Marvel Team-Up Annual #2
Spidey & the Hulk!
Creative Team: Chris Claremont-writer, Sal Buscema & Alan Kupperburg-pencils, Jack Abel-inks, Joe Rosen-letters, Roger Slifer-colors, Al Milgrom-editor
Synopsis: Hey, baby; it's the Fourth of July.....
...and Peter Parker is on a date with Cissy Ironwood, and it's going well.....
I think someone on the creative team is trying to send a message to someone other than the reader.
Cissy invites Petey upstairs, for a "nightcap" and mentions a "comfy sofa", which suggests that the nightcap may be of a latex variety, if the Comics Code wasn't involved. However, Pete never gets to find out, as they experience Crimson Interruptus, as Crimson Dynamo smashes through the front door, from inside Cissy's house. Petey shoves Cissy (this sounds like a young adult book series) behind him and gives the Commie a taste of good old American judo, as he hurls the guy over his head and to the pavement.
Okay, Good Old American Cultural Appropriation of Japanese Culture, In The Realm of Self Defense.
Petey hopes that it will look like CD tripped over his own feet, but he really intended it to look studly, if you ask me. The point is moot, because Commies never act alone and Petey runs into Dynamo's back-up, who are Darkstar (the John Carpenter movie?) and Vanguard (wait, that's a US missile). Darkstar has Cissy's father (or is that Uncle Bill?) wrapped in a Darkforce ring and seems intent on taking him away, whether he wants to go or not. Pete is confused, as Darkstar recently worked with the Champions, before they were mercifully put to rest. He has no idea about Captain Hammer & Sickle, so he fights, while slipping a tracker on Cissy, after they say they are taking her, too. Pete tries to punch the Russkie; but is knocked back by his evil Commie power of repelling force with equal force. Pete gets knocked into building and is out on the mat, as Ivan & the Terribles make of with Professor Ironwood and Cissy.
Spidey goes to see the fantastic Four, but Reed has the flu and collapses, because cosmic radiation mutation apparently is no guard against the flu, let alone COVID, so get your shots!
(This message brought to you by the Center for Disease Control, Pfizer and Irving Forbush!)
Spidey tells Sue and Reed, as she puts him to bed and gives him his medicine, about his conversation with the police, after he came to. prof Ironwood is a cosmologist, but also an ex0nuclear physicist, who was blackballed in the 50s, due to the McCarthy hearings, and switched to astronomy and cosmology ('cause being blacklisted in one scientific field under the weight of political pressure wouldn't carry over to another scientific discipline). Pete sees a mathematical equation, which Reed confirms is the basis for an anti-matter bomb that makes an H-bomb look like a pea shooter.
Elsewhere, in Montana, Bruce Banner is working in a saloon, serving drinks, while the patrons brawl. Since this obviously a stable environment for a guy who has serious stress issues, things go wrong and he gets knocked down in the tussle and starts to Hulk up, when some Commie shoots him with a tranquilizer dart, before the transformation is complete and he reverts back to Banner. The shooter has thoughts about saving the world, so that's nice.
Banner wakes up to find that the shooter is Col Alexei Vazhin, KGB, top Soviet spy, known to Major Glen Talbot, who showed Banner an FBI file, long ago. However, Vazhin isn't kidnapping him for atomic secrets; he needs Banner's and the Hulk's help to save both their countries. he says that a rogue KGB general, Nikolai Kutzov, refused to accept the spirit of detente and the Strategic Arms Limitation treaty, stole the file on professor Daniel Ironwood and forged papers to make the new Crimson Dynamo, Darkstar and Vanguard believe he is acting under orders of the Central Committee.
Sneaking Commie!
They think they are out to prevent an American first strike; but, in reality, Kutzov needs Ironwood to build an anti-matter bomb, which will destroy the entire North American continent, in a first strike, which would obviously have no geological consequences for the Asian and European continents, unless he means it would wipe out all life on North America, which would then mean no biological or environmental problems for the Soviet Union.
Banner actually believes the Commie and agrees to help him.
The FF loan Spidey the Pogo Plane and he bails out, because why actually land a VTOL aircraft in the Rockies, despite it needing little more than a flat clearing, not an entire runway and airport? Spidey parachutes down to the ground, near where Banner and Vazhin are riding, tracing the energy pattern of Darkstar's Darkforce, probably using a DarkGeigerCounter. They are being watched, via a monitor, by Kutzov, who backhands Ironwood, when he gets mouthy. He tells him to do what he is told or Cissy gets to be treated like Afghanistan. Kutzov sends King Crimson and the Commies out to deal with banner and Vazhin.
They prep an ambush, but Darkstar is questioning the overkill of three super beings taking on two puny humans and also the general's claim of being able to eliminate North America as a threat to the Soviet Union. Vanguard and Dynamo are good Commies and don't question orders and wonder if Darkstar was corrupted by her time with American superheroes. Well, there was that night with Johnny Blaze, but that was a different kind of corruption.
Crimson Dynamo launches the ambush and Banner Hulks up and becomes The Incredible hulk, Commie Smasher!
While the Soviet trio fight Hulk, Vazhin slips away, like the cowardly Commie rat he is. Hulk, being a red blooded American, is able to break free of the Darkforce, but Vanguard's power throws his might right back at him, like when you throw Commie vodka down your throat! The stupid Reds think the Hulk is down for the count; and, like Rocky Balboa, he gets up and starts punching them, like they are Ivan Drago. Hulk smashes the ground, sending shockwaves that throw them off balance, then punches Vanguard, just as he gets his hammer and sickle up to block the force of the blow. Spidey then finally lands his glide 'chute and punches crimson Dynamo in the back of the head, which is a perfectly fair thing to do, if you are a patriotic American and not some dirty fighting Commie rat! They trade blows before Spidey kayos Dynamo with a good old American rock and then questions Darkstar, who stayed out of the fight, like the Commie coward she is. She says they are trying to stop an American first strike and Spidey laughs at the Commie bi......uh.....Commie buisiness, when he senses that the Hulk's fight with Vanguard is about to cause the entire area to collapse. He grabs the Commie wi.....oman and gets her out of the path, because Americans don't let Commies die in rockslides....they execute them at dawn!
Spidey saves Darkstar and then digs out Vanguard and Hulk, who has reverted back to Banner, who mutters about stopping Kutzov and says he is a roge, out to launch a first strike. Darkstar accepts the honorable word of an American and surrenders herself to Spidey's mercy. he tells her to see to her brother, while he takes Banner to stop the bomb.
Vazhin finds Kutzov's cave base, and gets the drop on him, but, like a stupid Pinko, doesn't pull the trigger fast enough to prevent Kutzov from throwing a wrench at him and knocking aside his gun. Probably one of those Russkie Tokarev instead of a reliable American Colt .45. Kutzov is about to bash Vazhin's brains in, with the wrench, when Spidey provides a bit of Lend Lease and snatches the wrench with a web. However, the stalactite that Spidey is attached to gives way, due to the shockwaves from Hulk's fight and Spidey takes a tumble. The sneaky Commie bast...d...uh, bad guy, pulls out a machine gun and tries to play Gold Old American Gangster, with a cheap Russian knockoff of a Tommy Gun. Spidey draws him away fromthe Ironwood's and Banner sneaks....uh, courageously slips behind Kutzov so that Spidey can deliver a patriotic punch to the mush and cause him to trip backwards over the kneeling Banner, like on any true blue American playground. Kutzov goes down and out, because Commies have glass jaws. They now try to stop the bomb.
The only way to stop the reaction is to keep two spheres apart; so, Spidey slaps puny Banner around, until he Hulks up, then gets ol' Purple Pants to keep the two spheres apart.
However, that is only a temporary fix. Spidey cons Hulk into getting mad enough to knock one of the spheres into outer space. The other sphere follows and they harmlessly explode in space, because matter and anti-matetr coming together wouldn't unleash enough deadly force to affect the Earth, which would be in close proximity.
The day is saved and Hulk collapses, turning back into Banner. Vazhin then proves to be a true Commie rat and shoots Ironwood dead, just because he is an American; but, like a true hero, Ironwood welcomes death, because no one else, including the Commies will be able to build another bomb. Then Claremont engages in Pinko-subversive anti-nuke propaganda...
Bleeding heart hippie crap!
Thoughts: All kidding aside, this is a definite anti-nuke message piece, published likely in response to both the controversy over the neutron bomb, whose production had been halted after European protests led NATO allies to flat out refuse to allow the weapon on their soil and the SALT II conferences, which led to an agreement, in Vienna, in June, 1979, the year this was published (in September). However, the treaty was not ratified by the US Senate, thanks to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in December. It was also never ratified by the Supreme Soviet, though both side abided by the agreement. Anti-nuke sentiment was near its height, particularly in Europe, though that sentiment would grow after the election of Ronald Reagan and his anti-Soviet rhetoric upped Cold War tensions even further. The world seemed closer to nuclear war than ever, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, though Claremont is ahead of the curve, a bit. He bring up SALT and anti-nuke sentiment was very strong in Europe and was growing in the US. It is clearly something that he cared about and Marvel seemed okay with publishing such and obvious statement, though Claremont hedges bets by having the Soviets be manipulated by a rogue KGB general, which would later be used for both plots in a Frederick Forsyth novel (The Fourth Protocol) and a james Bond movie (Octopussy, which followed the Forsyth novel's publication). The Soviets had been courting "detente," and easing of tensions with the West, across the 1970s. The US withdrawal from Vietnam aided this, as did the opening of relations with China. So, better to have a rogue officer be at the heart of the plot than actual Soviets, lest you be criticized as being out of step with the times. It is basically a reversal of Dr Strangelove, where an American general concocts a first strike situation, by issuing codes to SAC bombers that send them to hit their targets, while the US government and military work to try to recall the planes before they drop their bombs and set off a Soviet doomsday weapon.
The artwork is nothing to write home about, but it is serviceable. It's kind of sad how the annuals and Giant Size issues were often B or C team creators. Once in a while you got lucky with someone like Jim Starlin continuing an epic or a George Perez on art. If you were really lucky you got something like Avengers Annual #10, where Michael Golden gave us terrific art to compliment a really good Claremont story, which introduced Rogue and addressed the situation surround Ms Marvel, from Avengers #200 and called out Jim Shooter and David Micheline's plot and treatment of Carol Danvers, with what was effectively rape and the less than curious reaction by the Avengers to Carol Danvers' resulting pregnancy.
This is one of the early appearances by members of the Soviet Super Soldiers (later renamed the Supreme Soviets, in reverse of the Soviet legislature, and further replaced by the post-Soviet Winter Guard). The original Crimson Dynamo appeared as an Iron Man villain, in Tales of Suspense #46. There was a succession of other Crimson Dynamos, also enemies of Iron Man, up to theis one, the 5th, Dimitri Bukharin, who debuted in Iron man #109, alongside Vanguard. Darkstar first appeared in Champions #7, as part of a team led by the 4th Crimson Dynamo, Yuri Petrovich, son of Ivan Petrovich, who was Black Widow's friend and mentor. The rest of the team consisted of Titanium Man and Griffin, who was a mercenary, with no ideological connection to the Russians. Darkstar turned on Petrovich, both due to Titanium Man's extreme actions and his own obsession to destroy his father, who he was brainwashed to hate, by the KGB, to destroy his father, by reactionary rivals after Stalin's death (it was ridiculous, but what do you expect in an American comic book story, in the 70s?). Vanguard, Darkstar and BBukharin meet up with Iron Man and Jack of Hearts on the Moon, in the Blue Area, after both their ships were shot down, while investigating mysterious signals.
The trio will be joined by others (Ursa Major, and , briefly, Red Guardian II and Presence), in a couple of years, in Hulk #258. Sadly, the potential of such a team was never really fully developed, in large part due to ignorance of life in the Soviet Union, beyond cliche and propaganda. It was probably too much to expect a more thoughtful approach, in American superhero comics and probably not economically viable, even for a guest appearance (you'd never get a series out of it). Really, the closest thing to such an idea was Skull & Bones, from Ed Hannigan, at DC, about a Soviet SPETSNAZ soldier and veteran of Afghanistan, who becomes a dissident and aids in stopping the hardline coup, which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The group was revised in Captain America #353-354, where Vanguard, Darkstar and Ursa Major attempted to deffect, due to their treatment, as mutants, within the Soviet Union, mirroring the treatment of other ethnic minorities within the Soviet system, particularly Jews (and Muslims and Asian minorities). Mark Gruenwald created the Supreme Soviets as their antagonists. In 1992, a Soviet Super Soldiers one-shot dealt with the aftermath of the Captain America story, which deals with a split between the Soviet government-sponsored agents and the mutants and other political machinations. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly a particularly well researched idea and pretty much was just an average X-Men plot, in Soviet costuming. Probably the only reason it was done was to tie in to X-Men, since it had been established, in past, That Vanguard, Darkstar and Ursa Major were mutants, rather than creations of the State. You could have set the thing in France and make them mutants and other ethnic minorities and pitted them against a French government team, or Italian or Japanese or whatever.
