Thursday, August 18, 2016

80-Page Thursday: Marvel Super-Heroes Fall Special #7!


Usually, I'd say "the dramatic conclusion!" Except I'm not sure it is the conclusion, and I'm not sure I can call any story with a backwards-R in the title dramatic...from 1991, Marvel Super-Heroes Fall Special (#7), featuring stories by Roy & Dann Thomas, Peter David, Steve Grant, and Barry Dutter; art by Vince Evens, Steve Ditko, Gary Hartle, Larry Alexander, and more.

The lead story, "Sterility 'R' Us!" is the second of three parts: Still on the trail of the Mark II Sentinels, the X-Men find a Dr. Cynthia Chalmers, daughter of one of the Mark II's builders. She had been researching them, and is present when the robots repair themselves for another go at sterilizing humanity. (Their logic: if mankind stops having babies, mutants will stop being born. Making them somewhat lazy robots, really.)

The X-Men track the Sentinels down, in time to rescue the captured Storm, Doc Samson, and Abomination. The latter is apparently killed in the battle, but returns after Samson and the X-Men have left; and is approached by Dr. Chalmers to rebuild and control the Mark II's! Psylocke had done a shoddy job of scanning Chalmers, not realizing she was dying of cancer and wanted to kill all mutants...Ugh, I actually have read the conclusion and technically even blogged that issue, but have virtually no recollection of it off the top of my head...

Also this issue: Peter David writes a Cloak & Dagger story featuring the return of the Golden Age Angel, who is now an old man living with the homeless beneath NYC. There's a Shroud story, and a Marvel Boy story made problematic by later continuity: although he isn't close to his dad, he agrees to go see wrestling with him...later in New Warriors, Marvel Boy would change his alias to Justice, and serve time for the manslaughter death of his father.

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