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Anyway, on to The Diabolical Duo Join Forces, a clumsy, clumsy title for a disappointingly lackluster story. Though it’s a Lackluster Lee/Kirby story so that means it’s still pretty friggin’ bonkers.

Anyway, the issue opens with the FF returning to their apartment headquarters (finally revealed the be the World Famous Baxter Building) in order to answer some fan-mail! Reed explains that the reason everyones costumes aren’t destroyed by their powers is because of the Unstable Molecules he invented, and Ben get’s some hatemail from the Yancy Street Gang. That’s three firsts in the same issue, heck almost the same page.

But the mood is immediately soured when Reed points out that, despite being superheroes, their first two Major Villains, Doctor Doom and Namor managed to get away from them, and who knows WHAT dastardly plans they could be up to now!

Which then cuts away to Namor frolicking with dolphins. Dude just needed some time to himself to get over the grief of seeing his civilization destroyed and he calmed right down. Sadly, that doesn’t last long, as Doctor Doom (still flying in his shark-helicopter) tracks him down and follows him to Atlantis.

Doom wants to team up with Namor since, out of everyone on Earth, Namor is the closest there is to a peer for him. Or at least Doom considers him the least farthest thing from a peer he could consider having. Anyway, Doom grants an impassioned speech about how tragic it is that Namor lived to see his entire civilization destroyed while he was suffering from amnesia and how its even more tragic that Namor isn’t devoting himself to destroying the surface world all the time in order to avenge it, and BOY OH BOY would it set the souls of his lost people to ease to know that the Fantastic Four (except Sue, of course) were dead and buried.

Dooms laying it on kinda thick, but it has the desired effect, as before you know it, Namor is 100% in Dooms camp, and Victor reveals the secret weapon he’s invented to kill the FF once and for all; a small, but absurdly powerful magnet called a Grabber.

The next day, Namor just walks up to the World Famous Baxter Building and demands to be let inside to meet the Fantastic Four in order to declare a truce between them all while declaring everyone on the street to be Peasants and fools and pretty much immediately marking him as the Namor we all know and love today. Well, some of us know and love.

…marking him as the Namor that is acknowledged, let’s say.

While the FF argues amongst themselves about whether or not to trust Namor, he plants the Grabber in the corner of the room and, after Reed accepts that they should at least try to trust him, it activates, and Doom uses its irresistible magnetic pull to rip the Baxter Building out of the ground and throw it into the sun!

Namor is, understandably, kind of cheesed off that to learn that he was just a disposable pawn in Dooms revenge plan, so he makes the truce he falsely declared official, and teams up with the FF to stop the rocket Doom was controlling the magnet from. Which is handy as the vacuum of space is much more inviting for someone with aquatic powers than it is for someone with the ability to control heat, stretch far, or Is Strong.

Namor tears apart Dooms rocket (after jumping straight up to it after leaping out of the Baxter Buildings pool like a dolphin), and kicks Doom out of the airlock, directly into a speeding meteor that carries him farther away from the Earth. A fate that, even by the spurious logic of silver age comics is pretty much As Dead As You Can Be. Then Namor reverses the Grabbers pull and settles the Baxter Building gently back into its foundation, before leaving, mentioning that he’s definitely going to try to kill everyone later.

And the entire population of New York collectively assumes that a building being ripped out of the ground by a Science Wizard, sent into space, and then gently replaced by the King of Atlantis was just the usual kind of stress-related mass hallucination you’ve come to expect from living in the Atomic Age, and go about their day. God, I love Marvel New Yorkers.

Next Time: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Smiling Stans Favorite Son

Folks, we’ve seen some pretty kickin’ rad/crazy-ass stuff in the first quarter of this series. We’ve seen redundant dinosaur armies, men made of bees and whatever kind of nonsense was going on in that Sunfire episode. But this one… hooooooboy.

Seven Little Superheroes
Written by Doug Booth

In which all at least one, perhaps, of your favorite superheroes battle the Chameleon, channeling both Dracula and Agatha Christie.

The episode opens with a shot of The Chameleons Haunted Castle in the Middle of a Lake during a thunderstorm (the best possible establishing shot) within which the Chameleon himself is speaking to nobody in particular about his nefarious plan to lure seven super heroes to his lair and kill them one-by-one in increasingly elaborate deathtraps. This is noteworthy because, for no reason at all, Chameleon speaks in rhyming couplets, and because while he is doing so he is executing little tiny statues of each of those super heroes with unrelated deathtraps. This ranges from shooting lightning at a little Namor doll, too opening a trap door beneath a Shanna the Jungle Queen so that it drops into a teeny tiny lava pit while cackling madly. Also, The Chameleon sounds like Mr. Slate from the Flintstones trying to sound like Dracula. He also changes his appearance to match the different heroes as he’s talking, just in case you weren’t quite able to guess what the Chameleons gimmick was from his name.

It is so beautifully nuts that this has become my new favorite Crazy-ass thing to happen in the first three minutes in the series.

Anyway, cutting away from the Haunted Castle and the Rhyming Dracula dressed like Cobra Commander to New York the Spider-Friends are… just running around pointlessly. Not even trying to justify it by saying they’re “on patrol” or talking about how web-swinging clears the ol’ head or anything. They’re just tearing ass through the city like a bunch of hyperactive toddlers.

The Chameleon apparently predicted this and left written invitations to his secret villain lair on WOLF ISLAND exactly where they happened to be wandering at the time. Spider-Mans invitation is upside down under an eave of a building where he stopped to catch his breath and everything.

Also, Iceman crashes into both Firestar and Spider-Man because he was reading the note while he was piloting his glacier through a crowded street instead of watching where he was going.

Dammit, Bobby.

Peter explains to Aunt May that they three of them have been invited to a Secret Get Together on WOLF ISLAND MANSION and she insists they take her dog, Ms. Lion, with them. Because Aunt May is old and kind of crazy.

Later, the Spider-Friends (and dog) arrive at Wolf Island Mansion and note that it looks exactly as you might expect a place called Wolf Island Mansion would. Iceman freezes the lake so they can all cross which causes Namor the Submariner to burst out of the water, call Iceman a damn fool and express his general displeasure that the mysterious summons to Wolf Island he received also included D-listers like the Spider-Friends, then he storms off to the mansion on his own.

Inside the mansion, the Spider-Friends meet the rest of the guests; Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme, Captain America: The Living Legend and Shanna the She-Devil who… nobody in the show knows about either (according to Wikipedia, she watched her father accidentally kill her mother with a gun when he was trying to shoot her mothers pet leopard, so she decided to become a conservationist and went all jungle-y to fight Poachers.) Then the Chameleon breaks in over the loud speaker to tell the assembled heroes that he is going to kill them one-by-one and give the audience a brief synopsis of each characters powers. Except Captain America, who he just calls a “super-fool”.

Namor doesn’t really want to bother with fighting the Chameleon, and he CERTAINLY doesn’t want to hang out with Iceman, so he decides to just leave, wherin it is revealed that the Chameleon has put a forcefield over Wolf Island because That
Is How
The Chameleon
Rolls

Namor yells at the force field a bit and then the Chameleon chimes in again to give another little short poem about how he’s going to kill everybody.

Seven Little Superheroes, in quite a fix.
One will meet fire, and then there will be six.

Since everyone now realizes that they have to fight the Chameleon they opt to do the reasonable thing and immediately split up. That makes sense when fighting a master of disguise, right? Anyway, the Submariner explores WOLF CASTLE a bit and finds an Olympic sized swimming pool in one of the rooms, and immediately goes for a swim in it. For those not familiar with the comics, Namors powers are fueled by continued exposure to water. But the swimming pool was a trap! A CRAZY ASS trap!

It wasn’t full of water, it was actually full alcohol, which dried up the Sub Mariner, and then a secret LIGHTNING CANNON built into the ceiling shot electricity into the pool setting it on fire!

HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS! THAT JUST HAPPENED!

On the rooftop, Spider-Man is checking around to see if the Chameleon is… just standing around up there, I guess. He isn’t, but he stumbled into another of the Chameleons traps by falling into the mansions chimney. It’s not the flashiest trap, but it hinges entirely on the fact that Spider-Man is awful at his job and thus, it works flawlessly. The Chameleon copies Spideys appearance and leaves him there in the chimney.

Meanwhile in the… jungle (?) Captain America has teamed up with Iceman, presumably because Iceman needs constant supervision. This was a wise decision since Iceman immediately steps into a trap, like, two seconds after Captain America tells him to be careful of the traps they were about to walk into. Cap tries to save him but trips a different trap that causes wooden spikes to rain from the trees (??).

Luckily, just then Spider-Man shows up and tells Cap to leap into a nearby pond because he’ll be safe there. Cap does so and WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT, it’s actually a pit of quicksand. Spider-Man makes a half-hearted attempt to save Cap with a webline, then runs away laughing when it fails. Somehow, during all of this, nobody thinks that Spider-Man might be the Chameleon in disguise, despite the fact that his eyes are glowing, and his voice has a spooky re verb and the fact that he just buried Captain America in Quicksand and laughed about it.

Though, to be fair, a lot of that can easily be chalked up to Spidey being bad at his job.

The Chameleons deception is revealed when Aunt Mays dog shows up right the hell out of nowhere and growls at him. Also, Firestar and Dr. Strange show up, realizing that the “Let’s Split Up” plan was awful. The Spider-Friends (and tagalongs) follow the dog back to the mansion where Spider-Man is just now climbing out of the chimney. Iceman freezes him solid on the spot thinking he’s the Chameleon again (who… just trapped himself, I guess? I don’t know, I don’t try to understand Icemans thought-processes) and then apologizing when he realizes he almost killed his friend. For the second time this afternoon.

Meanwhile, at the mountains (…how big is this island, seriously), Shanna is… wandering around when suddenly she falls into the next of the Chameleons traps when the entire mountain falls into a drain hole and I am not exactly sure at what I am looking at here. Anyway, Shannas dead. Whatever. Moving on.

The Spider-Friends run off to save Shanna after Dr. Strange gets a telepathic message that she’s in danger (just go with it) and they follow what appears to be Shanna but is actually Chameleon. The dog barks at him again and the Chameleon opens a tiny, dog-sized trapdoor underneath it before running into a cave network in the mountains that have not been flushed down the drain.

Firestar chases the Chameleon while everyone else busies themselves with the dog-rescue attempt. Seperateed from the group, Firestar is beaten when Chameleon opens all the caves secret Liquid Nitrogen vents which is pretty lame compared to every other trap he’s used so far, I have to admit, and dumps her into an empty room.

Chameleon, after changing into Firestar sends a giant robot cyclops after Dr. Strange. The remaining Spider-Friends realize that Firestar is Chameleon in disguise when she does not immediately start setting the robot on fire, but by then it’s too late and the cyclops eats Dr. Strange. Also, Shanna turns up alive after surviving “somehow”. They all chase the Chameleon but Shanna falls down a lava shaft in the middle of the pursuit. I’m not really sure why she even bothered to survive the first trap.

This alos means that Spider-Man and Iceman are the only superheroes left. Lordy. Lordy. Lordy.

Iceman immediately tries to break the forcefield, presumably so he can leave and go get some DECENT superheroes to pal around with, and gets shot by a Heatray for his troubles and tossed into a room adjacent to the one that Firestar was being held in.

Firestar wakes up from her gassing and does what she does best, which causes Iceman to think that the Chameleons plan was to boil HIM. So he cranks up his ice powers to cancel them out, which starts to freeze Firestar again.

Holding back the snark, that’s actually a pretty good plan for Chameleon. The back-and-forth goes on until the temperature changes burst the water-pipes over Firestars room, flooding her and tearing down the wall. Iceman sees his mistake and gets a floor-mounted blowtorch in the face.

Spider-Man starts wandering Wolf Castle trying to find ANY of his friends and falls into YET ANOTHER trap door landing in the web of a giant robot spider. Spidey destroys the robot with an exposed electrical cord and the explosion tears down the wall where the rest of the shows special guest stars are being held prisoner; Iceman in a cage of fire, Namor under a sunlamp, Firestar encased in ice and everyone else in a cage that I THINK was supposed to be electrified, but wasn’t because nobody bothered to animate that part.

Chameleon takes this time to start the islands Self Destruct and goes off to leave in his custom-built Helicopter that says “THE CHAMELEON” in bright red letters. Spidey frees his friends (and Iceman) and Dr. Strange teleports everyone to the roof. I have no idea why he didn’t think to do that earlier, would have saved everyone a lot of grief.

Iceman freezes the helicopter in midair, the rest of the superheroes board it, and Aunt Mays dog out runs a fireball and then everyone laughs because the episode is over. Presumably the Chameleon is hauled off to jail.

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A big part of the appeal of reading old comics like I’ve been doing with these threads, is seeing how characters have evolved over time. I’ve already pointed out how shocking it is to see Ben be a violent monster, when I’m used to him being a lovable grump, and Sue being a simpering doormat instead of The Best Mom Ever. But sometimes… sometimes a character is established right from the get-go. Sometimes, you learn everything you could possibly ever need to know about a character from the first panel.

And this is the very first thing we see when the Fantastic Four become The Prisoners of Doctor Doom!

It opens with a wizard wearing robot armor, surrounded by magical tomes, and a cutom chess set of the FF, created solely so that Doctor Doom, who speaks in the third person and brags about how great he is, can illustrate how they are naught but pawns to him.

Except for the vulture, if this panel showed up in a comic that came out this week, I would see nothing remotely unusual about any of this.

Anyway, one day, a typical, increasingly violent squabble between Ben and Johnny is interrupted by a giant shark-shaped helicopter appearing above the World Famous Baxter Building (still as-yet unnamed), which drops a bomb that covers the entire building in an electrified, fireproof spider-web. Which, understandably, surprises three quarters of the Fantastic Four.

Reed reacts with a somewhat bemused “Oh right, that guy.”, and then explains that, back in college, his roommate was a guy named Victor Von Doom, one of the greatest scientific minds of all time, and an aspiring evil wizard, who was expelled after one of his experiments backfired and left him scarred. And Doom always blamed Reed for the experiments failure and vowed revenge.

Then just plum forgot alllll about him until just now.

Anyway, Doom takes Sue hostage, so the rest of the FF will listen to his demands; first he’s going to take them back to his castle of Doomstadt in Latveria (well, “Doctor Dooms Castle”, and “Far away”, at least), and then he’s going to use a time machine he invented to force Ben, Johnny and Reed to travel back to pirate-times and steal Blackbeards Treasure Chest. Or else he will resume having successfully kidnapped Sue Storm!

And before anyone can say “Wait, you invented a WHAT?”, Doom presses a button on his throne (of course Doom has a throne), and the Fantastic 3/4ths immediately find themselves in THE AGE OF PIRATES! Where Reed immediately beats up a couple of scurvy sea-dogs and steals their clothes, as giant blue onesies with a big 4 are pretty conspicuous even in 1960s New York, let alone The Age of Pirates.

The threes investigation into the whereabouts of Blackbeard, and his fabulous chest, doesn’t go well, as their first instinct is to go to a bar and accept the first drink offered to them by weird, creepy old sea-thieves sitting in a shadowy corner, and are drugged and wake up in the cargo hold of a pirate ship.

This crew of pirates, however, are only used to fighting European merchants and occasionally one another, and not superheroes, so they get beat up REAL bad pretty quickly, and immediately appoint Ben their captain so he’ll stop clobbering them.

And to prove his pirate credentials, Ben also immediately leads them into a victorious raid on another pirate ship, where he steals enough treasure for the whole crew, leading them to praise him father, and give him the nickname of Black Beard (because of his disguise).

Ben briefly considers staying behind in Pirate Times as he’s a respected historical figure, as opposed to a furious rock monster who has a dehumanizing nickname, but the choice is kind of taken away from him because Doctor Dooms time machine wears off and the group are sent back to the present. Also, a tornado struck the ship and blew the treasure to the bottom of the sea. And also presumably killed the crew.

Back in the present, Doom is initially overjoyed to get Blackbeards treasure, as it contains some magical gems that would make him all powerful, only for Reed to reveal that Doom never said anything about bringing home the treasure, only the chest, so he dumped it all out and brought home the box. Doom is, understandably, flustered at RIIIICHARRDSSSS’ actions, so he decides to just suck all the air out of the castle and murder everyone inside it.

FOrtunately, he forgot about Sue (everyone forgets about Sue), so she turns invisible and, finding Doomstadts control room, reactivates the air and disables the traps in the castle. A brief fight breaks out where Ben punches Doom to pieces, revealing him to have been a robot all along (right from the getgo, we have Doombots to blame for Dooms failures). While the real Doom flies away on a jetpack, with Johnny too exhausted to pursue.

Johnny DOES burn the castle to the ground in the attempt, and also manages to turn the moat around the castle to glass by heating it up enough which… is not how fire works.

Next Time: Playing to Our Strengths

Smiling Stans Favorite Son

SWARM!
Written by Dennis Marks

In which the Spider-Friends do not battle the actual Spider-man villain named, Swarm, because an Evil Nazi Scientist made out of Evil Nazi Bees would be straining credibility, even by this shows standards.

The episode opens with Stan “The Man” Lee narrating about how cool outer space is! HELL YES! This is already my favorite episode! While The Smilin’ Man is going on and on about how Outer Space is both COOL AS HELL and full of Incomprehensible Evil, a meteor that the camera is tracking crashes into a farmyard. A farm, that borders the observatory where the Spider-Friends are on a College-approved Field Trip, no less, under the keen tutelage of some Sciencey-joe named Professor Wells.

The rest of Peteres classmates are pretty non-plussed since the meteor hasn’t landed to anywhere within miles of anything, but Firestar opts to change into her costume and save the day from the peril of her not setting anything on fire within the first three minutes of airtime.

She warns a plane away from the impact zone of the meteor by flying up to the pilots and waving them away (the pilots are pretty non-plussed by this, but considering how Firestar is saving a plane this way an average of once an episode, I guess it’s standard training procedure.) and she gets a face full of meteor for her trouble.

At the impact zone, the meteor has hatched into a blue gas that hypnotizes bees from miles around that all join together into a giant Man Made out Of Bees that starts yelling “SWARM!”. This is FAR less silly then the comics version of Swarm.

Upon seeing a ten-foot tall man-shaped Bee swarm rise out of a meteor containing an unearthly glow, the Farmer who owns the land throws his pitch fork at Swarm and yells “Get your Bees out of here, Mister!”. Which works every bit as well as you might expect. Swarm shoots eye-beams at the farmer who promptly turns into a giant bee-man, then shoots eyebeams at the bee-hive that originally spawned Swarm and made it grow huge.

Seeing Swarm appear, then turning a farmer into a Bee-Man, then turning a Bee-Hive into a building while laughing evilly was all the convincing that Firestar needed that she has a supervillain to fight, so, expectedly, she tries to set Swarm on fire. Unexpectedly this plan totally fails and Swarm overpowers her, and she returns to the Observatory knowing that she doesn’t have a chance against Swarm on her own, she’ll need help from Spider-Man and Iceman.

Which I believe qualifies as being this episodes single dumbest decision from any given Spider-Friend, but I digress.

Back at the Observatory, Peter is using his webshooters to screw with Flash Thompson, and, upon hearing that trouble is afoot, he immediately runs home. Iceman was napping.

Since Firestar put more emphasis on finding her useless, useless team mates then warning anybody, at all, about the whole alien bee-monster thing, the rest of their classmates immediately head to the Meteor where Swarm wastes no time in turning the entire class into more Bee-People.

Firestar shows up again to take another shot at fighting Swarm on her own and, again, her fire atttacks prove to be totally ineffective against the bugs. Thus proving Pokemon wrong. Despite the fact that it was winning handily, Swarm decides to call in reinforcements out of regular, common bees. He shoots eye-lasers at the bees which causes them all to grow Gigantic, and Swarm then sends all the Now Giant bees out to kidnap everyone in New York and turn them into YET MORE Bee-people.

Spidey and Iceman fight off a couple of bees before making theirt way to Swarm. Swarm asks that the Spider-Friends join his Hive and let it grow to consume the planet, and SPidey shoots back that Human Beings have individual minds, not like Insects, and Swarm and the Bee-people all start shooting eyelasers at him. Possibly because that was pretty racist from a Space-Bee standpoint.

Anyway, Firestar and Iceman both get hit right away and turn into Bee People (and also adding flight and Bee-centric Eye-lasers to their existing power sets) but Spider-Man does not, because he already has bug-based superpowers. Really, that’s the explanation given. Spider trumps bee.

Realizing that now the entire world is counting on him to save the day, Spider-Man immediately steals a car and runs away, rationalizing that Swarm must be radioactive, and that if he can shield the radioactivity away from him, then everyone will stop being Bees.

Spidey drives to the University Physics Lab to get some Lab but, because he did not bother to STOP driving his stolen car when he go to the building, instead opting to drive THROUGH the hall, he immediately loses control and drives out through the window, where the stolen car crashes into a flaming wreck in the middle of the football field.

Spider-Man is a hero, and he will save us all.

Spidey escapes the flaming wreck and tricks Firestar and Iceman into following him into a lead-lined room and, against all odds, his “I bet Lead cures Space-Bees!” plan works and they go back to being human. Well, Mutant. Whatever.

Back at the Hive, which has now grown to dwarf most of the surrounding area, the Spider-Friends concoct a plan of wearing contact lenses and fake antenna to disguise the fact that they are NOT bee-people any more so they can sneak into the impact site and steal the meteor that created Swarm. This plan works perfectly despite the fact that Spidey wasn’t wearing wings as part of his disguise and he wasn’t chanting Swarms name.

Firestar takes the Meteor back to the observatory while Spidey and Iceman fight Swarm. A fight which consists of them running away and leading Swarm and his… swarm directly to that same observatory. Not without Iceman knocking down a wall for no reason first.

Firestar has loaded the meteor into a rocket that the observatory has for some reason and, after starting a brushfire to distract Swarm, shoots it back into outer space.

With the meteor back in outer space, the energy holding Swarm together dissipates and he resumes just being regular bees, the Hive shrinks back down to being bee-hize sized and all the Bee-People go back to being regular people.

And so, everyone is happy. Except the guy whose car Spider-Man stole and wrecked. And whoever owned the observatory which was demolished by space-Bees and set on fire.

Join us next time as we see a veritable WHO’S WHO of Marvel super heroes.

Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine

Oh dang, we’re about to establish us a Marvel Universe, Y’all! And get to enjoy our heroes standing on some seriously shaky ethical ground. All this… and MORE in The Coming of the Sub-Mariner

Picking up where the last issue left off, the remaining Fantastic Three briefly recap the to one another that Johnny, fed up with The Things short temper and constant attempts to murder him (a legitimate gripe), has abandoned the Fantastic Four forever. And they also figure that they’re not nearly as effective a superhero team without him, so they mount a city-wide search for the youth. Which consists of Sue just wandering the city while invisible, looking for him (and periodically freaking people out by drinking sodas), Reed grabbing people off motorcycles and asking them if they’ve seen anyone with unusual abilities, and Ben bursting into the garage that Johnny spends most of his free time at, fixing up hot rods.

Awww, they fight a lot, but Bens the only guy who gets him.

Unfortunately, the reason they fight a lot is because (back then) Ben had a hair-trigger temper and is as strong as a dozen bulldozers, and it looks very much like Ben is going to murder Johnny wielding a car like a club, knowing that Johnny can’t fight back because of all the gas and oil in the garage.

Aunt Petunias fav’rite nephew has… quite a ways to go to being the Lovable Grump we know today.

Johnny, again, pretty understandably, doesn’t want to be near Ben at all, so he flees the garage (yelling “FLAME ON” while using his powers for the first time), runs off to a homeless shelter, where he finds a bunch of residents hassling am amnesiac, delirious man, and he calms the (increasingly violent) crowd down by explaining that the delirious homeless man just needs a haircut to become sane again (look, it was the 60s, we didn’t have a good handle on mental health solutions back then), and offers to help by burning the mans beard off by turning his hand into a blowtorch.

And upon realizing that the clean-shaven homeless man looks weirdly similar to Namor: The Sub-Mariner (who Johnny knew about from stories Sue used to tell him, and also, presumably, from History classes), Johnny decides that the bset thing to do would be to toss him into the Ocean, figuring that being exposed to water would jar his memory and cure his amnesia. Or, if it’s not Namor, drown him. You know, whichever.

For those not “in the know”, Namor is basically exactly Aquaman, rightful heir to the throne of Atlantis, half human on their fathers side, able to replicate fish-traits and communicate with sea-life. Key difference is that Aquaman has a shirt and pants, as opposed to tiny shorts and sometimes a vest.

Fortunately-(ish), Johnny Storm did not drown a homeless man on the grounds that he looked pretty similar to a superhero nobody had seen in twenty years; the sea water revived the homeless man who WAS, as it turns out, Prince Namor the Sub-Mariner. And he quickly swims off to Atlantis to be reunited with his people… only to find the city is a radioactive ruin, completely abandoned by the leaderless Atlanteans. And he immediately declares war on the human race, and swims off to find the Horn of Atlantis, a mystic trumpet that can summon and control the gargantuan amphibious monster; GIGANTO, which he then unleashes upon New York! All within, like, four panels. It’s VERY concise storytelling.

All the while, Johnny is still standing on the Shoreline, incidentally, thinking “Hmm, hope I didn’t just kill an innocent man for no reason”.

Anyway, Johnny quickly realizes he made a terrible mistake (in fleeing from an abusive home…) and summons the rest of the Fantastic FOur to help deal with the mile-tall whale-monster about to attack the city. Regular weapons can’t penetrate Gigantos hide, so Ben steals an atomic warhead (from where?!?) and opts to hop down the monsters throat and detonate it near its heart. He also deals with some shipwrecks inside Gigantos stomach, as well as some giant bug monsters, because Jack thought this issue wasn’t cramming quite enough stuff), which injures Giganto badly enough to knock it out, but not enough to kill it.

Namor isn’t fazed, and is about to use the Horn of Atlantis to just summon some more giant monsters, enough to bring humanity back to the stone age with the havoc they wreak (dollars to donuts, this is because Jack wanted to draw cavemen hiding from sea monsters), when he sees Sue, and immediately falls in love; promising to stop his war on humanity if she marries him.

She’s about to agree, since her happiness isn’t worth the lives of the entire human race, when Johnny intercedes, by flying around Namor and Giganto fast enough to create a vortex that flings the two of them clear across the planet, losing the Horn of Atlantis in the process. Namor vows revenge/marriage on the Fantastic Four/Sue, and Johnny rejoins the team.

Awwww.

Next time: The secret true history of Blackbeard the Pirate!

Smiling Stans Favorite Son!

SunFire
Written by Christy Marx

Featuring Sunfire, nobody’s favorite former X-Man, and a profound lack of knowledge on how fire works from any member of the shows writing staff.

The episode opens with Iceman watching a meteor shower and noticing that one one of the meteors is about to hit New York. You’d think that some astronomer somewhere in the world would have already noticed that weeks ago and let, like, Reed Richards know about it or something. Anyway, the news that the city is about to be destroyed causes Firestar to suit up and immediately save the day, since she’s the only Spider-Friend that takes her job seriously. She does so by setting the meteor on fire. Since when all you have are fire-powers, every problem is something combustible.

Rather then, like, explode the meteor or anything like that, she increases the meteors heat until the rock grows wings and then steers it out over the East River and explodes it there. I… what? We’re two minutes and change into the episode, including the title credits and we’ve already hit the Craziest Damn Thing Firestar has Ever Done threshold.

Firestars…. completely inexplicable superheroics do not go unnoticed in Japan by Shirow Yoshida, the OTHER Fire-based mutant hero, Sunfire, or his Sinister Uncle who lounges around his Supervillain Base in Samurai Armor, flanked by Robot Minions.

It should be noted that Sunfire has no idea that his uncle is actually a bad guy at this point.

Uncle Badguy demands that Sunfire go and kidnap Firestar so they can use their combined Fire-powers to power up a perpetual energy machine. After Sunfire leaves, Bad Uncle reveals to… his robots… that his real plan is to use their combined fire powers to revive a giant fire monster he has sleeping in his basement.

Meanwhile, back in New York, the Spider-Friends are attending a carnival. Firestar and Iceman use their powers with Great Responsibility to screw with park goers while Peter fails utterly to win a stuffed bear for Aunt May. Exhausted from watching Peters repeated failures to do anything right, and she opts to go have a nap on the first seat she sees. Seriously, she’s in her jammies and everything.

Naturally, the first chair she finds is inside a helicopter which promptly takes off with a sleeping old lady in the front seat (…) and then, because in comic books, Helicopters have a 100% crash rate, it starts to crash. Firestar leaps to the action, and tries to save the helicopter by… well… setting it on fire.

The damnest part of it is that this plan works perfectly. Sunfire, who was showing off his Robot Minions to carnival goers, shows up to help Firestar by… also setting the helicopter on fire and restarting the stalled rotors with yet more fire.

Fire… is pretty magical, guys.

Iceman recognizes Sunfire from his X-Men days. Firestar invites Sunfire to dinner, which causes Peter and Iceman to immeidatly go out of their way to try to upstage him and impress her. These plans fail since in addition to being a powerful mutant with flight and heat-generating powers, Sunfire is also a master of Akido and knows how to pronounce dog breeds.

Sunfire is summoned back to his nice old uncles Supervillain Base and Firestar tags along. While Sunfire goes off to meet his uncle, she turns on a TV and promptly gets attacked by Robot Samurai for her troubles.

This is a TERRIBLE first date by any standard.

She incinerates the robot before Sunfire can return and their secret identities are kept safe. Not VERY safe, since there’s a robot who has been melted to slag by her feet, but if Sunfire can overlook that, so can we all.

Back at the Apartment, Firestar is wistfully looking out the window thinking of Sunfire, and Sunfire, still trying to kidnap Firestar has opted to turn to Sky-writing to get his message out. Which works perfectly.

Their second date (which, as far as Sunfire knows, is their first) works better and they have a romantic evening of saving planes by setting them on fire. Meanwhile, Spidey and Ice-Man decide to check out Sunfires Uncles factory under no assumptions of him being a super-villain and under every assumption that Sunfire is making time with their lady-pal! They immediately get captured by Uncle Bads Samurai Robots because… this is Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and nobody is good at being a Superhero. Iceman gets away from the Robots and leaves Spider-Man behind because he is an even worse superhero then Spidey.

On his way out, Iceman runs across Sunfire, who has finished his date and wanted to tell BAD UNCLE that his plan to woo fair-lady Firestar is going off without a hitch.

And he also immediately sets Iceman on fire. Automatically making him my favorite character in the show. While the two of them are busy fighting, BAD UNCLE slips a Mind-Control Hat on Icemans head which makes him pass out.

Firestar is juuuuust about to agree to help BAD UNCLE with his Perpetual Energy Fire Monster plan when one of the Robot Minions decides to take over the large TV screen and announce that Spider-Man and Iceman are still unconscious, and Firestar then decides that she has to save the day again. While she starts Flaming On, Sunfire does too and that was the Firemonster needed to wake up.

Sunfire FINALLY realizes that BAD UNCLE is a bad guy and goes ahead and beats up some Robot Samuroids and frees Spidey and Iceman so they can all fight the giant fire monster. Which BAD UNCLE is controlling with an Atari joystick, while shouting “DESTROY! EXPLODE!” into its ear using a jetpack.

I love you, Bad Uncle!

The Fires, Sun and Star, bemoan the fact that the monster stole their powers and Spidey has the brilliant idea of using the leftover energy from the Reactor “It’ll refuel your powers for sure! If it doesn’t Kill you first!”. He says that second part with a lot more menace then was really needed. Luckily, it works perfectly and nobody dies. Then everyone fights more robots because… there was still a few more minutes to fill for the episode. Mostly using the same animation from the last time it happened.

Back outside, the Spider-Friends decide its time to fight the Fire Monster by having the Fire-twins create huge flaming tornados in the river which suck up all the water and then throwing all that water at the monster and I’m not even sure if using fire as a channel for moving water is even the stupidest thing I’ve seen so far in this episode.

With the monster defeated, Bad Uncle is rounded up by the police and sent to a Crime Hospital to cure his being crazy. Sunfire goes with him and so, Firestar resumes being a swinging single.

And so the day is saved, and the only ones hurt were the thousands of people in New York city who were either crushed or set on fire by the monster. A heroic end, to a heroic day.

Fantastic Four Recap

Another major milestone issue, except this time with a villain who I don’t think ever even showed up again (Wikipedia confirms he did, but barely has enough appearances to count as a recurring villain); The Menace of the Miracle Man (no relation to the time Alan Moore thought he was making a deep statement by making Captain Marvel an asshole).

The issue opens up with the FF enjoying a strangely caustic stage magic show hosted by… The Miracle Man, a combination of David Blaine, Don Rickels and Count Dracula. And whose act apparently consists of finding the most famous person in the audience and threatening and insulting them to the point where I think it’s legally permissible to punch him. He also invites Ben up on the stage and taunts him personally showing off how weak The Things strength is compared to WIZARD POWER. He also forces Ben to shed his disguise, and this is back when he was ashamed of being a rockman, so that’s just flat rude.

Also, Jacks started drawing Ben as a rockman now, as opposed to some kind of giant walking callous, and Stans softened up his speech, talking in a much more casual, contraction-rich way. He’s still quite a ways away from The Platonic Ideal of Benjamin J. Grimm (idol o’ millions), but he’s made his first steps on that path.

As they leave the show (in the first sppearance of the Fantasticar, usiing its original bathtub-design), Reed mentions that he’s glad that The Miracle Man is just a gigantic asshole, and not a criminal, because someone that good at stage magic would be an unbeatable foe. And the words aren’t out of his mouth before we cut to MMs dressing room where he proudly announces (to nobody) that now that he’s embarrassed the Fantastic Four in front of a paying audience, the time has come for him to become a criminal!

But just before he does, we cut back to the World Famous Baxter Building (still not named as such, but confirmed to be half an apartment building that Reed leases out, and which is full of advanced research and crime-fighting technology. And also a single ICBM. You know… just in case.), and find out what Sues been doing in her spare time; stitching together specialized for the FF, because if you’re going to be a crime fighter, you gotta have costumes.

She has no problem making costumes suitable for herself, Reed, Johnnys individual powers but her outfit for Ben is immediately shredded by his weird anatomy. And this is long before “Unstable Molecules” were the explanation for superhero costumes, so she did this all by hand… so… damn, that’s crazy-impressive.

Anyway, at around this time, Miracle Man puts the first phase of his master plan (which really just seems to be “General Mayhem”) into motion by bringing a giant monster marquess outside a theater to life, and having it go on a rampage through the city, and eventually attack an army base on the outskirts of town.

The FF are called in but aren’t able to destroy the monster until after it manages to steal an Atomic Tank for Miracle Man. The Soldiers on the base also mistake Johnny for a second monster, and hose him down with fire retardant foam, which is really more embarrassing than harmful. And during the fight, Sue (being invisible) follows the Miracle Man back to his hideout; a crappy junkyard.

Hey, this issue is finally giving Sue stuff to do!

Her subterfuge doesn’t last long, however, when Miracle Mans dog starts barking at her (“A dog would never growl at nothing” thinks Miracle Man, a guy who has never met a dog). ANd relaizing that “Hard to see” is not the best super power to bring to the table against a Wizardly Demigod, Sue calls the rest of the FF for help with her personal flaregun that shoots giant flaming 4s into the sky (it causes less of a panic this time). Also Miracle Man hypnotized her, so maybe it wasn’t just self preservation. Honestly hard to say.

Anyway, the rest of the FF shows up and a fight breaks out (Miracle Man disguises a machine gun as an oversized key, and I’m just left to wonder why…) that eventually becomes a high speed chase, between Miracle Man in an atomic tank and Reed Richards in a busted up old race car, that ends when Johnny flies out ahead and blinds Miracle Man with a brilliant flash of light. Which also robs him of his powers since, as Reed explains (absurdly); if Miracle Man were a real wizard (or Miracle Man, as the book keeps insisting is the proper terminology) he wouldn’t have bothered with a machine gun or running away or anything; no he was just a world-class master hypnotist, capable of putting a whammy on an entire city. And not someone with super-human abilities. And since he’s blind now, he can’t hypnotize anyone.

See, it’s all science, not miracle.

And that would be the end of it, except that Ben and Johnny then get into an argument about who gets the credit for ctaching Miracle Man, a continuation of their argument earlier in the issue that ultimately proves to be too much for Johnny, and he quits the Fantastic Four!

COULD THIS BE THE END OF OUR HEROES?

Smilin’ Stans Favorite Son!

The Fantastic Mr. Frump
Written by Christy Marx

In which the Spider-Friends battle one of the most unstoppably powerful foes the Marvel Universe has ever seen, and also Dr. Doom shows up.

The episode opens with Dr. Doom performing what passes for an Evil Magical Rite on a Childrens Program form the early 80s on the top of the Haunted Mansion he built to serve as the Latverian Embassy in the middle of New York City. Which should tell you everything you need to know right away about Dr. Doom, in case you were not familiar with the man or his works. He stands on top of his Haunted Mansion for a bit and shoots at clouds and tells his assistant, Boris, to go fetch him a magical amulet that will grant Doom the POWER OF THE UNIVERSE. Boris, incidentally, is Dr. Dooms butler, and he dresses pretty much exactly like a Nineteenth Century European Aristocrat. He’s great.

Boris goes right ahead and steals that amulet without any fuss whatsoever, from the Dinosaur Exhibit at the Natural History Museum (?). The Spider-Friends didn’t show up at all save for Aunt May yelling at them to bring an umbrella.

Meanwhile, while Dr. Doom has been busy granting himself the POWER OF THE UNIVERSE, the Spider-Friends were at a Basketball game and are on their way home, just in time to meet the episodes true villain; Mr. Frump after he has been fired. And fired so badly that his former employer had picked him up and literally thrown him out the door. Peter recognizes Frump from when he used to run errands for Aunt May and then gives a half-hearted apology that he lost his job, and Firestar perkily says that she’s sure his luck will turn around soon.

Sure would be wacky if Doom acquiring All The Power of The Universe had any impact on Mr. Frumps poor fortune, huh.

The Spider-Friends then decide to race back home and change into their costumes in the middle of the street, mainly because they don’t give a flat-damn about keeping their identities secret, and Spidey barely go two feet before realizing that Dr. Doom is doing… something… and opt to fight him instead.

I mean, yes, he was doing something evil, but he didn’t know that before clobbering him. Seriously, Spider-Man straight up says “I don’t know what he’s doing, but anything Doom’s doing is worth UNdoing!”. then knocking him off the roof. I’m deducting a point just for jumping to conclusions, you dink

Surprisingly absolutely nobody, Doom drops the amulet off the roof and it lands right on Mr. Frump, granting the mopey old sad-sack All the Power of the Universe.

At this point, Iceman and Firestar both realize that Spider-Man has been out of sight for more then eight seconds, so he’s probably getting beaten up, so they rush off to find him and help fight Dr. Doom. Where they are promptly beaten senseless. DOOM does not care how dangerous his opponents are, he brings his A-Game to all his battles.

Frump, meanwhile, applies for another job and, when he tells his prospective employer to “Bug Off” he is slightly surprised to see the guy suddently turn into a beetle, and when he tells some annoying children to “go jump in a lake”, they promptly attempt to drown themselves. Momma Frump didn’t raise no fools, and he soon realizes that he is The Most Powerful Being in the Universe.

It should also be noted that after nearly murdering two children, and turning a man into an insect, he began to sneer with malice. And then manipulate the universe itself into giving him a free hot dog.

Back at the Doom fight, Doom has beaten Iceman with heatrays and freezes himself when Firestar does what she does best and SETS HIM ON FIRE. Seriously, watching Doom fight is like trying to win an “who would win in a fight” arguement with a seven year old.

Frumps still going around making his every whim come true (he went from “Hot Dog, please” to “GILDED CARRIAGE WITH MIGHTY STALLIONS” in one-wish flat) and then requests someone who would actually be his friend (it was a kitty named “Mabel”).

Aww, it would be sweet if he hadn’t just killed several people with petty insults.

Back at the HAUNTED MANSION, the astoundingly one-sided fight between Dr. Doom and several nincompoops is halted when Doom notices that the dramatic thunderstorm they were fighting in has suddenly become a land of Pretty Clouds and Rainbows and realizes that the Powers of the Universe have gone to some shmoe, and leaves the Spider-Friends alone for the moment. But not before using his armors weapons to incinerate some of the nice carpet that was replacing the sidewalks.

Frump has really weird tastes.

Finding Frump (or Frump summoned him, its not really clear which), Doom immediately starts toadying up to Lord Frump (as he now insists on being called), which means that Frump would feel obligated to use ALL THE POWER OF THE UNIVERSE to help Doom because he is a nice old man at this moment. And he opts to use his Cosmic Powers to summon up the Spider-Friends and kill them nice and proper for his new friend. Which he proceeds to do, and Frump and Doom share a hearty laugh.

Frump then decides to conjure forth Aunt May, since she was the only (non-cat) living thing to ever be nice to him. She is understandably upset to have been suddenly teleported across town and made witness to three dead Superheroes and a laughing wizard in Science-armor, so Frump revives them to make her happy. And takes away their powers, to make Doom happy. Also, despite lacking super-powers, Iceman is still a man made of ice and Spider-Mans webshooters stopped working despite there not being anything super about them.

Also, Frump has again upgraded his title to Lord Frump: Master of the Universe.

Frump also starts wishing for increasingly pointless things, like “All the Money in the World” and “a Super-Duper TV set” before Doom snaps at him and insists that he build a Colosseum so he could force the Spider-Friends to fight mythological creatures for his amusement.

Doom is a man with high ambitions.

After setting Genghis Khan, a Cyclops and Cerberus on fire frump gets bored and summons up the Weirdest Thing in the Universe, which is some kind of Lovecraftian monster mostly made up of tentacles. Aunt May reacts POORLY to being forced to watch while a Shuggoth eats the Spider-Friends and points out that Lord Frump: Master of the Universe is kind of a dick. Frump decides to set her mind to ease by turning into “Wonderfrump: The Most Powerful Superhero in the World” who promptly defeats the alien and then whisks Aunt May off to the sky.

Doom politely points out to the Spider-Friends that Frumps gone nuts and they should put their differences aside to save the world from him. The Spider-Friends agree because… it’s not like they’ve been doing so well up until now.

Doom tricks Frump into reversing the amulets magic away from Frump and into himself. Because the spell took a couple minutes to kick in, the Spider-Friends break the amulet again denying Doom All the Power of the Universe and turning Frump back into an unemployed sadsack and all the people Frump accidentally killed are back to life and everyone forgets the whole thing happened.

A Happy Ending for Everyone!

Fantastic Four Recap

Important world-building abounds in THE SKRULLS FROM OUTER SPACE!

Where we first learn that, ever since defeating (well, running away from) The Moleman in the last issue, the Fantastic Four have already become world famous superheroes. Which makes it very strange when suddenly the Fantastic FOur have turned criminal! The Thing demolishes an oil rig, Sue becomes a world-class jewel thief, Johnny melts down priceless works of art, and Reed causes a city-wide black out. Issue 2 seems like it’s a bit early to make a “Everyone is acting out of character” issue, especially before any of these people have characterization, but the explanation is quickly revealed, it wasn’t the Worlds Greatest Superhero Team commiting these crimes, it was a squad of alien spies; The Skrulls!

Like the Moleman before them, the Skrulls gradually became more and more sympathetic as the years wore on; they typically wind up taking the brunt of any cosmic disaster, and their species is nearly extinct. They just want to live on Earth because its one of the few planets that can safely support them. That being said they’re still jerks, and had enough of a history of being jerks that they don’t have too many friends anywhere in the galaxy. And it’s a fair few years before anything particularly tragic happens to them, so they’re just evil spies here. And also idiots.

The Skrull spies explain… to one another… that they’re shape-shifting aliens with advanced technology, so mimicking the FF is easy-peasy, and once the only super-powered being on Earth are safely in jail for crimes they didn’t commit, the Skrull invasion of Earth can begin. A plan that works wonderfully, as the army immediately finds and arrests the FF in a hunting lodge Reed has in upstate New York.

Just before that, we have the first of what would be endless arguments among the FF, with Ben calling out Johnny for being a Hothead, and also Reed for making him a monster, and Reed feeling bad and blaming himself for the cosmic ray bombardment.

And then they get arrested and thrown into specialized jail cells designed to hold super-powered people. Which they all break out of lickety split. Well, Reed, Ben and Johnny got specialized rooms designed to counteract their abilities that failed because the army underestimated how powerful they were. Sue was just put into a nicely furnished apartment building that she could just walk out of.

Reed figures that the best way to lure out the impostor FF is to act like criminals themselves, and hope that the actual criminals get confused. A plan that works beautifully, and which leads to Johnny Storm, hero and idol to millions of teens, wrecking a NASA rocket launch (Hopefully it wasn’t the Apollo mission…) and which leads the Skrulls to miscount how many spies the had on Earth (I assume) and take him back to their lair).

The rest of the FF follows and a fight breaks out (Sue is less proactive than she appears on the cover, simply tripping a Skrull that was running past), that ends with the Skrulls captive, and terrified. And Reed gets an idea of how to drive off the invasion; he poses as one of the Skrull spies and travels to the mothership, where he declares the Earth to be un-invadeable; by showing the Skrull invasion leader issues of other Marvel comics.

Which establishes that there is a Marvel Comics within Marvel Comics, except that the fictional one presents dramatized accounts of stories ripped from the headlines. Which is quite possibly my single favorite piece of world building in the whole of the MCU (the other two is the existence of Damage Control, the insurance company that exists solely to handle superpower-related damage claim)

Reed convinces the SKrull leaders to leave the Earth alone, and that he’ll stay behind to buy the invader fleet time to escape (which grants him a Skrull medal of valor) before returning to Earth (on the way back, Ben is belted by more Cosmic radiation, and briefly resumes being human, but changes back as soon as he notices he isn’t a rock man any more, the first of many Ben-is-human-oh-wait-nope plot devices) and the captive Skrulls try to make a break for it, but are swiftly recaptured by the FF. This is mainly so that they can expose themselves to the police, and thus clear the FF of all criminal charges.

The lead Skrull begs for his life, and Reed makes a compromise with him, they’ll be allowed to remain free on Earth if they change into cows, and let him hypnotize them into only ever believing that they were always cows.

Which they accept, because they have always, and I quote, “Hate being Skrulls”.

Skrulls haven’t heard much about Bovine University.

Hey kids, let’s watch the first episode, now…

The Triumph of the Green Goblin
Written by Dennis Marks

As one might expect, this episode features long-time Spider-Man foe, The Green Goblin. It does not feature his triumph though, so the titles a bit misleading.

The episode opens with Spider-Man watching a car drive erratically through the rain, which he promptly decides to jump on top of, and then cover the windshield, because if they had trouble driving before, having Spider-Man on the hood would certainly help them. Luckily, it turns out that the drivers were actually jewel thieves, rather then, say, drunk. Or had lost control of their car. The thieves toss Spider-Man off the roof and then back up to run him over, Iceman shows up out of nowhere to build a loop-the-loop out of ice and wreck the car instead.

So, two minutes into the episode and Spidey has endangered two peoples lives and nearly been killed, and Iceman has saved Spider-Man by nearly killing those same people himself. I’m going to give the point to Iceman for being a very-slightly-less-awful superhero.

Oh, and Spider-Man just webs up the thieves and leaves them stuck to a light pole rather then alerting the cops because he is late for a date with his not-actual-girlfriend. I’m deducting a point from Spidey for that.

Spider-Man: -1
Iceman: 1

MEANWHILE IN THE SKY! A low flying plane is nearly struck by lightning, and who is in the plane by Norman Osborn; the alter-ego of the Green Goblin, who was just released from the insane asylum with a certificate of Sanity. So he immediately charters a private lane to take him away. During a thunderstorm, all the while raving about how good it feels to have all his eggs in one basket again. Which is kind of sending up all kinds of red flags for me, but then, they don’t pay me to fly mental patients away from asylums…

As it would happen, the plane is immediately struck by lightning, and the pilot and Norman both jump out, though only Norman has a parachute, and as he lands the stress from having hopped out of a plane and being electrocuted causes him to go nuts again and The Green Goblin is back. In the comics, the Goblin was just a costume that Norman wore whenever he was feeling a bit… murder-y, but here he just… goes all Goblinny whenever he’s stressed I guess. Whatever, I can accept that.

Weird that his clothing changes too though.

Back at the Spider-Friends apartment, we have our episode-required Adorable Hijinx courtesy of Peters aunt Mays pet dog, Ms. Lion, who has somehow put on a goblin mask and then frightened herself by looking in a mirror. Yes, it is Halloween and all the Spider-Friends are going to a costume party dressed as different superheroes; Firestar is dressed as Spider-Woman, Iceman is Captain America, NAMED FEMALE FRIEND is Medusa: Queen of the Inhumans, and Spider-Man is dressed… as… Spider-Man.

Even Aunt May thinks that Pete is being a damn fool.

The costume party itself is mostly an excuse to toss as many different superhero cameos as possible into a crowdscene as possible; of particular note is a skinny white guy as Luke Cage, Fat Vision and Namor the Submarine, which means that someone went to the costume party in speedos. There’s also about five Spider-Mans, and about two Green Goblins.

Petes Spider-Sense starts going nuts, which he states out loud, which causes a some girl dressed as… Caveman-girl, I guess to start hitting on him. She’s really attracted to guys in badly fitting Spider-Man costumes. Spidey leaves with her saying that there’s trouble in the lab. Firestar is understandably upset that her maybe-boyfriend is leaving with a floozy, and that he left with a stupid excuse, so she immediately sets the floozy on fire. Well, she tosses enough steam at her to wreck her hair, costume and make-up at least.

It turns out that Spidey actually WAS going to the lab, despite his hasty stammering sounding like he was either trying to discretely announce he had to use the bathroom, or was expecting imminent make-outs. So Firestar gave the girl first degree burns for no good reason.

Spider-Man: -1
Iceman: 1
Firestar: -1

Also, the lab he was going to was in the OSCORP building, on the other side of town, where it turns out that the Green Goblin was pilfering the technology stored there. How he knew to go there isn’t really ever explained, but the Goblin is ready for him and stuns him with a laser (?) and makes off with his Glider and Pumpkin bombs, he can’t find the one thing he was robbing his own lab for; the serum that made him both Green and Goblinny.

The Goblin puts the frozen Spider-Man on an office chair, regales him with his origin (serum exploded on him, made him crazy, and green) and then put on his Future-Finder Cap (?) to reveal his ultimate goal: to use the Goblin serum to turn everyone in New York into a grotesque monster like him. Well, to turn all the dudes into grotesque monsters. All the women just turn green.

Back at the costume party it is revealed that the NAMED FEMALE FRIEND is actually Norman Osborns niece, and Firestar realizes that Spider-Man still ahsn’t come back from his caveman-girl makeouts, so she decides he’s probably in peril, and heads to the Oscorp labs herself. The Goblin hears her coming and opts to aim a canister of liquid nitrogen at the door, rigging it to spray on whoever walks through it.

It is AMAZING how much liquid nitrogen these villains have on hand at any given moment.

Firestar opens the door and the nitrogen is sprayed, but generates enough heat to cancel out the nitrogen AND unfreeze Spider-Man. It should be noted that Spidey was frozen by lasers, not ice. So Firestar has managed to set electricity on fire…. So that’s one point for doing something that defies the laws of physics, and one more point for saving Spider-Man, and minus another one for Spidey for getting captured so easily in the first place.

Spider-Man: -2
Iceman: 1
Firestar: 2

Firestar and Spider-Man realize that the Goblin has gone after her niece because she alone MUST know where the Goblins Evil Superpowers Drug is. How everyone leaps to this conclusion is beyond me, but Firestar immediately runs off because lives are on the line, and SPider-Man sits there sulking that he wanted the dramatic exit.

Sigh, Spider-Man, I love ya, but GEEZ.

Spider-Man: -3
Iceman: 1
Firestar: 2

Meanwhile, outside, Iceman is walking NAMED FRIEND home while subtly hitting on her by asking if she would like to live somewhere beautiful, like Iceland, or somewhere hot, like Miami, Which I think may be subtle innuendo, when the Green Goblin appears and whisks her away. Iceman lets him because he figures is another guy in a Green Goblin costume, despite the fact that he is flying around on a bat-shaped hovercraft. Named Friend screams “noooooo” as she is forcefully abducted and Iceman cheerfully says that he’ll talk to her later.

…

Spider-Man: -3
Iceman: -15
Firestar: 2

The rest of the Spider-Friends meet up with Iceman and call him an idiot, and opt to do what all the greatest superhero teams do when the going gets tough: Immediately go off and do entirely seperate things from one another; Spider-Man heads to the Oscorp Cereal factory, again, Iceman goes to a different Oscorp factory and Firestar goes to Named Friends apartment. Pete takes this moment to mention that the Goblins sinister plan is to make dudes uglier and ladies green.

At the Cereal Factory it is revealed that Named Friend, against all probability DID know where the Goblin serum was, and he now has it. Spider-Man arrives just in time to… fall into another trap that the Goblin had set up for him; this time being a giant metal box with Goblin faces, each of which having a slightly different gimmick designed to knock Spider-Man into a big chainsaw. Rather then waiting to be rescued, yet agin, Spidey just smashes the stupid thing with his bare hands. Then saves the Named Friend and destroys the Goblin serum.

Spider-Man: -2
Iceman: -15
Firestar: 2

The Goblin escapes after revealing that while everyone was busy standing around and waiting to be rescued, created enough serum to turn the entire planet into a monster, and heads off to dump the concoction into the city resevoir. Iceman shows up and freezes the entire lakesolid before the serum could disperse and Firestar removes it. Meanwhile, Spider-man fights the Goblin YET A THIRD TIME and this time crashes him into an electric power station which electrocutes all the Green out of him, and, as Norman Osborn again, he volunteers to go back to the insane asylum.

I’ll give one point to each Spider-Friend for saving the day. But I am going to deduct another form Iceman for making fun of Norman Osborn for having a serious mental disability. Tact counts, Mr. Drake.

Spider-Man: -1
Iceman: -15
Firestar: 3