Marvel Team-Up (1972) 84

Marvel Team-Up (1972) 84

Aug 1979

Catch a Falling Hero

by Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema, Steve Leialoha, Diana Albers, Ben Sean, Allen Milgrom

The issue opens with the reveal that Viper (who was once known as Madame Hydra) is the one pulling strings. She has captured the helicarrier and has all of its staff under her hypnotic control. The first five pages are devoted to the reveal and then a dive into her backstory.

Viper fought Captain America (during the brief period when he was known as Nomad) in Captain America 182. She was almost captured but escaped thanks to Ishiro Tagara, a cadre leader of the Japanese Red Army, an occasional ally of Hydra. The Viper and Tagara fell in love as she plotted the downfall of the United States of America.

Viper worked with the Silver Samurai, an ally of Tagara, to obtain the resources she needed to fulfill her plan. Those adventures were told in Marvel Team-Up 57 and 74. She finally implemented her plan and took over the SHIELD helicarrier in this story by using the Hypno Beam.

Spider-Man and Nancy Rushman/Black Widow sneak on to the helicarrier via hang gliders. They make out briefly while they are on the outside of the flying fortress. Nick Fury takes the front door and flies on to the helicarrier as if nothing is wrong, knowing full well that is not the case. He has a surprise in store for the bad guys, he isn’t alone.

Fury is attacked as soon as he lands, first by Clay Quartermain and agents of SHIELD and then by Boomerang. Shang-Chi, whom Nick Fury brought with him aboard the helicarrier, helps to even the odds. It looks like they have Boomerang beat but it turns out that he has one last trick boomerang up his sleeve which takes out Fury and the Master of Kung Fu.

Spider-Man and Nancy enter the helicarrier and are quickly apprehended by Viper, Silver Samurai, and hypnotized agents of SHIELD. Black Widow faints when she sees Viper and her memories of what happened to her start to return. Boomerang shows up with a prisoner, Shang Chi, except that Boomerang is actually Nick Fury in disguise. A fight breaks out. Viper reveals her plan to kill the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. Spider-Man gets knocked out of the helicarrier, by the Silver Samurai, and starts falling towards the Earth, two miles below.

Thoughts

The title doesn’t seem appropriate for this issue considering that Spider-Man doesn’t fall from the helicarrier until the last page of the story.

Spider-Man thinks something about Black Widow being able to walk on walls like him because she has the same powers. I had to check the Official Handbook for the Marvel Universe on this one because I can’t remember seeing her do that before. According to the OHotMU she has boots and gloves that allow her to walk on walls. I realize that this is a comic book but I imagine that the wind at that altitude would be quite strong making it very difficult to wall crawl successfully under those circumstances.

I don’t understand how Nick Fury tricked Viper into thinking that he was Boomerang. Yes, he was wearing the villain’s costume but his voice is different and for crying out loud he’s got an eye patch! Maybe he had some SHIELD tech to help him.

This was a fast read. I enjoyed it even if I did have a few nits to pick.

Marvel Bullpen Bulletins

Stan’s Soapbox - Stan continues to talk about that which cannot be named (yet) although he does give it a name: Odyssey. He doesn’t say anything else about it.

Marv Wolfman’s Pinto was totaled while he was driving home from a party thrown by Roger McKenzie

Two new novels - Fantastic Four: Doomsday by Marv Wolfman (with a cover by Bob Larkin) and Captain America: Holocaust for Hire (with a cover by Dave Cockrum) are now on sale for a cover price of $1.75 each.

A major Marvel character dies in Marvel Two-in-One 54 (Part 2 of the Project Pegasus story). Mary Jo Duffy wrote Power Man and Iron Fist 58 which features the first appearance of El Aguila. Spider-Woman 17.

Web-Zingers

Five letters which do not sing in harmony about Marvel Team-Up 78. Some heap praise while others are more critical. One letter expresses an interest in seeing the X-Men show up in MTU more frequently especially since Chris Claremont is the current writer.