Project Pegasus, Part 7

 

cover art by George Perez

Marvel Two-in-One #57 (November 1979) is a fun issue, with a well-constructed story (script by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio) supported by great art (George Perez breakdowns with finished art by Gene Day). 

I was critical of a few of the early issues for getting bogged down by lots of exposition. But here, though there is again lots of exposition, the story flows along nicely, gives us a great action sequence and moves the overall story arc along. 

We begin with a security meeting that catches us up with the current situation. Deathlok, Nuklo and Thundra's team of female wrestlers have all caused trouble, the good guys aren't clear on why. The conclusion is that there's an traitor in the complex helping the various villains gain access to the place.

Ben questions Thundra again, hoping to play on their past friendship to get her to talk, but she won't talk.

From here, the story begins to jump back and forth between several different plot threads, but handles these transitions smoothly as the various elements needed for next issue's conclusion are lined up. Wundarr, despite being shown on the cover as Ben's main guest star for this issue, doesn't encounter him. Instead, he wakes up out of his coma and walks off to find the cosmic cube. No one can stop him because he is absorbing all energy--including kinetic energy--that comes near him. Along the way, he inadvertently turns off the power to the cell holding the villain Solarr. 

The security staff, in the meantime, have used tapes from the secuity cameras to show that Dr. Lightner (formally a supervillain known as Blacksun) was nearby every time there was trouble. It's really about time the security staff at the Project accomplished something, though this should be too much of a surprise. "Hey, the former supervillain we hired is still a bad guy! Who would have thunk it?"

Lightner, in the meantime, finally has all the parts he needs to build a Nth Projector, using the parts smuggled in by Deathlok and Thundra. His mysterious backers want him to use it to send the Project into another dimension, but he begins to use it to reactivate his old superpowers (he had essentially been a living black hole). 

While all that is going on, Solarr looks for a partner with whom to escape. There are a number of energy-based villains being held at the Project, but (in an entertaining sequence) he has trouble finding someone to help him out. Electro is in traction when his last battle with Spider Man ended badly. Nuklo is too dumb. He finds Klaw's sonic emitter and, in frustration, tosses this against a wall. Klaw, who had been trapped in the emitter after a battle with Black Panther, is re-integrated by this. He and Solarr have teamed up before, so they opt to do so again.

Ahh, Comic Book Science at its best.

The sequence in which they try to escape via a rail car to the surface, while being chased by Ben, Quasar and Giant-Man, is a fun action sequence with some great use of perspective in several of the panels. The sequence also shows us just how clever a tactician Ben Grimm can be, as he uses clever and unusual tactics to stop the fleeing villains and then penetrate a sound barrier raised by Klaw.

But even smart good guys can get careless. They had thought they were chasing Lightner, only later realizing that Solarr and Klaw had unintentionally distracted them from a bigger threat. And, while discussing this, they don't realize that the sound of their voices is restoring Klaw's sound-based powers. Klaw gets the drop on them and the issue ends with Ben about to get his brains scrambled.

As I said, it's a fun and well-constructed story, nicely interweaving the various plot lines without ever bogging down. It's interesting to note how each issue of this story arc has moved the overarching plot forward in baby steps. It takes several issues for the various parts of the Nth Projector to get smuggled in and only now is Dr. Lightner beginning to use it. But after the too-slow first issue, there's been lots of action, the pacing has been fast and the story arc has been satisfying. Those baby steps have finally brought us to the conclusion that we'll see in the next issue, with all the various plot elements in place.

We'll take a look at that conclusion in a few weeks. Next week, we'll watch not one--not two--but THREE Flashes deal with an alien threat.