He's trying to play it as mysterious, but it comes off as the minimum contractually allowed appearance.

Also, as is so often the case, a guy's superhero outfit once again looks better on a girl, in today's book! From 1996, Doc Samson #3, "Copycats" Plot by Dan Slott, script by Evan Skolnick, pencils by Roberto Flores and Andrew Wildman, inks by Brad Vancata and Ralph Cabrera.

The gamma-powered shrink Doc Samson, is on the trail of gamma-powered serial killer Patchwork, accompanied by gamma-powered new girl Geiger. While Patchwork was abducting and murdering women to steal body parts to build his "perfect woman," Geiger could copy the powers and "mindsets" of other gamma-types. Watching her imitate him, Samson wonders if he should have embraced the super-hero mentality more, since she sells it pretty well. They do not do especially well against Patchwork, since they don't know what the hospitalized Jennifer Walters has realized: Patchwork can steal gamma-power. Samson tries to end the fight quickly, but then fears he may have killed the monster, just like he feels he killed the Punisher, back in his first issue after Double Edge.

After Patchwork kills another girl and escapes, Doc Samson throws in the towel, and takes a cab to the airport. He's stopped by a sniper blowing out the cab's tire: the Punisher! Or a fake, Samson assumes, since he wouldn't know about Frank faking his demise. Man, Frank's ponytail is long here, he's got longer hair than Samson! Frank is laying down the hard truths here: he didn't think he was the best choice to take down Patchwork, Samson was. Now doubting his sanity along with everything else, Samson gets a phone call from Kyle Barker, whose life he had saved in an earlier issue, and who of course is Patchwork.

Really feels like Frank phoned this one in; but look, I could see him not wanting to be around Samson much. It's like he received gamma-powered overthinking along with the hair...I don't know if she survived, or kept her powers, but I already kind of like Geiger better than the doctor.
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Play the Hulk game!

I'm on vacation, so entertain yourselves, damnit! From Super Heroes Puzzles and Games from 1979, a General Mills giveaway. Huh, I totally remember eating cereal to get Marvel stickers, but never saw this thing. And Dr. Doom screams go back 3 spaces!

This also features two-page origins for Spider-Man (minus the death of Uncle Ben), the Hulk, Captain America, and Spider-Woman.
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Like a DVD extra, except it's sold separately.

Seem familiar? It's from Fantastic Four #367, "By Reed...Betrayed!" Written by Tom DeFalco, pencils by Paul Ryan, inks by Ivy and Kryssing. But it's also a scene in Infinity War #2, a slightly different angle. I'm pretty sure this isn't the start of the trend of regular comics giving a lot of panels in service to alternate camera angles of the big 'Red skies' crossover, but it's a good example.

Despite ten or so panels that could have been cut and pasted from Infinity War #2, there is some interesting interstitial material here; mainly Sue deducing Reed has been replaced by an evil duplicate. As the Thing faces his own double, and heroes begin to gather at Four Freedoms Plaza; Sue deactivates security measures so Wolverine can sneak in. Sue then stops and scans Ben and Johnny, and while they're both genuine, a brawl breaks out among the heroes when they don't know who is real and who's been replaced, ending with evil Reed blowing up a gamma bomb. I was going to say Sue, Ben, and Johnny didn't get much accomplished, but Sue does save the heroes from the explosion.

(Did evil Reed bring or build the gamma bomb, or did regular Reed have one lying around? Why would Reed have a gamma bomb? Research? Defense? A boring Saturday afternoon? Why use that, instead of a conventional atomic weapon that won't possibly produce a gamma-powered Puck or something?)

I'm not sure if the Infinity Gauntlet/War/Crusade Trilogy is remembered as fondly as say, Crisis on Infinite Earths or the first Secret Wars, and honestly they aren't as good. But there are some strong issues and individual moments throughout that shine, and maybe a couple that could be considered classic. Give it a read, but check out the umpteen dozen crossovers at your discretion. For instance, I know I had the New Warriors issue from about this same time, with young Darick Robertson art and Dark Speedball. Darkball? Again, discretion. Read more!