Random Happenstance

Oddly, I bet Claremont's written more comics with Ben Grimm than Natasha Romanoff, but I would've associated him more with the latter. But, of course we get both today! From 1975, Marvel Two-In-One #10, "Is This the Day the World Ends?" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Bob Brown, inks by Klaus Janson.

You could get a lot of thugs into a 70's car, as a batch are hot on the tail of the Black Widow in a car chase through Central Park. On a pleasant walk with Alicia, Ben wonders if they aren't filming another French Connection sequel in town, until Widow's car comes barrelling at him. He tosses Alicia to safety, then gets hit. Groggy from the crash, Natasha tries to get to Ben, but is stunned; and both she and Ben are captured. (Lugging Ben, which seems like a lot of work, one goon explains it's for security: they couldn't risk if Widow got information to him or not.) As they are taken by helicopter, Alicia is left alone and confused in the park.

Ben and Natasha are taken out to a drilling platform in the North Atlantic, home of the Sword of Judgement, self-proclaimed revolutionaries. What are they revolting against? Ah, probably a laundry list of grievances and grudges; nothing we need to get into. They're led by Agamemnon, kind of a terrible name for comics, since it has to be hyphenated in his introduction. Also, as is pretty typical for Black Widow stories, she had known Agamemnon back in the day. The Sword was going to drop a nuke in the hole they had drilled, to create a tsunami that would destroy the east coast of the United States. (I feel like it would destroy some other stuff as well, but that was the primary target.) In a cell together, Ben can't punch his way through a force field, so Natasha starts taking off her top...to get at the hidden S.H.I.E.L.D. weapon she was carrying!

During their escape, a grenade destroys the winch holding the nuke, and Ben has to grab it before it falls. Can he pull it up three miles? If the Widow can keep the goons off his back, sure. In bloodless fashion, she kills a lot of them: dropping somebody off the platform into the Atlantic? Oh, they're dead all right. Natasha tries to appeal to the man Agamemnon used to be, which he thinks means she won't kill him; but Ben cracks the whip with the cable, which...it's hard to tell. It might knock Agamemnon to his death, or it might have dismembered him. Whatever! Ben has a cigar to celebrate his win, a rare one that makes him grateful to be the Thing; and he shares a bottle of champagne with Natasha while waiting for S.H.I.E.L.D. to show up.

I found an old copy the other day, but on the strength of Claremont's name, this one's been reprinted a bunch of times. If your local comic shop has a rack of those True Believers reprints, you could maybe find it now!