Marvel Two-In-One #87 [1982] (Random Comics Theatre)

 Random Comics Theatre

Marvel Two-In-One #87 [1982] 

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE was a long-running team-up book featuring the most popular Fantastic Four member, The Thing (Ben Grimm), meeting just about everyone else in the Marvel universe. Including, sometimes, himself. It ran for 100 issues and 7 Annuals from 1974 to 1983. About half of the run, including this issue, is drawn by Ron Wilson, who also followed it up with almost three years on a Thing solo series. As you might expect, Wilson is heavily influenced by the work of Ben Grimm creator Jack Kirby. It's doubly obvious in this run of issues where he's inked by Chic Stone, who did some excellent inking over Kirby in the mid-60s. 

I was reading the book for a little over a year at this point, and remember really enjoying it for a while. At age eleven, and largely unfamiliar with the Kirby originals, I really liked the art and and the look at the wider Marvel universe that I was unfamiliar with, and Ben Grimm is easily the most visually appealing of the Kirby characters. Tom DeFalco was the regular writer for most of the time I'd been reading the book, and reading it now it seems a bit clumsy in the exposition and set-up, pretty much paint-by-numbers Marvel plotting and scripting overall, but honestly, that's kind of what you wanted from the book at the time. That didn't prevent this from being the last consecutive issue I bought, but that was probably a larger dissatisfaction with the Marvel line, which I pretty much dropped completely by the end of 1982 except for FANTASTIC FOUR (and that, in retrospect, I'm not sure why I kept reading as long as I did).

Anyway, this issue features Ben teaming up with the Scott Lang version of Ant-Man, in a sequel to an early Kirby FF issue where the team go after Doctor Doom to the microworld Sub-Atomica with the original Ant-Man, Henry Pym. This time Ben suddenly begins to shrink and vanishes to nothing in Reed's lab, where thanks to various plot contrivances none of their usual ways to shrink and rescue him are available. Fortunately, a nearby ant hears of their problems, and spreads the word through the ant grapevine to Scott Lang, who comes to help. Did I mention the clumsy plotting?

Ant-Man shrinks down and finds Ben, who appears to be quite happy to have been taken to be a champion in a trial by combat against some lizard people. And-Man finds there's more going on, involving hypnotic fruit and a planned invasion of the lizard people's world, and eventually rescues Ben and snaps him out of his spell for some action.

So, not great, but kind of what the book should be at the time, introducing wider concepts of the Marvel universe through random team-ups with its most appealing character. I can see why I liked it at the time, and I can also see why after over a year of this I'd had enough, was beginning to see the cracks and ready to move on. I still really like the Wilson/Stone art, even now knowing how derivative it is of even better work.