I'm also 80% sure this issue did not need to be reprinted at the time; it was probably widely available in quarter bins and such. From 1989,
Marvel Tales #231, reprinting 1981's
Marvel Team-Up #108, "Something Wicked This Way Kills!" Plot by Tom DeFalco, script by David Michelinie, pencils by Herb Trimpe, inks by Mike Esposito. New cover by Todd McFarlane.
Todd did
Marvel Tales covers from
#223 to
#239, starting with reprinting the classic Doc Ock/Death of Captain Stacy storyline, then shifting to mostly
Marvel Team-Up issues with mutants. This would include a trifecta with Dazzler, so you've got Todd doing a pretty sharp classic Dazzler, with a bunch of hacky jokes about her, being a mutant, and/or disco. She doesn't make the cover this time, but Paladin does; and I remembered Todd had drawn him on the cover of
Amazing #321...and had forgot about
#320. Huh.
Anyway, this issue. This was back in the day when Peter Parker was a teaching assistant at Empire State, and here he catches an earful from a coach for flunking a star player. The guy only answered three questions out of fifty; so yeah. Spidey's also on the trail of a strange "street stalker," who seemed to be sucking the heat out of his victims; and Peter Parker was also trying to get back on top, since Lance Bannon had been getting the big pictures lately. Patrolling the park, Spidey of course gets into the traditional Marvel misunderstanding brawl with Paladin, who was working the case for cash, but ditches out for a date, leaving Spidey to get a victim to the hospital: predictably, Lance gets a picture of Spidey holding the victim, which J.Jonah Jameson just adores. It of course won't last, but JJJ is ridonkulously happy, like that Vince McMahon meme: "Pictures!...Pictures of Spider-Man!...Pictures of Spider-Man, committing a crime!...Pictures of Spider-Man, committing a crime, NOT from that weasel Parker!"
Spidey catches up with Paladin outside a fancy restaurant, where he was meeting his client; and Spidey has to suffer the indignity of being forced to wear a tie to get in. The client was the stalker's husband, and she tells a sob story of a lab accident involving microwaves, a radiation-absorbing suit, and vitamins? Sure, why not. Spidey isn't sure he would be able to help, which Paladin assumes was a bargaining ploy for a better payoff: Paladin has a hearty laugh when he finds out Spidey didn't do that for cash, which feels like a missed shot for an "action is his reward" crack. Later, as the increasingly unstable scientist takes up the name "Thermo" and kills a co-worker he thought was going after his wife; Spidey and Paladin get serious...seriously beat-down. Dazzler has a cameo, since she'd be in the next issue; but she decides to see what the hubbub is about after she finishes her makeup, while Thermo drains the heat out of Spidey...!
1 comment:
You know back when I was a dumb young kid, I often wondered why the artwork on certain comic book covers never matched the artwork on the inside, especially when it came to reprint books like Marvel Team-Up & Classic X-Men/X-Men Classic. I’d still buy them anyway because who’s gonna say no to a Mike Mignola cover right? Or a Todd McFarlane cover for that matter? Often times, at least for me anyway, I felt the work of the cover artist looked better than the original art, yet yet again, I still bought the issue just the same.
Anyhoo….
Yes you’re right, and change that 80% to a 100, because there’s no way anyone was clamoring for a reprint of a comic that had just come out 8 years prior, ESPECIALLY this one. God bless Herb Trimpe but the art here looks boring as hell. I know he’s mostly famous for his Hulk & GI Joe runs, but man, the stuff here looks so boring and plain. McFarlane’s cover easily makes the main characters in here look so much better. But hey, not everyone can look as dynamic as certain artists, right?
Btw, anyone else wonder why the FF or Avengers never got their own reprint series, just Spidey & the X-Men? No, just me?
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