{"id":138,"date":"2022-03-10T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T04:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=138"},"modified":"2021-08-05T00:30:53","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T04:30:53","slug":"mtu-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/03\/10\/mtu-90\/","title":{"rendered":"MTU 090"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the 77. We\u2019re back to Marvel Team-Up, this issue brought to us by Steven Grant, Mike Vosburg & Bob McLeod. And it irks me a little on page one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not the story elements, but that caption saying it takes place before MTU Annual #2. This is the February, 1980 issue of MTU. That annual came out sometime in 1979. I have to just kinda guess when most of these things take place in relation to each other, but I\u2019ve moved that Annual in my chronology twice already, and now it has to go after this. Ugh. Ok. Stay tuned for MTU Annual #2 as the next post. Aaaaaaanyway, ladies go crazy for a furry blue man, apparently. Who knew? And Peter is here with his most random girlfriend of all time, Cissy Ironwood, and he\u2019s more interested in Beast\u2019s ladyfriends. Delightful, Mr. Parker, delightful. Cissy spots the Beast, and Peter starts complaining about how women are always throwing themselves at him everywhere he goes, like he\u2019s suddenly an obsessive fan, when he notices Cissy\u2019s not with him anymore because she\u2019s gone to join his adoring crowd. And then\u2026 Peter just heads to the science exhibit he came for by himself. He\u2019s being quite a guy this issue and it\u2019s only page 2. Meanwhile, Killer Shrike and the Modular Man are here (Modular Man?) Ok! The two villains are casing very device Peter has come to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maaaaaaaan that’s a lot of exposition! But I needed it, so I guess it works. What a ridiculous villain. Also, apparently Killer Shrike doesn\u2019t know who he was before \u201cThe Conspiracy\u201d turned him into a supervillain, and The Modular Man thinks he can help once he\u2019s normal again. Their cause seems\u2026 pretty reasonable? Like why not just ask if they can use the thing? “Hey, man, our lives have been ruined and your machine could help.” I\u2019m sure people would understand not wanting to look like a cartoon robot for the rest of your life and\/or having your past stolen from you as decent reasons. Of course, as he goes to get the thing, Modular Man thinks to himself that he\u2019s just using Killer Shrike. These type of guys just don\u2019t play well with others. Peter senses danger and slips away to switch to Spider-Man, and is soon knocked into the other room by Killer Shrike, alerting The Beast to the trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You think Killer Shrike looks a lot like Batman on purpose? Have I wondered about that in previous appearances? To his credit (I guess?), Spider-Man isn\u2019t being jealous to Beast\u2019s face like he was behind his back earlier. The ridiculous villains are able to overwhelm our heroes largely because Spidey & Beast have never heard of these guys and don\u2019t know what they can do, which is fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I’m gonna guess Steven Grant wrote a lot of that Rampaging Hulk book, which I believe was a black & white magazine. Survey sez… No! Nothing. Sure are a lot of references to that series, then, that’s weird. Anyway, a guy helpfully tells our heroes the villains will need \u201cmassive amounts of microwaves\u201d to power the device, which they have yet to actually perfect. Then Spider-Man puts a tracer on Beast and tells him he\u2019ll catch up later so he can scamper off to find Cissy. He says he doesn\u2019t want her to think he ran out on her\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New channels! Oo la la! Man, Peter Parker & Cissy Ironwood, a Romance for the Ages!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aaaaaalright. I begin to think either Steven Grant or I have no idea how TV works. Beast has deduced they\u2019ll use the cable transmissions as their power source, and that the transmissions will be made from the Empire State Building, so he\u2019s watching them helicopter up above the antenna with binoculars when Spidey shows up. Killer Shrike places a dish up there and Spidey leaps into action. Modular Man\u2019s plan seems to be working, though, as he\u2019s channeling all that energy into himself. The cable execs are losing their minds because no one\u2019s getting anything on TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Beast saves Spidey and kicks Shrike across the platform, but then Modular Man comes out of the exploding helicopter, growing huge. Naturally, he turns on Killer Shrike immediately, batting him aside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Weird, abrupt, downer ending! Bang! Sure thing. A nice change of pace from Spider-Man seeing villains die and being like “whatever!” throughout the 70s, tho. Ah, well, here\u2019s what\u2019s more important: The next time we see Cissy Ironwood\u2026 As far as I\u2019m able to determine\u2026 will be her last appearance ever. Will it make sense? Will it pay off? Well, I mean, I know, I read it a long time ago and keep having to move it forward, but\u2026 you will find out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the 77. We\u2019re back to Marvel Team-Up, this issue brought to us by Steven Grant, Mike Vosburg & Bob McLeod. And it irks me a little on page one: Not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[136,191,803,354,71,801,1047,2,1037],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1970s","tag-beast","tag-bob-mcleod","tag-cissy-ironwood","tag-killer-shrike","tag-marvel-team-up","tag-mike-vosburg","tag-modular-man","tag-spider-man","tag-steven-grant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12302,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/12302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}