Stan suggested to Jack for the plot, “the F.F. fight God,” and Jack sent back pages of omens and signs presaging the arrival of a prophet, all the trappings of a classic myth set in modern day New York City. Here’s what our heroes witness upon their return home from their adventure in the Hidden Land: the skies turned to fire as the people panic in the streets. Soon the fire turns to a sea of stone hiding the sky, and we later learn this is the work of the Watcher, who is trying to conceal the planet from the figure approaching from deepest space on the back of a silver surfboard.

Check out the background in that splash page. Gil Kane captures the dizzying height of the bridge, as well as the far-reaching depth of the city beyond. Both he and Ross Andru after him did a splendid job of creating an environment these characters moved through, rather than dispensing endless pinup shots like most modern artists; as a kid I had a sense of what Spider-Man’s New York looked like, from this infamous bridge to Times Square to Rockefeller Plaza. I was a kid living in the Midwest, but New York lived and breathed for me through the pages of these books. I can’t say that flavor is captured by any present-day book, not even the precious Gotham of a Batman comic.

Here’s my childhood hero, right after he’s handed over his girlfriend’s lifeless body to a waiting ambulance. Things go sour pretty quick with the police who want to take him in for questioning; after he swats them away, they actually empty their sidearms at him! Anyone who doubts this sort of storytelling was way ahead of the curve, let me remind you that Batman was still playing charity baseball games for Commissioner Gordon over in the DCU.

Thanos didn’t need the competition in the universal conquest department, so he offered to step in and help Warlock with the most obvious solution: find the critical junction of his life when he is on the path to becoming the power-crazed madman, and killing himself! As Thanos holds the Magus and his army at bay, Warlock is transported to the strange Ditkoscape of his own karmic path to isolate the pivotal moment of his own future.

I didn’t know any of this yet when I read this issue; all I saw was that a friggin’ flying corpse was attacking Peter Parker! The total creepiness of Carrion’s premise and his physical appearance was bad enough, but what adds the final element of horror to the issue is that Carrion attacks Peter Parker as Peter Parker, the human side of the character the reader identifies with rather than the fantastic figure we project ourselves onto; he seems in the reader’s mind to be as vulnerable as any of us would be if a friggin’ flying corpse was attacking!

Starlin does a great job of using the props the ghost town setting has to offer as the battle rages along.

Mere words cannot describe my love for this comic. Here’s how it ends: the Thing manages to wreck the bomb, only to discover it’s a fake. The bet between the villains gets called off when it is revealed that Kurrgo is cheating by augmenting the Thing’s strength-- not that that seemed to help too much. The two protagonists get to trash a giant robot, then a spaceship blows up. The Thing is left to start walking towards home from the desert as the Hulk bounds away over the horizon.

Thanks, Len and Jim, for ruining my life with your wonderful comic.

Man, there was a time Englehart could do no wrong. I have no idea what happened to him after Reagan took office. The pencils for this issue was provided by George Tuska, who was ubiquitous for much of this decade, having excellent runs on the Avengers and Iron Man as well as this book. His figures have a fluid quality to them, like a less moody Gene Colan, and his faces are wonderfully expressive. He’s one of my favorite artists everyone seems to have forgotten about.

Our story: Luke finds himself pitted against Black Mariah, one big momma who runs a ring of fake police cars and ambulances. They pick up newly deceased persons and steal their possessions, gaining access to their homes and offices for later plunder simply by stealing the keys from the corpses. Here’s Black Mariah herself: I’ll confess I’m not too sure about this character. I got the same feeling reading these panels as I might get reading a World War II-era comic and seeing the depiction of the Japanese.

Here’s the story:

1) Spider-Man is ill, having contracted a blood-borne disease from his last dustup with Morbius, the living vampire. While tracking down a scientist who might help, he discovers that Morbius has already kidnapped the man, and gets blamed for the crime himself. Turns out the scientist is an old colleague of Professor X, who assembles his students to track down Spider-Man and rescue the missing scientist. The mutants confront the wall-crawler…

2) …and a type 7 “superhero misunderstanding battle” breaks out. Check out this handful of panels wherein every single character gets to demonstrate their powers for any new readers who aren’t familiar with them. That’s excellent storytelling on the part of Gil Kane (we can thank writer Gerry Conway for the excellent dialogue: “Use your eyes! Your eyes!”). Before the fight concludes, Spider-Man collapses from his illness and is hauled back to Westchester, where Xavier figures out that he has mere hours to live unless the X-Men can track down Morbius and create a vaccine.