This is sort of stretching my arbitrary rule that I only talk about stuff I don’t own in a collection. This book is a reprint of the main feature in Marvel Comics Presents 48-50, which obviously starred Wolverine and Spider-Man. I don’t have the originals, but I do have this, and since the other stories in those issues wouldn’t concern this blog, anyway, why not? It is also obviously drawn and also written by Erik Larsen (Which I believe makes it his first published writing?), but MCP always ran the credits on the inside front cover, and no one thought to add them to this. The internet says Joe Rubenstein inked it, but I don’t know who colored it. So!
Spider-Man keeps linking people in his life going all the way back to the 60s comics for some reason until he sees Wolverine on a rooftop. Except Spider-Man, along with most people on Earth, thinks the X-Men all died saving the world recently. In fact, the entire team faked their deaths, and then pulled some kinda gimmick that made them invisible to cameras (really!). So Spider-Man thinks someone’s just decided to dress up like his dead sort-of-friend, and decides to attack the guy. It’s what he does.
Wolverine quoting Bugs Bunny is actually rather inspired. Two Heroes Fight Over A Misunderstanding continues until Wolverine pops his claws, prompting Spidey to re-evaluate the situation.
The girl, a powerful mutant, and her father are being held at a warehouse across the street by “evil mutants,” according to Logan. But Spider-Man is distracted by the fact that this happens to be the same warehouse where he caught up to Uncle Ben’s killer. The coincidences continue. So it’s hero time.
Oops indeed. Soon they’re smashing a bunch of mechanized defenses, and acting like Larsen hasn’t read a lot of their previous meetings, with Spidey trying to come up with an awkward excuse for setting up his camera and Wolverine not knowing about his Spider Sense as their foes reveal themselves.
Now this is interesting to me. This isn’t the last time we’ll see some of these villains, but I didn’t know this was their debut. This reprint was published in ‘95, I didn’t know where it fit into the chronology before now. Also of note is the barely disguised Savage Dragon, the character Larsen will do at Image Comics 2 years from this, slightly modified to look like some kinda fishman. And not the only future Image character Larsen will trial run in a Marvel comic, either.
The fracas continues for awhile until…
Another random connection. The fight ends abruptly when Not-Savage-Dragon forces the little girl to hit the heroes with a blast of white light, knocking them out, and that’s it for Part Two.
That’s right. There’s a guy who looks an awful lot like Uncle Ben’s killer blaming Spider-Man for something that happened to his brother. This is pretty absurd. Spidey & Wolverine wake up simultaneously, which is convenient, and get back to work. Spidey webs the eyes of Critical Mass and then knocks out Not-Savage-Dragon, freeing the girl. Meanwhile, Wolverine has his sights set on Burglar’s Brother…
This is ridiculous. But then Not-Savage-Dragon puts a gun to the kid’s head, threatening to shoot if the heroes don’t give up, which prompts her to blow up the warehouse and turn all the villains to skeletons. Which, given the fact that a couple of them will be in ASM in a few months, seems problematic.
Poor Spidey’s crackin’ up. Meanwhile…
I have no idea why Larsen depowered the DC Captain Marvel (Also known as Shazam), smuggled him into the Marvel Universe and gave him a daughter, but that’s certainly what’s happening there. Weird ending. Larsen will go on to write a little more Spidey before joining the artists who leave Marvel to form Image Comics. But that’s for later. Here’s the original 3 covers.