Tuesday 20 August 2013

The most forgettable comics I have ever owned. Part 2: Marvel Two-In-One #12.

Marvel Two-In-One #12, The Thing and Iron Man
Hold onto your spinner racks, comics lovers - because it's back; the sensational new feature where I attempt to talk about comics that I don't even remember ever having owned!

Of course, I do now know I once owned those comics, or I wouldn't be able to do this feature. I'd have to call it, "Comics I've Never Ever Owned And Know Nothing About," which'd be a totally different thing and an exercise in futility too developed for even this blog.

But, the point is that, up until I blundered across the covers to the comics in question, during my internet wanderings, I'd totally forgotten I ever had them.

And I have to hand it to Marvel Two-In-One because a sneak preview tells me that three issues of that title fit slap-bang into that category.

This is somewhat odd, as the Thing was arguably my favourite Marvel hero when I was a child.

In fact, so in favour of him was I that I even had a Thing badge, purchased by the magic of mail order from a back cover of Mighty World of Marvel.

First of that guilty trio of Two-In-One issues is #12, in which, I gather from the cover, the Thing and Iron Man team up to tackle Prester John.

The worrying thing is that not only did I have this comic but I'm pretty sure I must've read it again when it was reprinted in Marvel UK's Titans mag, meaning I had at least two copies of the tale in my collection and still forgot it'd ever existed.

Looking at that cover, I seem to recall that Prester John goes mad for some reason and has to be stopped before he can cause all sorts of trouble for mankind. I also seem to recall that, at the time, I wasn't happy about Marvel turning him evil, as I'd always seen him as a good egg and the voice of reason.

I have a feeling Vince Colletta may have been the inker. Other than that, I can say nothing of the contents.

I do feel that, for forgetting all about a tale featuring my favourite hero, I do though deserve a good slap.

But preferably not from Prester John, who I like to think is now fully restored to the niceness of which I'm accustomed.

5 comments:

Aggy said...

"Comics I've Never Ever Owned And Know Nothing About," - Isn't that feature currently known as "what the heroes where doing 40/50 years ago? (Buurrnn!!)

I have to say this applies to just about every Two-in-one issue to me. I had a complete run of Marvel Team Up and enjoyed almost everyone. But for some reason I never got into the Things version. In fact the only issues I remember clearly were The Project Pegasus issues (somewhere in the mid-50's numbering?).

david_b said...

Agreed.. I just collected the first dozen or so of MTIO. Period. Anything after just wasn't worth my time.

Anonymous said...

It's a good cover though , looks like Jack Kirby. I remember those Marvel badges too - there were several including Spidey, Dr. Strange and Conan.

Steve W. said...

I had a Sub-Mariner badge too, which showed him dragging seaweed around. For some reason, he was either red or blue, instead of his normal flesh tones.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure the badges offer was in January '75 only a few weeks after I'd started reading Marvel comics. The only comic I was getting was Planet Of The Apes so I was unfamiliar with any of the badges' characters. Marvel seemed very new and exotic after the Beano and the Topper !