{"id":1053,"date":"2019-07-23T00:00:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T04:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2019-05-10T18:07:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T22:07:05","slug":"mtu-115","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2019\/07\/23\/mtu-115\/","title":{"rendered":"MTU 115"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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This is one of a few in the collection that comes from a magical place called McKay\u2019s. It\u2019s a giant used everything store. If you need the new Spider-Man game, a PS2 memory card, Twin Peaks: The Return on Blu Ray, a statue of Dr. Strange, Settlers of Catan, a bass guitar, Between The World & Me by Ta-Nehsi Coates, Prince\u2019s Parade album on vinyl, a handful of Legos and Marvel Team-Up #115, there\u2019s a place where you can get them all. Team-Up continues to a be a JM DeMatteis\/Herb Trimpe\/Mike Esposito\/Bob Sharen production. It begins in an operating theater, with press assembled to watch Dr. Don Blake operate on a homeless woman who was injured in a police shootout. Peter Parker is there to photograph the proceedings. Why is the press gathered for this?
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I\u2019m still not sure. Dr. Don Blake is (improbably, to me) STILL Thor\u2019s human secret identity in this period. My knowledge of Thor history has a lot of gaps in it, so sometimes I\u2019m just amazed how long this persona hung around. Walt Simonson must be very close to getting rid of him forever (ish) at this point, but I guess not yet. As the operation proceeds, a mysterious, 7-foot tall figure dressed like The Invisible Man appears in the hospital lobby and heads for the elevators. A guard runs up to him\u2026
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Well, that\u2019s weird. As he reaches the floor the operation is taking place on, he\u2019s stopped by police this time, and a physical confrontation reveals our villain for the evening:
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Haha, wow. That is something. It\u2019s only a moment before Meru the Mind-Bender is plowing into the press box. In the chaos, Peter Parker slips away, and soon The Amazing Spider-Man is on the case. He keeps the big weirdo busy long enough for Dr. Blake to finish the operation, but just barely, as Meru & Spidey come crashing down into the operating room.
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Meru\u2019s zap works the same on Spidey as it did on the guard, making him abandon any sense of responsibility and just swing off. But while he\u2019s doing that, Dr. Blake has slipped into a supply closet and tapped his cane on the ground to become The Mighty Thor! As Meru makes a beeline for the unconscious \u201cJane Doe,\u201d Thor steps in.
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Meru decides there\u2019s no reason to mess with Thor and speeds past him to an escape. Thor doesn\u2019t want to throw his hammer for fear of hitting the other people in the room, so Meru gets away. As Peter Parker makes his way back to the confused press, we learn the \u201cmind-bending\u201d has not worn off.
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JJJ is ecstatic about Spider-Man\u2019s seeming change of heart. Then the news room is abuzz because Meru is now flying around Times Square on a purple flying machine zapping people with his mind beam. Peter thinks he should do something, but then remembers he\u2019s not in the superhero business anymore. Elsewhere, Dr. Blake is talking with his Jane Doe, who has amnesia and doesn\u2019t know who she is. As they talk, she starts acting weird, and says she can sense Meru nearby, and begs Blake to go stop him. That sure feels strange to him, but he runs off, and soon Thor is once again attacking the creature.
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Meru hits Thor with his whammy, and it has the unforeseen effect of putting the Don Blake personality in Thor\u2019s body. Turns out, Don Blake sucks at being Thor, and Meru dispatches him with ease. He\u2019s been able to understand English this whole time, and now starts speaking it, telling the people nearby that if they don\u2019t bring him Jane Doe, he\u2019ll kill Thor and then destroy the entire island of Manhattan! Back at the hospital, Jane Doe\u2019s memories have begun to return, leading to this bizarre couple of panels:
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Peter seems to be talking himself out of giving up being Spider-Man, but we switch our scene to Meru on the edge of a building, saying time\u2019s up and throwing the still unconscious Thor over the side. But, you know\u2026
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Spidey mixes it up with Meru while pontificating about how humans are more than the sum of the parts of their personality until Meru grabs him by the wrist and throws him off the building. About then, Thor wakes up, Don Blake still in the driver\u2019s seat, but he\u2019s had a similar realization.
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Guys, he\u2019s fine. He\u2019s Spider-Man, he just shot a web and saved himself, how could Thor not expect this? Right about then, a crucial piece of the puzzle is revealed:
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She explains that their planet had two rival factions, and Meru is from the oppressive group that ruled the planet. But then her faction made the entirely rational<\/em> decision to blow the planet up in protest while both of them were off-world, leaving them the last of their kind. She became a human vagrant and gave herself amnesia to hide from him, but now that he\u2019s defeated, she feels free. She celebrates by throwing him off the building to his death. Spidey saves Meru while Thor restrains Dalia\u2026 but only for a second. Hey, guess what, the two aliens have a romantic history neither of them wanted to mention earlier.
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Thor & Spider-Man go their separate ways, no idea what just happened. But as Spider-Man leaves, he doesn\u2019t see the two energy trails left behind by the explosion merge into one and, the narration tells us, begin to scream. To be continued next issue, which will throw The Valkyrie into the mix, as well.
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This is one of a few in the collection that comes from a magical place called McKay\u2019s. It\u2019s a giant used everything store. If you need the new Spider-Man game, a PS2…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[253,294,262,125,71,293,52,2,65],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-bob-sharen","tag-dalia-the-shape-changer","tag-herb-trimpe","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-marvel-team-up","tag-meru-the-mindbender","tag-mike-esposito","tag-spider-man","tag-thor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4259,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/4259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}