Our hosts this month are Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema & Eduardo Barreto. What? Barreto is an awesome artist, I kinda wish he was drawing this instead of inking. Oh, well. We get things going with Peter Parker assigned to a Central Park Society Luncheon by the Daily Globe, one where Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne & Sue Richards are hanging out. Peter is bored, irritated he has to be indoors on a nice day, and grossed out by caviar, like an 8-year old, and feels gross taking pictures of celebrities for the gossip section, which is pretty respectable. Then Sue gets a phone call from Alicia Masters and runs out looking worried.
Barreto is much less oppressive inking ol’ Sal than Steve Leialoha was awhile ago, but there are some touches that look like Barreto’s hand if you know what to look for. Inking is such an interesting discipline. Soon to be lost. Anyway, Sue has rushed off to the home of the aforementioned Alicia Masters, longtime girlfriend of The Thing, who was watching Sue’s son Franklin… but he’s been kidnapped! Now what kind of idiot would kidnap the child of the most famous superheroes on the planet? As Alicia happens to be blind, she hasn’t got much info about what happened or who did it, but they told her to call Sue and tell her to come here so they could call back later with a ransom. And as soon as Alicia’s done explaining, they do.
I just continue to think whoever this villain is must be the dumbest goon in the Marvel Universe. Spider-Man’s plan to help without telling Sue he’s helping is a bit odd, but I guess time is of the essence.
This makes Sue feel like the kind of white lady who would say she was in a “black part of town” and whisper the “black,” even to a roomful of white people, and I can’t say I care for it. So she’s gonna do the rest of this mission in the nude? Sheesh, Chris. And on top of that, the guy who called THE INVISIBLE WOMAN to come see him assumes he’s being attacked by a evil dress. SHEESH, CHRIS. Sue easily takes out all the mob goons but one, who escapes, realizes it must be her, and runs off to tell Boss Morgan. Yeah, Boss Morgan, last seen in TAC 5 around these parts, still hangin’ in there.
Look, I know it’s still the 70s, and I know this is Marvel Team-Up, and thus Spider-Man has to be involved somehow, but this sucks. Sue could just turn invisible, grab Franklin in an impenetrable force field, and leave. She could kill all those guys by encasing their head in force bubbles if she really wanted to, tho obviously she wouldn’t. She should know all this. Spider-Man should be of no use to her. But, it is what it is. Some of the mobsters have already shown up to look for Sue, and suddenly, she & Spidey find themselves in a 1970s-appropriate car chase! Don’t see that too often in superhero comics. Outside of Ghost Rider, I guess, probably.
Peter Parker doesn’t know how to drive, you see. Why would he need to? And, again, look at Sue. This person needs help saving her son? Our heroes hustle over to Yankee Stadium. Sue makes Spider-Man invisible so he can sneak in with her, as she brings the money as promised, and as Spidey assumed, they get double-crossed. The mob goon tells her Franklin is “in a safe place, and if she leaves the pitcher’s mound of the stadium or turns invisible before he leaves, Franklin dies. But, luckily, she has her ace.
I know I’m a broken record, here, but these guys are so screwed! This is the dumbest plan in the world! He put a Spider Tracer on himself, for once, and gave Sue his old receiver for it so she could track him. Pretty smart! But when the man gets off the train (And Peter switches back to Spidey), Spider-Man loses sight of him when a 2nd train comes down the tracks. He beats himself up about it, but…
Claremont being Claremont, he’s working hard as he can to make Sue seems capable and powerful despite this plot kind of forcing her to need help. Sue finds Franklin and makes sure he’s ok (sleeping, but ok), and then there follows a swift, brutal, totally predictable beat down. Spidey finally gives voice to what I’ve been thinking the whole time:
The idiots defeated, Franklin in hand, it looks like our day is saved, but then Boss Morgan and his Maggia forces show up, looking for revenge! Sue gets a force field up around them as the machine gun fire starts, but she’s exhausted, and probably can’t hold up much longer. Luckily, she doesn’t have to.
Well, that tied up nice and neat while asking a few questions it didn’t answer. How did DeWolff have a way to follow Spidey’s tracer? How’d he have time to call her? We’ll never know. At least Sue was more than able to take care of herself, in the end. With this, Claremont is almost done with MTU. Almost. It’s cool they got what turned out to be the most beloved comics writer of his day on this book just before his star began to rise on X-Men.