We are back with more Meteor Man, yet another of the 75 for $48. As you can maybe see, some one named “Lloyd” wrote their name on the cover of this one. He also drew a “V” on Meteor Man’s forehead. Mysterious. Gerry Conway, Sal Buscema, Vince Colletta in the driver’s seat. Colletta was a polarizing figure. On the one hand, he was everywhere for a long time, and inked a lot of the greats. On the other hand, he had a bad rep, and sometimes just erased backgrounds he didn’t want to deal with. On the mysterious third hand, when he felt like putting in the effort, I actually think he had kind of a cool inking style, especially working with Kirby, when he would use more hatchmarks and texture as opposed to solid shadows. Complicated. These issues, though, are definitely Colletta doing the bare minimum. Spider-Man is sitting on rooftop contemplating the recent chaos of his life when Meteor Man just drops down on top of him with his weird balloon backpack and gets to pummeling him.
Brump! I mean, look at this. Very empty panels, no shading on Spider-Man. The minimum. MM punches Spider-Man into the water and flies away. Meanwhile, out on Long Island, Valkyrie is riding her flying horse, when she and it are startled by her Defenders teammate, Nighthawk.
Val flies off to catch MM herself, leaving Nighthawk just standing around like a dope. Which seems to be what he’s good for. Hours later, we follow two cops as they think they’re going to clear out a party in an abandoned church, but instead stumble on a meeting of last issue’s Death Cult.
Man, look at that bottom panel. Colletta is really hanging Sal out to dry, here. Yow. Spider-Man is still looking for Meteor Man, and listening in on a police radio leads him to an altercation at an antique store. As he heads over, Valkyrie spots him and follows him down. Spidey tells the cops he can help and rushes in, but one of the cops tries to stop Val from following because she’s a lady…
So there! Valkyrie rushes in. She takes a swing with her sword and misses, allowing MM to get a hit in, but that just makes her mad, and she punches him through most of the building.
Our heroes learn the store had a famous statue sculpted from a meteor in it. (Uh, why?) That’s all Spidey needs to hear. He explains to Valkyrie as they fly away on her horse that MM got his powers from a meteor and is now trying to collect similar ones to make himself more powerful. They catch up to MM flying away. Spider-Man attempts to take him out, but it goes about as well as their previous fights have. Then Valkyrie has the bright idea to deflate the guy’s weird flying balloon. She barely manages to grab Spidey as Meteor Man crashes to the ground.
Jeremiah randomly in that last panel is very funny. Even for a title that’s usually just fights, this issue was pretty slight. After being teased for 2 issues, Jeremiah will finally take center stage next issue. The problem with that, though, is Spider-Man’s not in it. A Giant-Size Spider-Man is our next post, so Human Torch will be the star of the next issue (In spite of there also being a Giant-Size Fantastic Four). He teamed up with Dr. Strange to take out Jeremiah and save Valkyrie, who was still involved. I have that one. Maybe I’ll post it sometime, in spite of it being Spidey-less.