Visiting Hours at the Hospital are Hectic!

 

cover art by Ron Wilson

Marvel Two-in-One #21 ended with the villain Black Sun either dead or near-dead. The next issue (December 1976) begins by telling us that maybe there's a chance to save him, with Johnny technobabbling a way to use his heat to freeze Black Sun's body until they can rush him to the best doctor they know. That doctor happens to be Donald Blake.

Writer Bill Mantlo is stuck with a lot of exposition in this issue, but he still moves the story along relatively quickly, while Ron Wilson's art looks (as always) great. While Ben and Johnny are bringing Black Sun to the hospital, Donald Blake receives another visitor. This visitor really, really, really wants to see Blake (who is currently performing surgery) and if he has to kill a bunch of people to get to the doctor, well, by golly. that's just fine with him.

The guy reaching the operating room, but fortunately Blake has finished the surgery. He sends the rest of the OR team out of the room along with the patient, then transforms into Thor. A fight begins, with dialogue that tells us the bad guy is the Egyptian god of death Seth and that he's looking for vengeance because Thor had previously beaten him. (Since the title of this issue is "Touch Not the Hand of Seth," his identity isn't that much of a surprise.)

When Ben and Johnny arrives, Ben joins Thor in his fight. Seth responds by calling up an army of the dead.

That's the cliffhanger ending this issue. It's a pretty straightforward issue, so there's not a lot to add to what I mentioned above: The pacing is fast despite a fair amount of exposition and the art is great. It's a fun issue, entertaining in its own right while setting up the story for the next issue.

We'll look at that issue in two weeks. Next week, we'll return to the Green Lantern and see where he's at in his search for Sinestro.