Tuesday, April 12, 2022

(Imagines dozens of pokey-wounds.) You know what, I don't think I want a Dreadnought action figure.

Let's grab a comic I don't think I've read out of the pile: from 1984, Marvel Team-Up #139, "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime!" Written by Cary Burkett, pencils by Brian Postman, inks by Mike Esposito.

I could've sworn the Dreadnought robot had even more little spikes on it...Spidey swings past the robot on a rooftop, while he's on his way to a photo assignment for the Bugle, which of course is then stormed by the Dreadnought, who moves toward a young starlet, Julie. Changing back quickly, Spidey saves the girl in dramatic fashion, only to get his web cut and the girl abducted, but he does tag it with a spider-tracer. Which he has to follow via his detector, since his spider-sense was out, courtesy the Hobgoblin around Amazing #250

 Meanwhile, Nick Fury and Dum-Dum Dugan are met by their old friend and former Howling Commando Dean Martin Dino Manelli, who needs their help. The Mafia Maggia had been leaning on him, then kidnapped his girl, Julie--wait, Dino would'a been around at least his mid-sixties then; she was like a third his age! Nick says kidnapping is more up the FBI's alley, maybe he should try there; and Dino storms out. Dum-Dum knows Nick's not going to stop there; but he wanted to take that one alone, and knew Dino would have been too emotional. (And likely too old and too drunk!) He plants a fancy mike outside a known Maggia contact's window, and waits to get word.
Peter not only didn't get pictures of Julie's kidnapping, every other paper in town got pictures of Spidey getting clowned. Worse, while his spider-sense was still intermittent, he kept getting massive alarms for seemingly no reason, like something big was going to happen

But, when the tracer pings again, Spidey follows it; as Nick finds out Julie was being kept on a yacht. Nick not only ends up fighting the Dreadnaught, he keeps fighting it even when Spidey shows up, telling him to rescue Julie. And both fail! Nick gets shocked out, while Julie cracks a bottle over Spidey's head when his back was turned. Nick and Spidey are trussed up, in time for Julie to tell them everything before Dino is also captured: she had been paid to get close to Dino, then bankrupt him. But, with Dino there as well, the Maggia boss opts to kill her too. Dino throws himself in front of the Dreadnaught's shot and is winged, but the distraction gives Spidey the chance to break out. Nick gives Spidey the collar from his S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform, which had hidden explosives in it, and they use it to blow the robot's head up. (Nick's a cool customer, to walk around with explosives in his collar!)
Dino survives, and tells Julie he did it because he really did love her. Well, the age difference might be less by the time she gets outta jail. Meanwhile, Spidey realizes the Dreadnaught's robot...robotness, had been jamming the spider-tracer; he didn't get a signal again until it was powered down.

This would have been going into Team-Up's last year, and while I'm not sure it was very often essential reading, it's still missed, isn't it? There was a place for it, that seems empty now. 

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

I know I tended to collect MTU fairly regularly back as a kid & picking up a lot of back issues as well more than I did the Spidey's regular series. I'd definitely say there's a place for MTU to make a come back but is there an overwhelming & consistently paying readership willing to keep it going?