Posted By Dan Greenfield on Aug 10, 2024 | 1 comment

The final fate of the Flash (but not really)… and Spidey’s new symbiotic buddy…

Fred Van Lente’s COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH is back and better than ever! Now, as a monthly feature for 2024!

See, Marvel this year is celebrating the 40th anniversary of 1984’s 12-issue Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars by re-releasing each installment as a Facsimile Edition every month. And of course, what is the DC event it’s always compared to? Why, 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. And that series is also being re-released monthly. (It started in April.)

It’s a great time to revisit two maxiseries that redefined comics for good and for bad. You can click here to find the previous entries, but right now the tally stands at Crisis 4, Secret Wars 3. (The Secret Wars #8 Facsimile Edition is due out this Wednesday.)

Ring the bell, Fred!

—

By FRED VAN LENTE

Marvel Super Hero Secret Wars #8: “Invasion!”

Captain America’s group attacks Dr. Doom’s fortress to avenge the Wasp’s (apparent) death. This is the best fight in the series so far, fantastically drawn by Mike Zeck, and showcases Jim Shooter’s skill at characterization.

The ease with which the heroes take out heavy hitters like Absorbing Man and Piledriver strains credulity, but as a comics writer I sympathize with “I need to give every character a moment and I only have enough space for it to be a couple panels each.” So, Spider-Man knocks Bulldover’s helmet off and Spider-Woman fells Crusher Creel with his own ball-and-chain. Hawkeye tells Piledriver that arrows hit harder than bullets at close range, and can even pierce super-skin… hmmm, I’m gonna have to call in the “Mythbusters” crew to test that one out with one of their gel dummies.

The highlight, for me, is the Spider-Man vs. Titania tussle. Spidey gets so many key moments in the series I wonder why Shooter didn’t write him more often. She starts whining when pure strength doesn’t take him out and Peter, who knows from bullies, delivers one of the more devastating putdown monologues in Wall-Crawling history:

“You ought to be happy, cuddles! You applied to be a bully, and, man, you’re a classic! You talk tough and nasty when you’ve got the upper hand—but when you’re losing—well, that’s when the whining little wimp-ette inside comes spilling out!”

The comedy stylings of feral Lizard and maniac Klaw are one of the best parts of this issue, particularly when combined with a de-Thinged Ben Grimm and an arrow-less Hawkeye.

Spider-Man’s suit got all torn up in the aforementioned Titania fight, but Hulk and Thor tell him about a machine they found that repairs clothing. Jade Jaws used the device to make a new cape and helmet for the Asgardian. Spidey goes into the room by himself, picks out a random device, which pops out a black ball of goo that transforms into a new costume onto his body.

On this reread I realized, “Wait a minute, doesn’t that mean Thor’s hat and cape could be symbiotes? One that’s named, I dunno, Abattoir and another… Slaughter? They don’t seem to spend a lot of time on these symbiote character names.” But no, apparently Spidey picked the Symbiote Containment Facility by accident, and Thor’s ensemble is safe from alien infection.

I am sure why and how the symbiote wound up on Battleworld has been the subject of innumerable Venom comics that I don’t care enough about to look up. I was writing Marvel Adventures Spider-Man when Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 came out, and they wanted to do stories featuring each of the villains in that movie—Venom, Green Goblin, Sandman. But as I mentioned earlier in COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH, my stories all had to be done-in-ones, no continuity, no cliffhangers, no referencing other comics. So I needed to come up with an explanation for a sentient Black Costume that had nothing to do with Battleworld, Secret Wars, or Thor’s hat.

With only 22 pages to deal with any of this I just threw my hands up and said the Tinkerer invented the Black Costume. Why not?

It became one of the proudest moments of my life when, on a road trip, my wife went into a big-box store to grab something random and I stayed in the car. Suddenly she came running out with a copy of that MASM, bundled with a Spidey in sponge form, the kind that expands when you put it in water.

My work, packaged with a sponge. That’s one off the Bucket List. Who needs an Eisner?!

—

Crisis on Infinite Earths #8: “A Flash of the Lightning!” 

I will admit, as #8 is one of the stronger issues of Secret Wars, about halfway through this installment of Crisis I was thinking it might carry the day. The first part of Crisis #8 features a lot of what rubbed me the wrong way earlier in the series, namely a lot of super-characters standing around and/or yelling at stuff. This is including the Atom shrinking down and climbing around Red Tornado’s android body to find out what’s wrong with him, a weak sister to arguably the greatest single issue of The Avengers ever.

Then, at last, we get some payoff for the Flash storyline. The heroes’ most effective cross-dimensional traveller has been tied up on the anti-matter world of Qward, but here he finally escapes and takes revenge on his captors. (That he does so with the battle cry of “Eat Jell-O!” is something we will never speak of again.) He beats the snot out of the sniveling Psycho-Pirate until the villain agrees to turn the Thunderers of Qward against the Anti-Monitor.

This distraction secured, Flash finds the Anti-Montior’s anti-matter cannon, which has been his key to very, very, very slowly destroying the multiverse over the last few issues or so. Barry solves this problem the same way he solves everything, namely running real fast. He runs in the opposite direction the cannon is firing, forcing the energy back into it. He runs so fast he goes back through time, to all the mysterious pop-up appearances he’s had in previous issues, destroying the weapon and himself in the process.

It’s a terrific combination of art and story by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, the high point of this book so far. Just a great action sequence, top to bottom. I don’t have anything more intelligent to say about it than you should just read it!

ROUND EIGHT WINNER: CRISIS

—

Our Tally So Far: CRISIS 5, SECRET WARS 3,

—

MORE

— COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: Secret Wars #7 vs. Crisis on Infinite Earths #7. Click here.

— The Complete COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH Index. Click here.

—

13th Dimension contributor Fred Van Lente is an award-winning, New York Times-bestselling comics writer, as well as an occasional novelist, teacher, and playwright. Sign up for updates on his upcoming projects and check out the trailer for his comics-writing course at his web site, fredvanlente.com.