Three Heroes, Two Villains and a Death Ray

 

Cover art by Gil Kane

Last week, when reviewing Marvel Team-Up #16, I mentioned that the randomness of the team-ups was a strength of the series, allowing us to see disparate heroes work together in stories that could be enjoyed on their own without having to worry about ongoing storylines in their own books.

The 17th issue (January 1974)--part 2 of the story being in issue #16--is actually slightly less random. T The previous issue had ended with Captain Marvel and the super-powerful Omega Gem both vanishing. Spider Man decides to check in with the smartest man in the world for help, which is a logical extention of the ongoing tale. 

Spidey does find Reed Richards at home, but Reed is in a bit of a funk. The FF had recently broken up and Sue & Reed are seperated, so its kind of understandable. But Spidey is able to pep-talk him into helping with the Captain Marvel problem. Reed quickly comes up with a way of tracing the power of the Omega Gem, which leads to the two heroes directly to Mole Man's subterranean empire.

They are immediately attacked by hordes of Moloids before being hit with a paralyzing gas. We soon find out that Reed expanded his lungs to ward off the effects of the gas while Peter simply held his breath, but pretending to be helpless gives Mole Man a chance to monologue and explain his evil plan.

The Omega Gem, with Marvel still inside it, teleported to the underworld, where it turned out to be just the thing Mole Man needs to power a laser cannon capable of ripping apart the surface world.

This explanation gives us a really cool Gil Kane splash page, though no explanation is ever give for why the gem teleports underground. Is it sentient and this was some sort of plan? Was it random? Writer Len Wein just asks us to accept what happened on face value and, to be fair, there probably wasn't much else he could do within this issue's page count. Besides, wasn't I just saying that randomness was one of the appealing features of team-up books? I shouldn't complain.

Reed and Spidey stop pretending to be helpless and begin to fight. Then, an unexpected "ally" shows up. Basilisk, still wanting the gem for himself, has followed Spider Man to the Baxter Building and then followed both heroes to the Earth's Core.

What follows is great fun. Basilisk and Mole Man fight, giving the heroes time to get to the gem and try to free Marvel. The villains realize what's going on and sort of team-up. Marvel adds to the action by (after hours of being able to only very slowly move his hands) touching his wrist bands together and thus trading places with Rick Jones. (For those who don't remember, the two men were linked together, with one having to be trapped in the negative zone while the other was free to act on Earth.)

Because Rick doesn't have Kree energy to syphon off, the gem shrinks back down to normal size again. In the meantime, Reed has sabotaged the laser, using it to cause nearby pits of magma to erupt. Basilisk is apparently killed. (Though, of course, he's not. He'll show up two years later in Marvel Team-Up #47.) The heroes try to save Mole Man, but he's also apparently killed. (Though, of course, he's not. He'll show up a year or so later in Hulk #189.) Nobody tries to save any of the poor Moloids. The heroes escape to the surface.

It's a fun story and a solid ending for the story begun last issue. Kane's art (especially that splash page) is great. If both issues depend a bit too much on villain monologues to provide exposition--well, that's such an established part of Comic Book Universes that I think we've all come to simply accept it. 

Next week, we'll start a three-part journey through DC's 1972 reprint book Wanted: The World's Most Dangerous Villains.