G.I. JOE VS. THE TRANSFORMERS #4

Written by Josh Blaylock
Pencils by Mike S. Miller | Inks by Cory Hamscher & Armando Durruthy
Letters by Dreamer Design | Colors by Lynx Studio with HI FI Colour Design
Edits by Mark Powers

The Plot: The reactivated Autobots and Decepticons resume their civil war on Cobra Island. Cobra Commander frees Megatron from his gun mode, and the Decepticon leader challenges Optimus Prime.

Meanwhile, G.I. Joe, Wheeljack, and Bumblebee prepare to head for the island to join the fight, but Hawk is stopped by a pair of generals who order him to stand down so the U.S. can drop a nuclear bomb instead. Hawk is ordered to deactivate Bumblebee and Wheeljack and fly them Area 51 rather than Cobra Island. Hawk initially carries out his orders, shocking the two Transformers with a device provided by his superiors, but Wheeljack remains barely conscious and warns that the nuke would blow up all the energon Cobra has accumulated and plunge Earth into a nuclear winter.

Back on Cobra Island, Storm Shadow rescues Cobra Commander from Autobots Gears and Brawn, while the Baroness saves Destro and Zartan from Rumble. Meanwhile, at Megatron's command, Soundwave orders the Consructicons to spare Doctor Mindbender, and then tells them to protect the energy satellite control module.

At the Pentagon, a group of mysterious generals confers and learns that Hawk has defied orders and is flying G.I. Joe, Wheeljack, and Bumblebee to Cobra Island.

SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 1

JANUARY 3rd, 1977 – FEBRUARY 27th, 1977
FEBRUARY 28th, 1977 – MAY 7th, 1977
By Stan Lee & John Romita

I read an interview some years ago with John Romita where he discussed the genesis of the SPIDER-MAN newspaper strip. It’s been a long time, but I seem to recall that Romita wanted the thing to be purely an adventure strip. He had grown up on the works of Milton Caniff and Hal Foster and imagined Spider-Man headlining a nonstop series of high adventure and cliffhangers. Stan Lee, on the other hand — at least per my recollection of Romita’s comments — wanted the series to read more like a soap opera strip in the vein of MARY WORTH.

Personally, I think either concept could fit Spider-Man. The character is, after all, the star of a monthly action-adventure comic book — but at the same time, the soap opera qualities of Peter Parker’s personal life were a major component of the series from the very beginning. And personally, at least as an adult, I’d be very happy with a Spider-Man comic strip that mostly revolved around Peter rather than his alter ego.

But in any case, the strip’s first story arc seems to go more in Romita’s direction over Lee’s. It’s more or less wall-to-wall action as our web-slinging wonder finds himself up against Doctor Doom. The idea to kick this strip off with Doom rather than an established Spider-foe is an interesting one, but it makes sense. More than, say, Doctor Octopus or the Green Goblin, Doom is (or at least was at this point) Marvel’s most recognizable villain.

SPIDER-MAN: THE NEWSPAPER STRIPS

I bet you thought that with FLASH GORDON coming to an end last month, we were done with newspaper strips around here, didn't you? Well think again, true believers! As noted last September, I have the first two volumes of IDW's "Library of American Comics" reprints of the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN newspaper strip, covering strips from 1977 - 1981 by the all-star team of Stan Lee and John Romita, and the time has come to crack them open.

(This is the point where I go into a quick sidebar to note that, as I've probably mentioned before, Lee & Romita are the definitive Spider-Man team as far as I'm concerned. Others have done great work on the web-slinger, and I technically consider Roger Stern's AMAZING SPIDER-MAN run to be more of a favorite than the Lee/Romita stuff due to nostalgia, but if we're talking the most iconic version of the character, his supporting cast, and his status quo, then it's Lee/Romita all the way for me.)

When I was a youngster -- say, maybe seven or eight years old -- I had a book called THE BEST OF SPIDER-MAN, which reprinted a handful of story arcs from the earlier years of the Spidey strip. I very nearly read the cover off that thing, to the point that it became one of the most battered, dog-eared books I owned. In a way, it was more formative of my understanding of Spider-Man than the monthly comics, since I had never really been a regular ongoing reader at that point. So while I've read some of the stuff we're about to embark upon, it's been over thirty years now -- and really, the material covered by that beloved old paperback is only a fraction of what appears in the IDW collection.

Note that while there are a total of four volumes available at the moment, I'm only covering the first two -- the Lee/Romita stuff -- for now. Someday I'll probably check out the post-Romita material as well, but for the time being, all I'm interested in are the first four years. Like most strips, this one is broken into story arcs, and my plan is to look at two arcs per week. Unfortunately, unlike FLASH GORDON, I can't find a nice list of arc titles for the Spidey stuff, so I'll just use the strip dates as identifiers instead.

So get ready, because I expect this will take us through the end of the year.

Available on Amazon: Volume 1 | Volume 2
Also available: Volume 3 | Volume 4

G.I. JOE VS. THE TRANSFORMERS #3

Written by Josh Blaylock
Pencils by Mike S. Miller | Inks by Cory Hamscher & Armando Durruthy
Letters by Dreamer Design | Colors by Lynx Studio with HI FI Colour Design
Edits by Mark Powers

The Plot: Destro inspects Cobra's Transformers and prepares to take them out for a mission. Meanwhile, G.I. Joe makes plans to defend the control center for a prototype energy satellite from an attack Mercer has told them is imminent.

Soon, Destro, Zartan, and Firefly lead an assault with several Transformers as their weapons. The Joes surprise the invading Cobras and fight back, with Wheeljack and Bumblebee soon coming to their aid. But Zartan and Firefly manage to steal the stallite's control module and blow up the building. Cobra escapes, but G.I. Joe makes peace with Wheeljack and Bumblebee.

Wheeljack inspects a bizarre e-mail sent out to hundreds of accounts a few days earlier and realizes that it's Optimus Prime fighting back against Cobra's conditioning. Using Prime's code, Wheeljack sends a signal to Cobra Island which releases the Transformers from their enslaved states. As the Constructicons make trouble for Doctor Mindbender, Optimus Prime confronts Cobra Commander.

Continuity Notes: For some reason Flint and Lady Jaye still don't have their codenames like the rest of the Joes. Maybe they're still informal observers...?

Mutt and Quick Kick (and presumably Mutt's dog, Junkyard) are severely injured when Cobra destroys the satellite control center.

Duke receives some lines this issue in his capacity as G.I. Joe's field leader.

MARVEL FANFARE #13

”THE WIDOW… ALONE”
Script: Ralph Macchio | Pencils: George Pérez | Inks: John Beatty & Brett Breeding
Letters: Diana Albers | Colors: Ben Sean | Editing: Allen Milgrom
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: An unconscious Black Widow is taken to a mysterious island complex, where Snap Dragon brings her before her master, Damon Dran. Dran explains that he has replaced the Widow with a lookalike who Jimmy Woo is bringing back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier. The false Widow will lead the helicarrier to Dran’s island and then assassinate Nick Fury on the bridge, escaping just before Dran’s cannons blow the ship out of the sky.

Widow is thrown into a dungeon but manages to escape. She bumps into her guardian, Ivan, brainwashed by Dran, and knocks him out. As she explores Dran’s complex, the Widow is attacked by Snap Dragon, but this time she defeats the assassin. Ivan regains some of his old memory and joins Widow in her mission.

The Widow calls the helicarrier and convinces those aboard that the Black Widow with them in an imposter. Fury shoots the false Widow and orders all weapons to open fire on Dran’s island. The island, filled with munitions, explodes, and the Black Widow and Ivan are found drifting in the sea by a S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft.

G.I. JOE VS. THE TRANSFORMERS #2

Written by Josh Blaylock
Pencils by Mike S. Miller | Inks by Cory Hamscher & Armando Durruthy
Letters by Dreamer Design | Colors by Lynx Studio with HI FI Colour Design
Edits by Mark Powers

The Plot: While Cobra conducts tests on their Transformers, the newly formed G.I. Joe team discusses strategy. Elsewhere, two Autobots, Wheeljack and Bumblebee, have remained free of Cobra's control, and Wheeljack determines where the terrorist organization will likely strike next.

On Cobra Island, Doctor Mindbender has difficulty controlling Optimus Prime. Meanwhile, at NSA headquarters, an analyst named Mainframe is handed some important files. At G.I. Joe headquarters, Snake-Eyes demonstrates his skills to his teammates, but the sparring match is interrupted when Hawk, General Flagg, and Lady Jaye arrive with a Cobra defector named Mercer, who reveals that Cobra's "Battle Android Troopers" are actually sentient alien robots.

Destro arrives on Cobra Island and Mindbender demonstrates the Transformers' abilities to him, then reveals his newest accomplishment: Soundwave.

Continuity Notes: We learn this issue that Cobra needs energon to power their Transformers, and that Megatron, trapped in gun mode by Cobra Commander but allowed to retain his free will, has been helping them gather the ingredients.

The Joe team's ranks have swelled this issue, and they have a bunch of cool-looking vehicles in their headquarters. Among the more notable Joes seen are Scarlett, Doc, Roadblock, Rock N' Roll, Shipwreck, and Quick Kick. Duke is also name-checked (Sergeant Conrad Hauser) and glimpsed late in the issue with no dialogue.

MARVEL FANFARE #12

”THE WEB TIGHTENS!”
Scripter: Ralph Macchio | Penciler/Co-Plotter: George Pérez | Inker: Al Milgrom
Letterer: Jim Novak | Colorist: Bob Sharen | Editor: Al Milgrom
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Black Widow defeats all of the assassins except Iron Maiden, who escapes when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jimmy Woo bursts into the store. But Widow placed a tracking device on Iron Maiden, allowing her and Woo to follow the armored woman into the sewers. There, Black Widow and Woo defeat Iron Maiden, but both are quickly subdued by yet another assassin — the deadly Snap Dragon.

Sub-Plots & Continuity Notes: Kono the Sumo Warrior, one of the assassins, is shot… in the face. By an automatic pistol. Mark Gruenwald would later use him as a villain in the pages of CAPTAIN AMERICA with no explanation as to how he survived being shot… in the face. With an automatic pistol. The kicker: this story’s writer, Ralph Macchio, was editor on those CAP issues!

(There will be more of this next issue, which I’ll cover when we get there.)