”A MATTER OF LOVE… AND DEATH!”
Author: Chris Claremont | Artist: John Byrne | Inker: Dave Hunt
Letterer: Joe Rosen | Colorist: Don Warfield | Editor: Archie Goodwin
Author: Chris Claremont | Artist: John Byrne | Inker: Dave Hunt
Letterer: Joe Rosen | Colorist: Don Warfield | Editor: Archie Goodwin
Wasp’s Avengers ID card gains the group entrance to the Baxter Building, but the Fantastic Four are away. Meanwhile, Equinox rampages through Manhattan, his actions leading indirectly to a Midtown blackout. Spider-Man and Margay make it into the FF’s lab, but Wasp is separated from them when the Baxter Building’s backup generators kick in, activating an automated defense system.
While an inexplicably more powerful than normal Wasp battles the Baxter Building’s defenses, Spider-Man and Margay rig up a harness which attaches to Margay’s blaster to amplify her potential cure. Equinox arrives in the Baxter Building and attacks, but Yellowjacket appears as well soon after. Together, Yellowjacket, Wasp, Spider-Man, and Margay cure Equinox. Then, while the rest of the group leaves, Spider-Man remains behind to clean up after the fight.
Continuity Notes: This issue begins five minutes after the last one ended, a time span during which Spider-Man and Wasp apparently stood by doing nothing while Equinox gloated about the death of Yellowjacket and the police, led by Captain Jean DeWolff, arrived. Why did all this take five minutes? Only Chris Claremont knows for sure.
The lone footnote in this story reminds readers that the Wasp suffered a minor head wound last issue.
Equinox’s origin in a nutshell: His parents were research scientists and his mother became more celebrated than his father. This led to Equinox’s father, David, turning to the bottle and physically abusing his wife. The night she left him, an experiment of his exploded, killing David and endowing his and Margay’s son, Terry, with the powers of Equinox.
Margay notes that she’s the head of the Natural Science division at Bard College -- the same school where John Grey, father of the X-Men’s Phoenix, teaches history (not-so-coincidentally, Bard is also Chris Claremont’s alma mater).
The Wasp gains entrance to the Baxter Building by citing “an Avengers Code Omega situation, priority Red-One.” Sounds like something more suited to Kang or Doctor Doom than a two-off MARVEL TEAM-UP villain…
Yellowjacket survived his apparent death by shrinking down to insect size at the last second. The Wasp’s unexpected power-up was a birthday gift from her husband, which was to be triggered later by artificial adrenalin -- but instead, Yellowjacket’s death caused a spike in her actual adrenalin, which triggered the power amplification prematurely.
During the fight with Equinonx, a carved wand is jostled free of a storage locker in the Baxter Building lab. As Spider-Man begins cleaning up on the story’s final page, the wand starts to glow.
My Thoughts: As noted above, the five-minute time jump is a bit odd; why not have the issue begin exactly where the last one left off? The only thing gained by the jump is time for the police to arrive, and their presence does nothing to further the story in any way. So we wind up with the bizarre idea that Equinox stood there, yakking about how he’d killed Yellowjacket, for five straight minutes while Spider-Man and the Wasp just stared at him.
But aside from that, this is a fun issue. Yellowjacket’s return is no surprise at all, obviously. You don’t kill a founding Avenger in a random issue of MARVEL TEAM-UP. And the way he saved himself is completely obvious, too. So there’s no real drama to his return. But the mystery of the Wasp’s power-up holds a reader’s interest, at least.
The high point of the issue for me, though, is Spider-Man cobbling together that harness to attach to Margay’s blaster while she stands by and watches. I love when Spider-Man gets all sciency, especially in front of other scientists who can appreciate his brilliance.
Though for some reason Claremont foregoes the standard statement of shock from the other scientist here. Margay has no on-panel dialogue whatsoever about Spider-Man’s proficiency with her device, even after she, a celebrated scientist, admitted that she had to teach herself an entirely new discipline to build the thing in the first place. I have to give Claremont a demerit for that; some of my favorite Spider-Man scenes involve brilliant scientists, who have usually spent lifetimes mastering their fields, marveling at Spider-Man’s ability to delve into any field at the drop of a hat. Whether it’s biochemistry, nuclear physics, or high tech electronics, Peter Parker is a science savant, and this should always be played up as suitably impressive when it becomes a story element. Failure to do so does a (minor) disservice to his character.
The Wasp gains entrance to the Baxter Building by citing “an Avengers Code Omega situation, priority Red-One.” Sounds like something more suited to Kang or Doctor Doom than a two-off MARVEL TEAM-UP villain…
ReplyDeleteWell, there was the Incredible Hulk #411 where Hulk orders Pantheon to go "Plan Prime Alpha" unless Nick Fury allows the release of his old girlfriend from a maximum security prison headed by Mr. Bean, and Fury chooses to go with it despite having cracked Pantheon codes ages ago and knowing that it does not mean a tactical nuclear strike like Hulk asserted but "upholding the status". So, the code may not mean the arrival of Thanos but merely that "We gots Claremont & Byrne here in their 70's form and By God we're crashing into your place now and having us an adventure!"
Anyway, nice that Hank Pym got the evil work of a wife-beater undone. I think the story is often cited as an prime example of Claremont's habit of correcting things with an under-powered female character.
I've actually never read the infamous issue where Hank strikes Janet, but I've read plenty about it. In general I find that Hank Pym tends to be handled much better by non-AVENGERS writers than by those assigned to the series, which seems odd. It's like nobody knows what to do with him as a regular character, but using him a guest-star is easy.
DeleteSounds like something more suited to Kang or Doctor Doom than a two-off MARVEL TEAM-UP villain…
ReplyDeleteHe DID cause a city-wide blackout. Then again, that's probably small cookies in the grand scheme of Marvel Universe villains wreaking havoc on the population.
The Wasp’s unexpected power-up was a birthday gift from her husband, which was to be triggered later by artificial adrenalin
Ah, secretly tinkering with your genetics; it's the gift that keeps on giving!
So is this where Wasp's ability to fly at larger sizes and shoot her blasts regardless of her size comes in? That was her status quo during "Under Siege", but I didn't realize that came from an MTU issue (if that is indeed what this is).
As Spider-Man begins cleaning up on the story’s final page, the wand starts to glow.
That's such a great way to build serialization into a seemingly-random series like MTU, building on one set of team-ups to lead into the next. Kudos, Claremont!
Teebore -- "He DID cause a city-wide blackout. Then again, that's probably small cookies in the grand scheme of Marvel Universe villains wreaking havoc on the population."
DeleteTrue enough. I think I was applying external logic to my criticism.
I actually don't know if this issue is considered the formal origin of Wasp's later increased power. If so, it seems odd it would've happened in MARVEL TEAM-UP. But then, Marvel's editorial and writing staffs were much more tightly-knit back then, so it's certainly possible.