch goes there.  Spidey hovers over the ocean liner and then camouflages the craft and zips down below. he then goes hunting for Maxfield, the man with the cure. Also arriving is one Count Vlad Teppes, son of Vlad Dracul, aka Dracula.  He wants to kill Maxfield to prevent his discovery from affecting his plans. Also complicating thins are a Maggia crew, led by Anthony " the Whisperer" Cavelli, who wants the vaccine to trade for a pardon and a US passport, due to his exile for criminal activities. His goons are disguised in band outfits, to mingle during the ship's costume party. Vlad spots a Valkyrie (not the blond chick or the MCU version) and decides to literally hit on her, but is interrupted by her photographer boyfriend, who takes a photo of his cool costume. He disappears and the photo doesn't show him. He runs into some of the Maggia goons, who mistake him for Maxfield and try to shoot him. he takes care of them with hypnotism and the ocean...  He runs off and encounters a lovelorn single lady and fulfills her fantasies, without sparkles or Anne Rice touches....  Petey finds her and calls for a doctor. The doctor comes and turns out to be the photographer. Then the Maggia goons turn up. The valkyrie girlfriend causes a diversion when she smacks a goon with her shield and Petey disappears. Then, Spidey appears and blocks exits with webs. The Maggia guys corner Spidey and threaten to shoot him and he removes his mask to reveal some shmoe underneath...  The real wall crawler turns up and kicks butt. Maxfield runs off in the chaos. Dracula is at the party when Maxfield runs in to report to the captain. Cavelli spots Maxfield and feins illness to get the doc to go off with him. Drac follows, mind whammies the chief goon, gets stuck with a knife by Cavelli and takes revenge on him for ruining his tuxedo...  Dracula picks up Maxfield and hurls him over the side, where he impacts a hull-crawling Spidey. Drac switches to bat form and flies away and Spidey rescues the doc. He subdues the whammied goon and then tells the doc he needs his help. Maxfield then tells him he ain't Maxfield and it turns out the valkyrie chick is actually Alice Joyce (AJ) Maxfield, the doctor. They take the flying craft and the vaccine (whichmust be kept cold) to New York...  Thoughts: Eh, it's okay. Not really a team-up as much as a crossover. Drac and Spidey have the same target, but for different reasons. We never do learn why the vaccine is a threat to Dracula, especially since he has to feed on the blood of the living, so the vaccine aids in keeping an ample supply on hand. The doctor swerve at the end is a nice touch, though the whole boat thing is a bit hard to swallow, in the 20th Century (let alone the 21st). Any doctor with a fear of flying could easily get a prescription for a tranquilizer and just zonk out. Too convenient. Otherwise, some brief moments of fun, like Spidey playing trickster games with the Maggia goons. The art from Andru and Heck kind of looks like Frank Robbins, at certain points. These issues will continue as team-ups, so we will return again, as one of them includes Spidey's own team-up with Doc Savage.
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Post by berkley on Feb 17, 2021 16:59:18 GMT -5
What was the story on the Viking woman - was she just someone who liked dressing up in costumes?
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 17, 2021 17:13:51 GMT -5
Marvel Two-in-One #23 Thing is thtill Thor! Sorry...................Creative Team: Bill Mantlo & Jim Shooter-writers (uh-oh), Ron Wilson and Marie Severin-pencils, Pablo Marcos-inks, John Costanza-letters, Hugh Paley-colors, Marv Wolfman & Archie Goodwin-editors Synopsis: Ben and Thor are fighting Set's army of the dead and even Ben can spot the Harryhausen rip-off...  Ben and Thor get whipped into Ditkoland...  While Johnny and Janice Leitner try to get Tom to help. Set takes his guests to a pyramid, where he has Horus strung up. Thor tries to break the chains and fails and Ben tries a more direct approach on Set and gets mind-whammied. Can you tell that Shooter is writing now? Bondage, all-powerful gods whoopin' the heroes, mind control...only thing missing is misogyny. Thor interferes, Ben decks Set and Set then calls forth the Devourer(er...)  Ben and Thor attack and even Set gets whooped...  The heroes continue fighting, for Asgard and for Brooklyn and then Set frees Horus and returns his power, too late. Things don't look good as the Egyptians are powerless and Ben and Thor aren't causing much damage to the creature. Ben learns that Horus is still the target and picks him up and leaps off into the void and the Devourer9er) follows. This gives Thor a chance to recover and he hurls Mjolnir out to Ben, who grabs hold and is slingshotted back, while Devo is still tumbling into the void. The say their goodbyes and Ben gets Thor back to have Don Blake treat Tom Leitner. The letters page has a long one from fan hack and future novelist Bob Rodi (aka Robert Rodi, author of What They Did To Princess Paragon and several other books). Thoughts: Decent wrap up to things, though we have been here before. Set might as well have been Loki. Ben's solution to things was a nice touch. Now, as to how much of this is Mantlo, I suspect the basic plot was his, as it was begun under Wolfman, but then re-written by Shooter after the fact. Shooter had a lot of problems with Mantlo's writing and often re-edited it, especially when he was in charge. He was Archie's assistant and Doug Moench has described him as using his position to insert his own ideas into stories, though Moench kept him from interfering with his. Mantlo and Shooter butted heads regularly, with both at fault, from Mantlo swiping story ideas, to Shooter playing power and ego games, to everything in between. Had this been wholly Shooter, then I suspect either Isis or Janice Leitner would have been under the mental domination of the villain. I'm not a huge fan of cosmic stories and even less disjointed cosmic one, like this. They are still better than supernatural tales, though they share the same problem of not abiding by any rules that lead to the eventual solution to the conflict. The villain just wins until he loses and that is what happens here. Next time, another Mantlo/Shooter writing credit, which suggests another Mantlo plot, then Marv Wolfman takes over and Shooter can't touch the story.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 17, 2021 17:20:13 GMT -5
What was the story on the Viking woman - was she just someone who liked dressing up in costumes? There is a costume party on the ship, which I mentioned between the pages of Petey bumping into Drac and Drac telling the Maggia goons to take a short walk off the ship. Dracula thirsts and sees her posing in the moonlight and goes for a bite, when the photographer boyfriend turns up, dressed in a Renaissance costume. After Spidey finds the lovelorn vampire victim and takes her to sickbay, Dr Maxfield is called and the couple turn up and we are led to believe that the dude is Maxfield, the doc with the vaccine. At the end, we learn the woman is AJ Maxfield. Maxfield is described early on as eccentric; but, not a cosplay fetishist. Just a plot device to allow Dracula to walk around and cause confusion as to who the doctor is. |
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Post by badwolf on Feb 17, 2021 17:58:53 GMT -5
I forgot that Equinox appeared before the Yellowjacket/Wasp story.
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Post by berkley on Feb 18, 2021 1:10:27 GMT -5
I always thought the MU Set could have done with a re-design and generally should have been put to better use, but you could say that of most of the various gods and pantheons that appear in the MU. Set comes to mind in particular partly because he's such a memorable character not only in Egyptian mythology but also as a fictional re-invention in Roger Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Feb 19, 2021 12:40:50 GMT -5
I'm not a huge fan of cosmic stories and even less disjointed cosmic one, like this. They are still better than supernatural tales, though they share the same problem of not abiding by any rules that lead to the eventual solution to the conflict. The villain just wins until he loses and that is what happens here.
I love cosmic stories when the creator (whether drug-addled or sober) has a real sense of a higher plane of existence, but Mantlo's "cosmic" had more the feel of a Cecil B DeMille film as opposed to the images we got from Kirby, Ditko, Starlin, or Gerber.
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Post by Rob Allen on Feb 19, 2021 22:47:54 GMT -5
I wondered at the time this was published, and still wonder today, whether the title of this story was inspired by the Grateful Dead's song "Ship of Fools", which was on their 1974 album From the Mars Hotel. The phrase was already around, but this story was also published in 1974. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 20, 2021 0:41:16 GMT -5
I wondered at the time this was published, and still wonder today, whether the title of this story was inspired by the Grateful Dead's song "Ship of Fools", which was on their 1974 album From the Mars Hotel. The phrase was already around, but this story was also published in 1974. Well, there is also the 1962 Katherine Ann Porter novel, which inspired the 1965 Stanley Kramer film, with Lee Marvin, Jose Ferrer, Vivien Leigh, George Segal and Michael Dunn. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 23, 2021 18:00:45 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up #24 Spider-Man & Brother Voodoo! I have a feeling this will get awkward. We are already in trouble with that cover. Stereotyped black voodoo priest has a white woman in peril. I'd ask how this got past the Code; but, racial sensitivity was never in their vocabulary. Heck, they notoriously tried to force Bill Gaines to recolor a black astronaut white, when his skin color was the point of the story. Creative Team: Len Wein-writer, Jim Mooney-pencils, Sal Trapani-inks, John Costanza-letters, Glynis Wein-colors, Roy Thomas-editor and the one who should have thought twice about all of this. Synopsis: Spidey is busy vandalizing private property, turning J Jonah into Wolverine....  (seriously, the resemblance is uncanny, apart from the mustache) There is a scream and Spidey sees a woman attacked by voodoo muggers...  The get the better of Spidey, even tearing his webbing, when who should turn up but our next stereotype.....  At least he doesn't talk like a Haitian stereotype (or worse, Jamaican). One of the thugs throws a knife, which misses the heroes but hits the woman and she needs to be medevaced. Outside the hospital, Brother Voodo tells Spidey of Moondog,  or  who ran a cult in New Orleans, until Brudda broke up his gang and he went on the run.  Spidey goes up to the woman's room to find out why Moondog's minions were after her. Turns out, she is an aspiring actress who auditioned for an off-Broadway play about voodoo and there was a casting couch, with a difference. BV turns up behind Spidey and startles him, then they head off for the Shelby Theater to investigate the connection between the play and the cult. Well, duh; have you ever met theater people? BV beats him to the theater and they head inside to poke around. They find a performance going on and a sacrifice scene with actors who are a little too Method...  BV tells the crowd that the show is over; but, they turn out to be cultists (of course; who else goes to see off-Broadway theater?) and the fight is on! BV and S-M are kickin' butt and takin' stage names, when Moondog starts laughing and the heroes fall down.  It wasn't that funny.... The heroes are stereotypically tied to stakes, to be set on fire, as a replacement sacrifice and the flames envelop them, until BV walks out of them, scaring the heebie-jeebies out of the cultists. he single-handedly decks cultists and extinguishes the flame with his cape, then Spidey emerges from a web cocoon to attack some cultists BV missed. Then, BV and Moondog start their match. BV whoops Moondog, who climbs up on a scaffolding (a scaffold match? Ugh, they suck!) and BV calls upon the spirit of his dead brother to inhabit the body of one of the cultists and traps Moondog on the scaffold, between himself and the possessed dude. They corner him and BV tosses him off and Spidey catches him in a net, only for the guy to wake up and say he is Wally Blevins, an accountant from New Orleans. He was possessed by Moondog.  Thoughts: Yeah, not Len's best and I would be pretty ashamed if I had written this and looked back on it years later. This is filled with some pretty racist stereotypes, starting with the whole voodoo thing, the ritual sacrifice, the cover image. It could be a lot worse; but, it ain't good. If the woman on the cover is supposed to be the mugging victim, the Marvel was really playing games to sell things as the character inside the book is most definitely colored as African-American (though drawn pretty European) inside, but colored with a caucasian skin tone on the cover, especially in contrast with the other cover figures. Quite frankly, that cover screams the same exploitive junk that was attacked by Wertham and others, that led to the Code. This is after the Code had been relaxed about supernatural stuff; and, most of the publishers went nuts trying to churn out horror stories to rival Warren. Also, horror was big on movie screens and that same year saw the movie Sugar Hill, a blaxploitation film from AIP, with a voodoo theme (and just a couple of years after Live and Let Die had James Bond run up against a voodoo villain). Marvel was jumping on the Blaxploitation fad, but was pretty hamfisted about it. Luke Cage reads like Keenan Ivory Wayans wrote the character as a comedy, though he was popular enough with Black audiences, though the biggest hero for Urban audiences was Conan. Luke Cage, Brother Voodoo and Black Goliath wore costumes that even Antonio Vargas thought were a bit over the top. I never warmed to brother Voodoo....just too much stereotyped bad writing and he never had a really great artist do something interesting with him. It just read like another white writer trying to jump on an ethnic fad and come off sounding laughable. Even in 1974 they should have known better; but, comics weren't exactly as enlightened as they tried to make out. Even socially relevant stuff like Green Lantern/Green Arrow produced cringe-worthy moments, from white creators. The one character that mostly avoided it was Black Panther, who was safeguarded by Don McGregor, a white writer who actually just wrote the character without regard to his race, yet still tackled racial issues. Thankfully, some of these writers had matured a bit, by the 80s, and were better (mostly) about creating more rounded ethnic characters. There is a certain irony, as this issue's letter column contains a missive that criticizes Marvel (and DC and Charlton) for semi-nudity and horror imagery, with Marvel responding by saying most of their mail says they are "too restrictive." Uh-huh....why do I get the feeling that mail is coming from the writers?
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 23, 2021 19:09:44 GMT -5
Marvel Two-in-One #24 Thing & Black Goliath! Well, it's Black History Month; so, why not? Still, I have to note it is Ben who would later tell Bill Foster that everyone can tell he's black and that Goliath was a bad guy. You'd think a scientist, like Foster, would have used the name Titan or something. Creative Team: Bill Mantlo & Jim Shooter-story (I assume Shooter scripting Mantlo's plot, Sal Buscema-pencils, Pablo Marcos-inks, Irv Watanabe-letters, George Roussos-colors, Archie Goodwin-editor, holding the end of Shooter's leash. Synopsis: Ben is acting as a test subject for tests supervised by scientist Bill Foster, simulating the environment on Venus. They talk about a Russian space probe that was crushed on Venus, which makes me believe Mantlo had this in mind...  ...except that wasn't broadcast until January of 1977. In reality, the Soviets launched probes at Venus, starting in 1961, but had a string of failures and mishaps, from bad telemetry to crushed vehicles, to lack of equipment for scientific testing, to communication issues. None were as cool as the one Steve Austin had to fight. In actuality, the tests are in advance of a proposed manned mission to Venus, with testing being done by Stark international, as Tony talks to Bill Foster and the others via CCTV link. The tests are going well, when they are interrupted...  ...by the Hijacker. Seriously? The Hijacker? Anyway, Hi has dumped smoke grenades into the room and messes with the atmospheric chamber controls; so, if Ben tries to smash his way out, he will poison the outer room with the gasses contained in the chamber, killing the scientists and techs. However, he didn't recon on Bill Foster, who dumps him on the floor and triggers the airlocks, allowing ben to safely exit, before Bill passes out from the gas grenades. Hi gets away, but Ben smashes out and gets everyone to safety, before going after Hi, soon followed by Foster, who dons his rather embarrassing Black Goliath costume, while giving a ton of exposition....  Meanwhile, Hi has broken into a vault, where he plans on stealing Stark prototypes. Ben gets there just behind him, so Hi launches rockets at him...  He gets knocked flying but is caught by Black Goliath. BG tries to stop Hui, but gets hit by a satellite. BG doesn't do very well and Ben has to rescue him.  Hi returns with the Mammoth car, from Speed Racer...   Ben and BG throw stuff at it, which does nothing. Ben gets zapped by a weapon attack from the vehicle and is about to be run down, when BG stops the vehicle long enough for Ben to punch through it from the underside. BG rips it open and captures Hi...  Thoughts: Well, it was less stereotyped than Brother Voodoo. I've always had a soft spot for Black Goliath, after reading his series, at my cousin's house (he had all 5 issues and his appearances in The Champions). He was a good character who was handled poorly, too often. After first aiding hank Pym to return to normal size, he became Black Goliath, in Luke Cage, Power Man, before getting his own series. The Luke Cage and 1st solo issue were from Tony Isabella, who handled him pretty well, then fell into Chris Claremont's hands and then Mantlo's in The Champions. This illustrates the problem, as he is shown to be rather inept, though he is handled better by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio, when he returns, during the Project PEGASUS storyline (where he also gets a costume makeover and a name change). He has to be rescued by Ben, leaving us to wonder why he is even here? Just kind of a let down, for a favorite character. Hijacker is a pretty lame villain and the mask is rather goofy looking, even for a gas mask. It has an unfortunate tendency to make him look like a racial caricature, which is definitely not a good thing in a book with a black guest star (and would be about as bad if it was a white guest star). This could have been so much more, if any attention had been paid to the story. There is no way of knowing if Mantlo's plot was this bad or if Shooter's scripting made a hash of it, or if they both sucked. The end result certainly does. The art is fine (apart from Hijacker's design) and is the usual Sal Buscema effort: dynamic, somewhat over-emoted, a bit routine in the action visuals, but exciting enough to make up for some lame plot. Mantlo is done here and I can't say I am sorry to see him go. He really wasn't doing great work here and the stories are mostly forgettable, except for about half of the Doc Savage issue. Now, Marv Wolfman takes over and Shooter can't touch his plots, and he begins a nice stretch of issues that contained some favorites of mine.
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Post by MDG on Feb 24, 2021 8:36:00 GMT -5
I wondered at the time this was published, and still wonder today, whether the title of this story was inspired by the Grateful Dead's song "Ship of Fools", which was on their 1974 album From the Mars Hotel. The phrase was already around, but this story was also published in 1974. Well, there is also the 1962 Katherine Ann Porter novel, which inspired the 1965 Stanley Kramer film, with Lee Marvin, Jose Ferrer, Vivien Leigh, George Segal and Michael Dunn. The allegory of the ship of fools goes way back. Visually, there's the Bosch painting: |
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 28, 2021 21:37:57 GMT -5
Marvel Team-up #25 Spider-Man & Daredevil. I hope it starts out with a mid-air collision, as they swing into each other! Creative Team: Len Wein-writer, Jim Mooney-pencils, Frank Giacoia-inks, Artie Simek-letters, Glynis Wein-colors, Roy Thomas-editor Synopsis: Spidey is hanging out, reading Crazy (oh, he was the one who bought it) when he spots Cat-Man, walking across some telephone wires.  Spidey swipes his bag and Cat-Man defends his property (as far as we know) while Spidey plays the wise-@$$. They keep making jokes about cats landing on their feet, when DD turns up and sucker drop kicks Spidey and acts like he has been waiting for this moment to knock Spidey around.  While they are busy acting like Ali and Frazier, Cat-Man escapes, though his loot is webbed to the pavement. DD notices he's gone and then calls a halt to the fisticuffs. Spidey is confused. Turns out, the Unholy 3 have kidnapped a woman, the daughter of an industrialist and Matt Murdock delivered the ransom to Cat-Man. he was following him to the hideout, when Spidey intervened. The fight was staged so Cat-Man could escape and lead DD to Gail Callan (she related to David Callan?), the victim. Spidey apologizes and retrieves the money satchel and notices some dirt on it. DD uses his heightened senses and detects salt water and popcorn and leads Spidey to Coney Island.  Cat-Man arrives at the pierside shack where the girl is being held; but the others think he might be holding out on them, until he explains. Gorilla-Man decides to take it out on the girl, who starts screaming, which alerts...  ...our heroes. DD knocks at the front door, decks Cat-Man, then Spidey whisks away Gail, while the other two are distracted. DD battles Gorilla-Man, while Bird-Man... ...escapes. DD kayos Gorilla-Man and goes after Cat-Man. Spidey gets Gail to a safe spot and battles Bird-Man..... ...and bags him in webbing. DD follows Cat-Man into a funhouse and finds him with his senses. He decks him and catches him in the web of a big spider feature, inside...  He goes outside and meets up with Spidey, when they hear another scream. Gorilla-Man is awake and he has Gail, above his head, at the top of the roller coaster, ready to toss her off...  Spidey activates the cars, with a web and they slam into Gorilla-Man, who loses control of Gail, who falls into DD's arms and safety. They web up the Unholy 3 and the cops come and collect them. Thoughts: It's kind of a slight story, with little motivation for the kidnapping, other than they are bad guys and want money. Kind of a waste of the Unholy 3, as and set of crooks could have done that. The fight between Spidey and DD comes off as rather contrived, which is the point, as DD reveals what is going on, though Spidey accepts this rather easily. Why not just catch Cat-Man and interrogate him as to Gail's whereabouts? For that matter, why not gimmick the money case with something DD could trace with his senses? I get the feeling Len kind of knocked this one out quickly. The action is fun enough; but, they could have done so much more with this. DD had fought the Unholy 3 solo; so, why bring in Spidey? Just needed another hook. Spidey is off on another Giant Size jaunt; so, Human Torch guest stars next issue. So, I will be covering that and GS Spider-Man #2, where he meets up with Shang Chi.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 28, 2021 22:32:28 GMT -5
Marvel Two-in-One #25 Thing & Iron Fist. Looks like Kirby has them facing some potential guests from his future work on Thundarr the Barbarian! (Thundarr was awesome!) Creative Team: Marv Wolfman-writer/editor (so no Shooter mucking about), Ron Wilson-pencils, Sam Grainger-inks, Irv Watanabe-letters, Glynis Wein-colors (not Michelle?) Synopsis: ben and Alicia are at a Jets game, in what appears to be nosebleed seats. Reed must have lost all of the FF's money, again.  The dude to the right of Ben must be Orthodox. While Ben is busy watching Joe Namath and the gang, the Goodyear blimp zaps him with an anesthesia ray and grabs him with cables.  The dudes with the scimitars, on the cover, are behind it...something about being turned down by Ben and doing it for Queen & Country. Oh, they're British! Ben comes too and finds Iron Fist strung up, also newly awakened and Iron Fist shows off by smashing his way out of his bonds...  He lets Ben down from where he is winched up, then cautions him about smashing the place, as he shows him the ocean below. Ben decides that Clobberin' Time will be delayed, a bit. The armed dudes jettison the lifting envelope (the gas bag) and the gondola turns out to be a jet aircraft. Ben and Danny trade stories about being approached by people from Kaiwan, an island off Manchuria (Kaiwan; really Marv?) to train their armies and both telling them to get stuffed. Guess they weren't going to take no for an answer. Lot of exposition on this one page...  Kawian? What's the capital, Kaipei City? Yeesh! The heroes get dumped out of bomb bay doors and Iron Fist defies the laws of physics and grabs ahold of vines, without ripping his arms out of their sockets (Ben would survive). They land safely on the jungle floor and the bad guys tell them to start training people, via loudspeaker. They are attacked but make short work of them. They interrogate one, while someone watches via a monitor. They are diected to a temple, surrounded by lava and volcanoes...  Iron Fist uses vines to concoct a highline across and they pair go hand-over-hand. They arrive at the front door and kick it in, then kick the people behind it...  The fight is stopped and Marv unloads another bucketload of exposition, explaining that the two countries on the island have been at war for centuries, but a wedding between their queen, Sen and their emperor, The Gracious One, was to bring peace, but General Chonga rebelled and kidnapped the queen. They need help to get her back but couldn't reveal her kidnapping to outsiders or endanger her (doesn't hold water, if you ask me). So, the boys make nice and go to rescue the queen. They parachute into a crater, where Chonga and his men are encamped, then get into a running battle with them. Now it's Clobberin' Time!  Turns out, the head dude for the Kaiwanese is in love with the queen and she with him; but, he has to give her up to the Gracious One for peace. He is an old dude and she goes through with it, leading to a rather bitter ending. Did I mention the queen dresses like a stripper?  Thoughts: You know, maybe Shooter (or better yet, Archie) should have mucked around with this. The logic of this story collapses pretty early on and Marv is doing a ton of exposition for a pretty basic plot. I get the impression he had this in mind for something else or for more than one issue and just condensed it all. Either that or he wrote himself into a corner. Whatever it was, this isn't particularly good and kind of raises my opinions of Mantlo's previous issues. Marv tries for some poignancy in the sacrifice of the queen and her lover; but, it isn't earned, as it comes out of left field, following all of the confusing plot turns. I like Ron Wilson; but, some of the art seems off. Not sure if it is working with Grainger, vs a more experienced inker, a time thing or what; it just seems....off. Iron Fist is kind of ill-used in this. Aside from keeping Ben from smashing things prematurely and getting them into the temple, he is mostly a grunt in this. Meanwhile, Kaiwan seems to be a rather backward place, even for 1976. You know, there was a whole war raging through that area just 30 years before. It wasn't like the place was stuck in the Middle Ages. Kind of typical for comics to suggest everyone outside the US lives in some backward stereotyped land....Darkest Africa, Exotic Orient, etc.... Not a great start for Marv's run. Next issue promises Nick Fury; so, let's hope for better things.
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