That’s some weird cover copy. Greg LaRocque inked on the cover there by beloved Iron Man writer/artist Bob Layton. Tony Isabella, creator of DC’s Black Lightning, appears to write this one. MTU sure has trouble keeping writers around. Spider-Man is hopping from car to car on the interstate, trying to get to the airport. He’s been sent to Cleveland by The Bugle to cover a convention. Nearby, James Rhodes, Iron Man, is flying his partner Morley Erwin to the same airport, where they get on the same plane as Spider-Man, so they all wind up at…
So, yeah, at this point, Rhodey is Iron Man due to Tony Stark’s alcoholism, and he’s working with this guy Erwin to start an electronics company. The guy internal monologuing is Mark Scarlotti, aka Blacklash, fka Whiplash, old timey Iron Man villain. But he’s not here as a supervillain, he’s here as a scientist, trying to rustle up some legit business. He was already having a bad time before he sees his old foe Iron Man doing a presentation for his new company. He thinks about trying to fight him to get back in The Maggia’s good graces, but instead just leaves. But not before his rage temporarily sets off Peter Parker’s Spider Sense as he’s meeting a scientist who helped bust a Maggia hacking ring. We follow him as he takes a bus and thinks about how this is his return to his hometown, but no one’s got any use for him, even his parents, who he goes to see at the family bakery.
Answer: no. A frustrated Mark heads to a bar, where people openly make fun of him for being a supervillain (sheesh!) except for a guy who’s identified as his old friend Rusty from high school, now a security guard.
Blacklash may not be the most successful or feared supervillain, but he’s still a supervillain. This just seems like a stupid thing to do, is all. But to his credit, he just leaves. On the next page, Mark has his 3rd different hair color this issue (Like, what is going on?) as a Maggia goon approaches him on the street and says he has a job for him. 20 minutes later, he comes smashing through the wall of that same bar.
This apparently has nothing to do with his Maggia job, he’s just getting some revenge. Then he’s off to “dust some computer whiz that crossed the mob,” and now he’s so amped up he’s decided to fight Iron Man, too. Well, obviously, his target is the guy Peter met earlier, and he’s up on stage getting an award at the conference now. Blacklash is ready to roll when he notices his buddy Rusty is on guard on stage. He hesitates, but then another guard sees him, so it’s go time. He takes out the guard and also zaps his friend, who knows it’s him in the suit, before, inevitably…
Rhodey’s in trouble, though, because in spite of Blacklash’s long history with Iron Man… it was with the other Iron Man. So Rhodey falls for some attacks Tony would’ve known to avoid and gets zapped pretty badly. Don’t worry, though.
Blacklash hits Spider-Man with a net that generates a “heavy gravity field” that’s holding him down pretty well, so it’s time for Iron Man to hop back up and zap Blacklash with his unibeam. While he’s freeing Spider-Man, Blacklash routes all his power into one of his gauntlets, giving him enough juice to actually start chipping a hole in the Iron Man armor, but shorting out his gauntlets in the process. IM’s buddy Morley has been watching the fight, and tells him over the radio that the gauntlets are his weakpoint. So, Rhodey tries another unibeam…
That’s a wrap for Blacklash, who finds himself in jail with no one to help him. His public defender says his only hope is a temporary insanity plea, but Mark’s not into that. He asks the lawyer to call his friends in New York, but is told they’ve abandoned him. He asks the lawyer to call his mom…
Well, that’s a downer ending. Rrrrrrather hard to feel bad for a guy who got here failing to murder someone for the mob. I guess Isabella was trying to do a thing about how you don’t know what someone has going on in their life, even supercriminals, but like… that dude took a contract to kill a guy with gusto, so… I dunno. In the letter page, people are loving Spider-Man’s new costume in MTU 141. I wonder if they got much negative feedback. It’s a great design, and such a surprising change must’ve been pretty exciting at the time, but there’s always dissent. Maybe we’ll see in other comics.