Random Happenstance

Pier 1 stock is down as I type this, with the company closing some stores. Presumably, not because of unconscious monkeys, or the Trapster! From 1977, Marvel Team-Up #58, "Panic on Pier One!" Written by Chris Claremont, pencils by Sal Buscema, inks by Pablo Marcos.

I'm going to take a second to check something here: what was Evel Knievel's heyday? Probably peaked with the failed Snake River jump in 1974. (Fun sidebar to this sidebar: wrestling's Vince McMahon lost money on that jump!) I mention this because of something an old comic book shop guy told me: Marvel is always late to hop on a trend. After all, disco's body was room temperature by the time Dazzler was introduced...Today, in Chelsea, it's location shooting for the Stunt-Master TV show, with stuntman Johnny Blaze about to perform a sick stunt--with the degree of difficulty raised exponentially by the unseen interference of the Trapster!

Peter and Mary Jane are watching the stunt (since it was on Peter's street, and blocking his way home) and MJ is actually hurt when Johnny has to trigger the Stunt-Master cycle-jets: the jets were the least bad option, rather than plowing straight into the crowd. At this point, Johnny has to transform into Ghost Rider, since he was now doing 80 on a one-wheeled motorcycle into cross bound traffic. Ditching MJ--okay, leaving her with a medic, but we don't see her again today!--Spidey snags GR with his webbing, but is then himself snagged, by the Trapster's paste!

I don't believe it: I just did another quick check, and the Trapster had been mentioned by name once in all the years I've been doing this blog? Huh. I was checking if maybe the Frightful Four's defeat mentioned here, from Fantastic Four #178, was here; but no, I haven't read that one. Still, the Wizard's escape method seems familiar, like maybe he's done it more than once: claiming to have a cracked tooth from getting punched in the mug by the Thing, the Wizard throws a magnesium flare hidden in a false tooth! (Do not bite down hard on that one...) Wizard frees Trapster and Sandman, but Trapster sees a newspaper headline that Johnny Blaze--and Ghost Rider--are in town. Did that just spill his secret identity? Regardless, Trapster wants payback for getting run out of L.A, possibly in Ghost Rider #13, not #15 as the footnote says. (Unless it took a couple issues, I'm not positive.) Spidey just got in the way, and nearly turns the tables on him, before Trapster gets him with a magnesium flare of his own and throws him off of his anti-gravity sled!

Ghost Rider saves-slash-cooks Spidey with a "hot air vortex" trick cribbed from the Human Torch, then shoots Trapster's sled down with a hellfire blast. He crashes on the carrier USS Halsey...which wasn't a carrier? OK, whatever. Trapster puts up a pretty good fight, aided by the United States Marine Corps, who do not take kindly to trespassers and of course get in Spidey and Ghost Rider's way more. Trapster also attempts to launch an F-14 Tomcat into the Westside Highway, but Spidey stops it...from hitting the highway, not from falling off the carrier. Oops. Then he and GR scuffle a moment before the Rider burns Trapster's soul with a hellfire blast! Spidey doesn't approve.

This was a stretch when Ghost Rider was still Johnny, as opposed to being a separate entity within him. Trapster gets treated like an actual threat for most of this; but I know he would hit a long skid around here. And the next issue was a favorite, with Yellowjacket and the Wasp, and John Byrne art.