{"id":1563,"date":"2019-09-03T00:00:46","date_gmt":"2019-09-03T04:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=1563"},"modified":"2019-08-16T20:59:30","modified_gmt":"2019-08-17T00:59:30","slug":"mtu-145","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2019\/09\/03\/mtu-145\/","title":{"rendered":"MTU 145"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

That\u2019s some weird cover copy. Greg LaRocque inked on the cover there by beloved Iron Man writer\/artist Bob Layton. Tony Isabella, creator of DC’s Black Lightning, appears to write this one. MTU sure has trouble keeping writers around. Spider-Man is hopping from car to car on the interstate, trying to get to the airport. He\u2019s been sent to Cleveland by The Bugle to cover a convention. Nearby, James Rhodes, Iron Man, is flying his partner Morley Erwin to the same airport, where they get on the same plane as Spider-Man, so they all wind up at\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, yeah, at this point, Rhodey is Iron Man due to Tony Stark\u2019s alcoholism, and he\u2019s working with this guy Erwin to start an electronics company. The guy internal monologuing is Mark Scarlotti, aka Blacklash, fka Whiplash, old timey Iron Man villain. But he\u2019s not here as a supervillain, he\u2019s here as a scientist, trying to rustle up some legit business. He was already having a bad time before he sees his old foe Iron Man doing a presentation for his new company. He thinks about trying to fight him to get back in The Maggia\u2019s good graces, but instead just leaves. But not before his rage temporarily sets off Peter Parker\u2019s Spider Sense as he\u2019s meeting a scientist who helped bust a Maggia hacking ring. We follow him as he takes a bus and thinks about how this is his return to his hometown, but no one\u2019s got any use for him, even his parents, who he goes to see at the family bakery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Answer: no. A frustrated Mark heads to a bar, where people openly make fun of him for being a supervillain (sheesh!) except for a guy who\u2019s identified as his old friend Rusty from high school, now a security guard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Blacklash may not be the most successful or feared supervillain, but he\u2019s still a supervillain. This just seems like a stupid thing to do, is all. But to his credit, he just leaves. On the next page, Mark has his 3rd different hair color this issue (Like, what is going on?) as a Maggia goon approaches him on the street and says he has a job for him. 20 minutes later, he comes smashing through the wall of that same bar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This apparently has nothing to do with his Maggia job, he\u2019s just getting some revenge. Then he\u2019s off to \u201cdust some computer whiz that crossed the mob,\u201d and now he\u2019s so amped up he\u2019s decided to fight Iron Man, too. Well, obviously, his target is the guy Peter met earlier, and he\u2019s up on stage getting an award at the conference now. Blacklash is ready to roll when he notices his buddy Rusty is on guard on stage. He hesitates, but then another guard sees him, so it\u2019s go time. He takes out the guard and also zaps his friend, who knows it\u2019s him in the suit, before, inevitably\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rhodey\u2019s in trouble, though, because in spite of Blacklash\u2019s long history with Iron Man\u2026 it was with the other Iron Man. So Rhodey falls for some attacks Tony would\u2019ve known to avoid and gets zapped pretty badly. Don\u2019t worry, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Blacklash hits Spider-Man with a net that generates a \u201cheavy gravity field\u201d that\u2019s holding him down pretty well, so it\u2019s time for Iron Man to hop back up and zap Blacklash with his unibeam. While he\u2019s freeing Spider-Man, Blacklash routes all his power into one of his gauntlets, giving him enough juice to actually start chipping a hole in the Iron Man armor, but shorting out his gauntlets in the process. IM\u2019s buddy Morley has been watching the fight, and tells him over the radio that the gauntlets are his weakpoint. So, Rhodey tries another unibeam\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s a wrap for Blacklash, who finds himself in jail with no one to help him. His public defender says his only hope is a temporary insanity plea, but Mark\u2019s not into that. He asks the lawyer to call his friends in New York, but is told they\u2019ve abandoned him. He asks the lawyer to call his mom\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Well, that\u2019s a downer ending. Rrrrrrather hard to feel bad for a guy who got here failing to murder someone for the mob. I guess Isabella was trying to do a thing about how you don\u2019t know what someone has going on in their life, even supercriminals, but like\u2026 that dude took a contract to kill a guy with gusto, so\u2026 I dunno. In the letter page, people are loving Spider-Man\u2019s new costume in MTU 141. I wonder if they got much negative feedback. It\u2019s a great design, and such a surprising change must\u2019ve been pretty exciting at the time, but there\u2019s always dissent. Maybe we\u2019ll see in other comics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s some weird cover copy. Greg LaRocque inked on the cover there by beloved Iron Man writer\/artist Bob Layton. Tony Isabella, creator of DC’s Black Lightning, appears to write this one. MTU…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[669,250,323,64,356,71,52,2,355],"class_list":["post-1563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-blacklash","tag-glynis-wein","tag-greg-larocque","tag-iron-man","tag-james-rhodes","tag-marvel-team-up","tag-mike-esposito","tag-spider-man","tag-tony-isabella"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563","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=1563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4412,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563\/revisions\/4412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}