I think Roy was serious, up to a point, but I think he hoped someone else might pick up the ball and run with it.  He didn't do much with them, himself, other than a later Invaders appearance (and Whizze and Miss America were used at the tail end) and in those What If Captain America stories, to explain the post-war Cap stories, with the Patriot taking over from the dead Spirit of 76 (from the Crusaders group, a pastiche of the Freedom Fighters, in Invaders).  I liked the idea of them; but, there was a reason why most of them were obscure.  Roy had also used some in the Kree-Skrull War, when Rick Jones unleashes them from his mind.  I was always surprised Blazing Skull and Vision weren't used in Invaders or elsewhere, until much later.

I remember buying this issue when it first hit the stands, and despite a great cover, the joy ended there, as the story was so lifeless and "bleh", that anyone other than Spider-Man could have partnered with Black Panther and no one would have noticed.

Marvel Two-in-One Annual #1



Creative Team: Roy Thomas-writer/editor, Sal Buscema-pencils, Sam Grainger, John Tartaglione & George Roussos-inks, John Costanza-letters, Phil Rache-colors

Synopsis: With the Watcher standing around still watching, Ben realizes the threat from the 1940s has not passed. This being Ben, he attacks the Watcher when he doesn't answer his questions, which is a fantasy of every reporter who has tried to interview a politician. Ben looks the door to the time platform room and then conducts a lengthy recap of the FF Annual. He realizes the problem is the missing part of the vibranium cylinder and he goes back to 1942 to find it. Along the way, there is a chilly bit of irony, given later history...



Ben tries to track the missing section, after theorizing a time wedge split it between occupied Europe and somewhere else (makes as much sense as anything else in all of this) and he gets pulled to New York, in 1942, where he meets a Jazzy little kid...



Ben has a bit of a fracas with the local constabulary and then sees a newsflash about a call for the Liberty Legion. It turns out the city is being attacked by Nazis...



Jack Frost, Red Raven and Blue Diamond (Yellow Moons, Orange Stars and Green Clovers, too) fly up to do battle. Thin Man takes off in an autogyro (headed from the Prussian Consulate, in Siam, no doubt) and Miss America does a striptease, in Time Square. They all converge on the planes and smash them. Ben gets tired of standing around and climbs to the top of the Times Building and grabs the flagpole, which brings Patriot and Whizzer to fight the monster, until Ben tells them he ain't no monster. Ben tries to talk sense into them (rather than pummel them) while the Legion kicks heinie...



The Patriot reveals classified information to someone he just met, who claims to be from the future and then Sky Shark lands on a floating metal platform, somewhere off the coast...



Sky Shark relates his past and how he became a top propaganda flyer for Hitler. Upstate, the Legion finds a defense site attacked by Master Man...



He beats up the Legion (and hits a woman....and she wears glasses!) and steals an aircraft canopy. Wait....that's it, a canopy?

While this goes on, Jack Frost and Red Raven check another site, where a jet engine is being developed. It is attacked by U-Man. He battles them and escapes, after Jack Frost freezes the water, by jumping through a drainage tube.

Elsewhere, Skyshark guns down a scientist, then gets into a dogfight with the Thin Man. He escapes before Asta can bite him.

Ben is still hanging out on top of the Times Building, when a giant swastika flies by...



and crashes into buildings. Ben goes after it and we are told to check out MTIO #20.

Thoughts: Not as effective as part one, as Roy has to go through the whole split the team trope and send people to different locales. It just seems repetitive, as they show up, fight a Nazi ubermensch (or special agent) and gets their clocks cleaned, allowing the rat to steal something (or kill scientists). Now, it's back in Ben's court.

Nice little cameo by Jazzy John Romita, who did work as a delivery boy back then. Noticed they didn't mention Simon & Kirby defecting to National. Surprised they didn't have Stan sitting around, playing his ocarina.

Marvel Two-in-One #21



The Thing & Doc Savage?

The Man of Bronze meets The Everlovin' Blue-Eyed Thing! Will Aunt Petunia be proud?

Creative Team: Bill Mantlo-writer, Ron Wilson-pencils, Pablo Marcos-inks, Karen Mantlo-letters, Janice Cohen-colors, Archie Goodwin-editor. Doc Savage created and primarily written by Lester Dent.

Synopsis: Our story begins in parallel tales; one in 1976 and one in 1936, at similar skyscraper headquarters...



Both heroes are alerted that a young woman is there to see them and are sent up in private elevators. Doc Savage meets Lucinda Lightner, wife of Raymond Lightner. Ben and Johnny meet Janice Lightner. Both women collapse after entering. Lucinda reveals she has been beaten, by her husband. Janice also bears bruises, which came from her twin brother, Tom. They are the children of Raymond and Lucinda Lightner. In 1936, Lucinda told her husband that she was pregnant; but, rather then being elated, he responded with anger and abuse, speaking of the power at his hands to become immortal, needing no heir. In 1976, Tom Lightner is a scientific genius, but had a massive chip on his shoulder and would not work for anyone. he spent money freely and emptied out the family fortune, on women, bad investments and similar and came to Janice to have her turn over deed to the family house, which was left to her...



Tom says his father was onto something big and it would give him power beyond wealth and put an end to those who laughed at his father and himself. In both eras, the women are dragged to the sky cannon, Raymond Lightner's brilliant invention that destroyed him, which Tom has rebuilt with his notes and says what killed his father was those who mocked his theories...



So, like a-hole father, like a-hole son. Tom has fired up the cannon to draw stellar energy into a human host, himself and the city is blacked out. In 1936, Raymond is first starting the cannon, creating a similar blackout. In 1976, Johnny and Ben take Janice, in the Fantasticar, to her family estate. In 1936, Doc takes Monk and Renny in his autogyro and heads for the Lightner estate. In 1976, aims the cannon at a black hole that has come into alignment, as his father had discovered. He fires the cannon and its beam is interrupted by the Fantasticar. In 1936, Raymond does the same and hits Doc's aircraft.



In both eras, the craft are disabled and the passengers bail out. Then, a funny thing happens....



and Doc finds that he, Renny and Monk are falling alongside Johnny, Ben and Janice! Meanwhile, father and son are bathed in energies and pulled together into a composite being, who calls itself Blacksun.

Johnny rescues Janice and Ben safely impacts the ground. Doc and his assistants parachute safely. Doc sense that time has somehow been altered, while he lends Ben a hand out of his crater. Blacksun appears, speaking in Raymond Lightner's voice, then in Tom's. He fires bolts of energy at the heroes. The energy misses and Johnny flies towards him to check him out. Doc, Renny and Monk fire mercy bullets at Blacksun. Ben hears Monk speak Doc's name and is stunned. The mercy bullets are absorbed and Johnny is hit with black energy, which smothers his flame and knocks him unconscious. ben joins the fight and dukes it out with Blacksun, but goes down swinging...



Doc then jumps in and gets hit by a weaker bolt, as he has observed that Blacksun's power fluctuates as clouds interrupt starlight. Blacksun blackens the sky, but Johnny lights it up with his flame. Blacksun levitates and Doc jumps on, as does Ben. Blacksun continues rising towards the stars and Ben and Doc are thrown off. Eventually, Blacksun collapses and falls back to earth, burnt out by the energies it tried to contain. The time effect fades and Doc, Renny and Monk slip back to the past, leaving Johnny, Ben and Janice to deal with the stricken Tom. ben says they will take him to a doctor he knows....Don Blake!



Thoughts: Well, this was a unique experiment and it's actually kind of intriguing, at the start, with the dual timelines, though exposition isn't exactly parallel, which causes you to have to backtrack a little, if you try following one thread at a time. Then, Mantlo brings the timelines together to bring the heroes together. That's where the story actually kind of falls apart. Doc, Renny and Monk don't get much to do and don't interact much with ben and Johnny; so, why bother having them there? Really, all Doc does is identify the weakness in Blacksun's powers, though he doesn't stop him, nor does Ben. Blacksun just burns out and Doc and his buddies fdae back to 1936. It isn't really explained what happened to Raymond, but he apparently faded from existence, leaving only Tom, as he continues into next issue. Either that or he also returns to the past and dies, as Janice's flashback states that Tom is acting like their mother described their father acting, before he died. This is the problem with many of Mantlo's scripts, in this era. he often had a nice hook, but loses track of details and there are sudden "jerks" in the narrative. This resolves rather abruptly, which kind of undercuts the great set up. Mantlo improved with experience, particularly as he did more regular series work, rather than fill-ins. By the 80s, he was a fairly solid, if not always spectacular writer. he certainly didn't lack for imagination; or, at least, the ability to draw inspiration from elsewhere and spin it into something a bit different, like in Micronauts (with its heavy Star Wars riffs) or Rom (with its hidden aliens, drawn from old sci-fi movies and stories). He's definitely reaching for something more, here, and a team-up book probably gave him a pretty open field to play around, though guest stars could be a problem.

The main hook to this story is the initial dual storyline, which takes great advantage of the deliberate parallels in the sets of characters. Doc Savage was one of the key forefathers of the modern comic book superheroes, with elements swiped by everyone from Superman to the Fantastic Four. Doc Savage operated from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building (alluded to, though not outright stated in the pulps). Jack Kirby, a huge fan of the pulps, borrowed this for the Baxter Building HQ for the FF. Both had special secure elevators that gave access to their floors. Both operated special vehicles from the building , though Doc kept his autogyro at his hidden hanger, behind the Hidalgo Trading Company warehouse facade, on the Hudson River (accessed via a secret pneumatic tube subway, from the Empire State Building). Doc also maintained his Fortress of Solitude, in the Arctic, which was swiped by a certain Man of Steel (who also cribbed that title from the Man of Bronze). Mantlo adds elements from the pulps, like Monk's pet pig, Habeus Corpus (a dig at sparring partner Ham, who was a lawyer) and noting the trilling sound Doc would make when he was intrigued, when Lucinda first appears. The problem is, Doc says very little in this and comes across as the least developed character. Mantlo assumes everyone is familiar with Doc, which I was not, in this era. My first encounter was a promotional ad for the regular Doc Savage comic, then a few minutes of the Ron Ely film, when it was shown on tv (I think I had to go to bed). I didn't read my first Doc Savage adventure until college, when I came across a copy of the Bantam Books reprint of Man of Bronze. I saw the full movie within a year of that, plus read the DC mini-series, with Doc's son and grandson (attempting to create a modern Doc Savage, like their updated Shadow). So, Mantlo is making bad assumptions that Archie should have pointed out, though I doubt he was directly checking this over. I think Roy Thomas or Marv Wolfman (or Len Wein) would have made a bit of an intro to Doc, if they had done this (especially Roy).

Despite that, the opening is great, with a minor bump or two, and it keeps the story from being a dud, despite the anti-climactic ending. The ending mostly serves to get us to come back for Thor's appearance and even that next issue is more set up for issues #23, as we will see.

Doc Savage didn't fare spectacularly at Marvel, with 8 color issues, a giant size special and 8 black & white magazine comics. DC had a more sustained run, with the Shadow, with 12 issues of his own title (though the 5 done by Mike Kaluta far surpass the others) and two Batman appearances, though Doc got the higher total. DC got the better reviews (thanks to O'Neil and Kaluta). Doc has always had a harder time in comic books than The Shadow, as he is a harder character to write. He's pretty much a boy scout, ala Superman, but without the colorful enemies, as Doc's only recurring villain was John Sunlight, who appears in Fortress of Solitude and Devil Genghis. By contrast, Shiwan Khan appears in 4 Shadow stories and had a few other enemies who made reappearances (and a criminal organization, The Hand, who appeared in 5 stories, each with The Shadow defeating a Finger of the organization). The Shadow also had assistants, but they were a bit more colorful and memorable, with Margo Lane, Harry Vincent, and Moe Shrevitz as the top, while Doc had his Fabulous Five, though the bulk or their narrative time was dominated by Monk and Ham, as they snipe at one another and carry out the lead of the team's actions. By later stories, only Monk and Ham appeared at all and sometimes not even them. Doc was superior to them, even in their own fields, which made you wonder why he needed them at all (other than for them to get into trouble and have Doc rescue them).

Ron Wilson seems a bit ignorant of Doc and his trappings, as he is shown carrying a standard Colt .45 automatic and Monk and Renny have a revolver and a lever-action rifle, rather than Doc's super-firing machine pistols. Mantlo covers mercy bullets in the dialogue, but it doesn't seem like Ron knew about them. Also, Doc doesn't exactly have his equipment vest, though that is largely because Marvel followed James Bama's cover illustrations of the Bantam reprint series, rather than the actual stories. Bama usually had Doc jus wearing a torn safari shirt (modelled by actor Steve Holland, who starred in the 1954 Flash Gordon tv series). Bama was the one who gave Doc his trademark bronze-haired widow's peak, as the pulps showed Doc with a typical 1930s haircut and more reddish bronze hair.



This is around the time when Ben was returned to his rocky form, after fighting Galactus on Counter earth (FF #175), as he transformed back when they crossed through the cosmic ray belt on the way back. Since there is no reference to the exoskeleton, I assume this is ben in his usual form. The Invaders/Liberty Legion crossover is the only mention of it, in this comic and it only lasted from issue #169 to 175, in the FF. ben was seen in the armor, watching tv news reports, in Avengers #151, which appeared at the same time as FF #174. Technically, assuming they are the same time frame, Ben should be in the suit since MTIO #15, though these usually didn't directly coincide with the FF timeline.

Since Marvel didn't have the license, the Essential MTIO reprint omitted this story, but includes #22 and 23, which conclude what happens here. So, sucks to be anyone who only knows these stories from that!

Tom Lightner will return. a bit later, after his story concludes in the next couple of issues. He will turn up in the seminal Project Pegasus storyline, though they don't exactly reference Doc Savage, in that storyline, when discussing Lightner.

So, that brings us back in line with the running reviews of MTU and MTIO. That means, MTU #22 is next.

Well, Doc Samson's name is pretty much cribbed from that, so why not?

Mantlo could have done so much with Doc sounding like Reed.  Actually, within that world, I would suspect Doc would be one of Reed's heroes.

Just to make him a little different, they could make him a dentist......

Doc Massive, DDS!

Marvel Team-Up #22



Spider-Man & Hawkeye

The pair team up to put one over on Frank Burns!

Creative Team: Len Wein-writer, Sal Buscema-pencils, Frank Giacoia-inks, Dave Hunt-letters, Glynis Wein-colors, Roy Thomas-editor

Synopsis: Spidey is swinging along, minding his own business, whining about Liz Allen being back in his life when Hawkeye fires an arrow and severs his web line, then pins him to a wall, before Spidey breaks free and fires back. Hawkeye says he was just trying to get his attention.



Ever tried calling out to him?

Hawkeye tells him he left the Avengers and the Defenders didn't work out; so, he's been working solo. he came upon a truck hijacking and stopped the thieves, who turn out to be robots...



Didn't know Hawkeye was working in Stepford! Hawkeye follows the truck to a mansion and sneaks in, only to be discovered by another robot...



He escapes and is now seeking help from Spider-Man.

We discover that the mansion set up is run by Quasimodo (The bells...the bells....), who spots them on a monitor...



The get attacked by robots and kick axels and take nomenclatures, but fall into a trap and get dumped into tubes.



Quasi fires them out of his pneumatic tubes, to die when they collide back on earth. Spidey snares a tree and saves Hawkeye. They go back and bust up some robots, destroy a bit of machinery and hit Quasi with feedback, frying his noodle...



Then we get promos for next issue, with Spidey absent, as well as Spidey teaming with Dracula in Super-Giant Spider-Man.

Thoughts: Another fast-paced, if formulaic crossover story, as Hawkeye seeks out Spider-Man to solve a mystery. They get their butts whooped, survive a deathtrap then whoop the robotos hinders and the villain is defeated by his own machines. Rinse and repeat and you have your average Marvel story, especially a team-up story. It's got enough mystery to get you to come along and Sal is a dab hand at the action and gives the hidden lair some scope. All in all, a pretty good issue, which is what I always hoped for in these things.

Len throws in a couple of things to remind us where our two heroes are in their lives, just in case you missed their regular books. He does it through dialogue and thought, rather than wasting precious story panels, as others sometimes did.

Hawkeye ends up with a career of fighting tech guys on his own or with special partners, outside of the Avengers. We get the same thing when he is forced out of the Avengers and goes to work at Cross Technologies and in his mini-series, where he hooks up with Mockingbird.

ps Anything with Quasimodo reminds me of stand up comic Bill Nelson and his football routine, from the 80s...



There is also an NSFW version, minus Quasi and a few others....