Cross-Time Team-Up

 

cover art by Ron Wilson

In 1975, Marvel Comics was publishing a black-and-white magazine featuring the adventures of 1930s pulp hero Doc Savage. Marvel used this opportunity to bring the good Doc into the Marvel universe. He appeared in Giant-Size Spider Man #3, which I review HERE. 

That story, though entertaining, did not include Doc actually MEETING Spidey. It was essentially a two-part adventure, with half taking place in the 1930s and Spidey cleaning up loose ends in 1975. A year or so later, Marvel actually managed to get Doc and a couple of modern Marvel heroes into the same place and time. This is what transpires in Marvel Two-in-One #21 (November 1976), written by Bill Mantlo and with superb art by Ron Wilson.

As the story opens, Doc Savage and Ben Grimm are seperated by four decades. But each is experiencing parallel events. In 1976, Ben and Johnny are visited by Janice Lightner, who has concerns about her twin brother Tom. In 1936, Doc and his crew are visited by Janice's mom, who has concerns about her husband Raymond. 

I love the way the book handles the exposition. For several pages, the events of 1976 are shows in a right-hand column, while the near-parallel events of '36 are shown on the left.

Both ladies have pretty much the same problem. Raymond evented a device that can collect stellar energy, which he plans to infuse into his own body. In '76, Tom Lightner wants to continue his father's experiment and do the same thing.

When the heroes "simultaneously" arrive over the Lightner mansion in their own respective vehicles, both those vehicles are disintegrated and the timelines warp together. Ben, Johnny, Doc and Doc's crew are all suddenly in the same place.

Raymond and Tom have been drawn together across space and time, becoming a villain named Black Sun. There's a fight scene, in which the good guys are not doing well.

But Black Sun can't handle the amount of stellar energy being drawn into him and he falls unconscious. Time resets itself and Doc fades out to return to 1936, leaving behind an aggrevated Ben, who never got a chance to get his autograph.

I'm torn about this issue. The exposition is done in such a clever way that it's fun to read, but it takes up a huge chunk of the story. So the ensuing fight scene is very short and the good guys win by default without really doing anything effective, leaving us with an anti-climactic ending. This is a case where Mantlo and editor Archie Goodwin might have wanted to stretch the action out into another issue.

But this does lead into a story arc of sorts. Ben and Johnny promise to take Tom Lightner to the best doctor in the city--Don Blake. That leads to a two-part story guest-starring Thor. We'll begin a look at those issues in two weeks. Next week, we'll return to the Green Lantern and his search for Sinestro.