FANTASTIC FOUR #253

"QUEST"
Story & Art: John Byrne | Letterer: Jim Novak | Colorist: Glynis Wein
Editor: Al Milgrom | Seeker: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The Fantastic Four’s exploratory module is picked up by a gargantuan spacecraft from the long-dead planet Kestor. After a brief skirmish, the Kestorans welcome the FF aboard and explain that 10,000 years ago, their planet was destroyed by a supernova. The entire population of Kestor was placed into suspended animation aboard the ship, which was to take them via auto-pilot to a new planet. But the ship was damaged as it left, and its computer awakened five hundred Kestorans to crew it. However its memory banks were also destroyed, and the ship has traversed the Negative Zone aimlessly for 10,000 years, now crewed by the descendants of those original five hundred.

Reed repairs the computer system and the Kestorans find the planet they sought, but its atmosphere proves incompatible with them. Reed argues that this is due to evolution, and the Kestorans in stasis should be fine on this new world. But the Captain disagrees and orders his ship away from the planet, sending his men to attack the FF during departure. The ship’s first officer then reveals a secret to the captain which proves too much for him to handle, and he dies.

The first officer calls off the attack and explains to the FF that all the Kestorans in stasis perished in the same blast that damaged the ship 10,000 years ago, and only his bloodline has known the secret for all this time. The Fantastic Four leave the Kestorans to continue their endless quest.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #239

"NOW STRIKES THE HOBGOBLIN!"
Scripter: Roger Stern | Artists: John Romita, Jr. & Frank Giacoia
Letterer: Diana Albers | Colorist: Glynis Wein | Editor: Tom DeFalco
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Over a span of weeks, the Hobgoblin raids several Osborn Manufacturing facilities, grabbing all the Green Goblin gear he can find, and culminating with the theft of an armored battle van the Goblin had built but never used before his death. When Spider-Man hears about the string of robberies, he heads out to check the only two former Goblin lairs of which he's aware. He finds the first already empty, but at the second he hits pay dirt, coming face to face with the Hobgoblin.

Spider-Man and Hobgoblin fight it out in Greenwich Village, and the web-slinger easily gains the upper hand despite the Hobgoblin's improvements to his predecessor's bombs and gas grenades. When it appears he is about to be unmasked, the Hobgoblin blasts a gas main and Spider-Man is forced to let him go while he locates the feeder line and cuts it off.

As the Hobgoblin glides away, he realizes that the Green Goblin must have had some edge in order to fight Spider-Man one-on-one. He vows to find that secret and use it to defeat his newly inherited foe.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #16

"WHO'S THAT LADY?" | "CALL HER... CAPTAIN MARVEL!"
Plotted & Scripted by: Roger Stern | Drawn by: John Romita, Jr. & John Romita, Sr.
Lettered by: Jim Novak | Colored by: Stan Goldberg | Edited by: Tom DeFalco
Travel Reservations by: Jim Shooter | Proud Wife & Mom: Virginia Romita

The Plot: At the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Peter is waiting to pick up Harry and Liz Osborn when his spider-sense alerts him to potential danger from an attractive woman. He follows her outside and changes into Spider-Man. The woman is nearly mugged but takes out her assailants with a quick martial arts display. But when Spider-Man innocently approaches her, she shocks him with a burst of energy, then changes into a costume and flies away.

Atop the Empire State Building, she flashes back to her origin: her name is Monica Rambeau and she was a Harbor Patrol officer in New Orleans, known as a loose cannon. When an old friend of her grandfather came to her for help shutting down a renegade weapons development program off the coast, she agreed. But in the process she was electrocuted by the experimental weapon and endowed with radiation-based powers. Calling herself Captain Marvel, she quit the Harbor Patrol and traveled to New York to seek help controlling her powers before they could cause her to explode.

Spider-Man tails Captain Marvel from the a Empire State Building to the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building to Avengers Mansion, where the Avengers' butler, Jarvis, asks him to fight her after believing she has knocked out Iron Man maliciously. But it was only an accident and when Iron Man comes around, he breaks up the fight and works together with Spider-Man to contain Captain Marvel's powers.

As the Thing arrives to check on Cap, Spider-Man departs the mansion and returns to Port Authority to meet the Osborns.