Hey, this one almost looks normal. It also credits “EVERYBODY!” as the inker. Pretty funny. As it turns out, we pick up right where we left off last issue, and Spidey is swinging to the Baxter Building hoping Reed Richards can help him find Captain Marvel. He swings in an open window, which sets off the security system and makes him fight a bunch of robot cables for a minute before Reed turns the system off. Reed is in a really bad mood, and soon tells us why: The Fantastic Four has broken up!
Spidey recaps last issue for Reed…
Spidey is giving a lot of people “tough love, get it together” talks lately while he swings around throwing fits and talking about how he wants to die. The center of the Earth! Lucky for our heroes, Reed already has a tunnel to The Earth’s core from FF 128, so it’s no big deal to zip on down there in the Fantasticar.
The huge army of moloids quickly overwhelms our heroes, though, and one of them hits them with a gas that knocks them out (Spidey’s greatest enemy!). Then the army carries the heroes back to their leader, who any Marvel fan probably knows is…
The FF’s oldest foe takes the heroes to a splash page of Kane doing his very best impression of Kirbytech…
The Mole Man is extremely excited to fire his big laser through the Earth and blow up the cities the surface dwellers live in, killing Captain Marvel in the process. He has his guys dump Reed & Spidey into the lava, but of course, they were only pretending to be knocked out, and easily save themselves. They get ready for a fight with the endless army of moloids, but then some familiar eyebeams turn a whole lot of them to glass and then shatters them, so you know what that means:
It’s like Gollum showing up at Mount Doom, only sillier! He tells them he followed them to and through the hole to the Earth’s core, assuming they’d lead him to the gem he still wants, and they did. Once it becomes clear what Basilisk is up to, The Mole Man is obviously very upset, and sets his hordes after him.
As the villains fight, Spidey & Reed try their best to free Mar-vell, but it’s not working. Then Mole Man notices they’re trying to ruin his death ray. The villains zap the heroes, Basilisk zaps Mole Man, and now he’s ready to claim his prize. Has he puts his hand on the giant gem, Mar-vell finally manages to tap his wrists together. As he swaps places with Rick Jones, the gem returns to is smaller size, no longer reacting to Mar-vell’s Kree energy. And just in time, as the cavern begins to collapse.
There you have it. Mar-vell is off to guest star in DD and everything’s cool. And as you can see at the bottom, there, next issue is not a Spider-Man comic, so it won’t be covered here.
Next post, we jump forward in time to 1982 and Roger Stern’s ASM again to see how things are going up there. See you there.