Inspired by the success of Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-in-One came about as the exact same premise, only everyone teams up with the ever-lovin’, blue eyed Thing instead of Spider-Man. Naturally, they’d occasionally show up in each other’s team-up book, but I think this is the only time they crossed over. Can you imagine being a regular reader of this title and not MTU and getting this one? Part 7 of a story that was previously just in another title? Or being someone who only read MTU and missing this? What a debacle. Part Seven!! When can I be free!? And if that wasn’t enough, it’s the friggin Basilisk again. You may recall Basil Elks or whatever from his previous appearance on the blog in MTU 16 & 17, where he and we learned of his can-do-anything eyebeams. He’s ridiculous. He’s back.
The whole team from MTU is here, and speaking of back, so is Spidey, back in the present at last. He aggressively recaps MTU 41-46 on a single page as Doom’s time platform vanishes, and then swings off somewhere as we cut to The Thing. Last issue, he apparently went to The Savage Lang and teamed up with Ka-Zar to investigate why volcanoes all over the world are increasing in seismic activity, and is currently climbing down into the heart of a volcano to look for clues after fighting a guy called Volcanus. Whew! But after being spooked by a green bat (?), Ben almost falls to his death, and then…
There he is. Ben asks why he’s never heard of Basilisk. Maybe a fair question since his last appearance involved Reed. But Basil says he only had half his power last time, and is now complete, so Ben decides it’s clobberin’ time. That doesn’t seem to do much, though. How is Spider-Man going to get into this volcano? In spite of Ben having encountered a guy called Volcanus down here, turns out Basilisk is really behind all the volcano action, uh, somehow. He uses his can-do-anything eyebeams to break his fall after getting punched and then to I guess freeze Ben in ice?
Oh, ok. If you can’t bring Spider-Man to The Thing, you bring The Thing to Spider-Man, right? Anyway, there’s an earthquake-like event in NYC, and Mary Jane calls Peter because she heard his part of town was hit the worst (News travels fast!), and then tells him to look out at the George Washington Bridge. What he sees (And we don’t) causes him to suit up and speed to the scene as Spider-Man.
Through some truly goofy applications of his webbing, Spidey sort of walks on water out to the volcano, where he can barely make out the figures of The Basilik and The Thing in the smoke, though he can’t see who they are. Then the volcano erupts. Spidey gets out of the way of the lava, and then runs into the cause of it all.
Ok. Ok. One more issue, and this can be over. I can make it. I think.