The week brought another issue of MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE, this one featuring an assortment of special guest stars hanging out with Ben Grimm. Part of the reason for that is that this was one of those stories commissioned as an emergency fill-in that could be used in multiple places given the need. So it could have also been an issue of AVENGERS, but it wound up in TWO-IN-ONE. That’s a nice if generic cover by George Perez and Joe Sinnott, a pairing that I typically liked. And not at all reflective of the art style that we’d be getting on the interiors.
Because this was another job that had been penciled by a just-starting-out Frank Miller. Miller had taken over as the regular artist of DAREDEVIL this very month, but before that he had been honing his skills on inventory stories and emergency fill-ins such as this one. Here, he’s inked by Bob McLeod, who tries to polish up Miller’s rough style to make it better fit in with the flavor of FANTASTIC FOUR and AVENGERS. But he’s not wholly successful at it. Miller’s forte was in page composition and storytelling dramatics, he wasn’t really all that interested in being slick or in drawing pretty pictures. So the talents that would make him a good fit for the Man Without Fear weren’t of great value on this assignment, sadly. I remember thinking at the time that the art in this issue looked weird. Not bad necessarily, but weird. Not in step with the overall Marvel house style of the period.
This was the story that introduced the concept of Ben Grimm’s regular floating poker game. Though in this initial installment, the game was really being run seemingly by Nick Fury, who has invited Ben to participate. As Captain America and Iron Man have bowed out given their recent difficulties with Fury in their solo books, the table is instead occupied by the off-beat combination of District Attorney Blake Tower, Ms Marvel, the Beast and Wonder Man in addition to Nick and Ben, with Jarvis acting as the dealer. Of course, Ben is horrified in the chauvinistic manner of teh period that the Avengers’ butler has seen fit to include a woman at the table–and more incensed that she cleans up.
But this wouldn’t be much of a Marvel comic without a threat of some kind turning up and a fight scene breaking out. So while Fury is otherwise occupied, the SHIELD Helicarrier finds itself under attack from the Yellow Claw’s Sky-Dragon ship, which had been safely stowed away in a SHIELD holding facility. Fury and the assorted Avengers pile into the Fantasti-Car in order to zip up into the stratosphere and join in the festivities. D. A. Tower and Jarvis, of course, remain behind. So in short order, Ben, Fury and the Avengers arrive and see the Helicarrier being besieged by what appears to be U.S. Paratroopers dispatched from the Sky-Dragon.
from here, what follows is an extended fight sequence for pretty much the rest of the issue, as the assorted heroes engage the invaders. For all that the bad guys are armed, they really aren’t a match for even Nick Fury, let alone any of the super heroes, so the whole thing is a bit of a rout. But Miller gets to show off his compositional skills and his ability to depict action in interesting ways. And pretty much everybody gets a beat or a moment to shine and display some personality.
But eventually, some plot needs to kick back in, and that happens here, as Fury reaches the leader of the invaders, disgraced General Pollock, who came from an older AVENGERS story. He’s trying to reassemble another old macguffin, the Yellow Claw’s Ultimate Annihilator, the last component to which has been stored on the Helicarrier. Fury has the drop on Pollock, but he gets shot in the back for his trouble. Lucky thing the SHIELD ramrod was wearing his SHIELD-issue bulletproof jacket. But Nick is down, so it’s up to the others to prevent Pollock from getting away with his prize.
Which they do, in a funny scene in which Pollock’s retreat is cut off in several different directions by the individual Avengers and the Thing, none of whom he wants to mess with. So that’s teh ballgame–but the fight has gone well into the wee hours of the morning, and everybody is exhausted. So when they get back to Avengers Mansion with the intention of continuing the game, pretty much everybody apart from Wonder Man crashes immediately. End story. It’s a fun bit of fluff, but nothing truly memorable, and almost plotless. So not a bad issue, but not a good issue either. That was often the case with MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE (and often its sister title, MARVEL TEAM-UP): you never quite knew what you were going to get, and many times it seemed like somebody was just filling up a bunch of pages without any real direction or intent apart from cashing a check.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
We had very different reactions to this issue!
I thought it was a classic even when I first picked it up new — a fun, memorable story with amazing artwork. I’m glad Klaus became Frank’s regular inker, but I thought Bob McLeod over Miller was a knockout combination too, and the two Miller issues out this month were where he really started getting noticed.
Pretty unusual for one of these fill-ins to be lettered by Orzechowski, too. I wonder if that was Roger Stern’s doing, or if Peter Gillis lobbied for him.
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We had very different reactions to this issue!
I thought it was a classic even when I first picked it up new — a fun, memorable story with amazing artwork. I’m glad Klaus became Frank’s regular inker, but I thought Bob McLeod over Miller was a knockout combination too, and the two Miller issues out this month were where he really started getting noticed.
Pretty unusual for one of these fill-ins to be lettered by Orzechowski, too. I wonder if that was Roger Stern’s doing, or if Peter Gillis lobbied for him.
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We had very different reactions to this issue!
I thought it was a classic even when I first picked it up new — a fun, memorable story with amazing artwork. I’m glad Klaus became Frank’s regular inker, but I thought Bob McLeod over Miller was a knockout combination too, and the two Miller issues out this month were where he really started getting noticed.
Pretty unusual for one of these fill-ins to be lettered by Orzechowski, too. I wonder if that was Roger Stern’s doing, or if Peter Gillis lobbied for him.
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Jamie Madrox may have hacked Kurt’s account..
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I’m with you Kurt, this is an absolute stone-cold classic. That two-page spread of the soldiers zip-lining off the Sky Dragon made my eyes pop in 1979, and still impresses the heck out of me today. Miller might’ve still had some rough edges, but the things that are great about this issue far outweigh any rookie errors. Peter Gillis is a very underrated writer, IMHO. He often seemed to get saddled with crappy assignments (fill-ins like this, 3rd-rate series like Super-Villain Team-Up, et. al.), but would proceed to absolutely knock ’em out of the park.
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Miller’s raw, still developing here, but I’d say what Tom called “weird” is at least interesting. I’d bet Frank had already read Steranko’s work by then.
I don’t think it helped to have a too-conventional artist like Bob McLeod try to shoe-horn Miller’s experimental, burgeoning style to look “house”. It back-fired
Maybe Bob Wiacek would’ve helped more. Possibly Terry Austin.
Ms. Marvel looks totally like Dave Cockrum’s version.
The layouts look cool. Fury & the Beast (“Furry”) đŸ˜‚ look pretty snazzy. I’m glad to gave seen Wondy being used.
I wish during the Marvel DC crossover days, we’d gotten a poker game with some of each. Ben, Nick, Logan, w/ Cliff Steele, Rex Mason, & maybe an elderly Frank Rock.
I’d no idea Peter B. Gillis was writing for Marvel in 1979. I don’t remember his work until the tail end the “Defenders” & “New Defenders”. And then “Strikeforce Moritori”. (I might be butchering that title, sorry.)
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I liked this one even though you can barely see any of Miller in it. When I reread it recently I fantasized that the best visual in the story, the illustration of the Sky Dragon, might have been MIller paying homage to Steranko’s SHIELD, which even in the eighties had not lost its luster (yet). But since it was a fill in issue, who knows who came up with the idea? I’ve reread a fair number of the Marvel team books and the only creator who seemed consistently able to do a good job playing characters off one another was Claremont.
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This got reprinted, in much better style, in a UK Marvel hardback annual, probably because of Frank Miller’s involvement. I liked it, it was very post-dangerous Thing.
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Before I even read what Tom wrote my mind went to the “Yellow Claw’s”‘ Skydragon and General Pollock, I completely forgot about the Ultimate Annihilator ( I checked marvel.fandom.com for Strange Tales#166 and Yellow Claw & Suwan were robots — created by Dr. Doom — I don’t know if writer Peter Gillis had those Strange Tales issues or looked them up but I like when things ( Skydragon, Ultimate Annihilator ) and characters ( General Pollock ) that I have no first hand knowledge of are used ). So this issue wasn’t just fluff for me.
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I’ve always felt this issue started the cementing of Carol Danvers as important to the Marvel Universe in a serious way. If she had a relationship with Ben Grimm and Nick Fury then she had to be important, right? Her only real Kryptonite back then was how female led books never seemed to sell.
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Since I’ve looked up every Yellow Claw appearance up to current years, it seems no one ever picked up on YC’s declaration that he intended to wreak vengeance on whoever had infringed upon his copyright. I seem to remember some talk, maybe only from fans, that the “Super Villain War” in IRON MAN was intended to follow up on that plotline, but if so the overall plot went down a different rabbit hole, and ended up having the YC square off against the Mandarin.
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I wonder if “Golden Claw” would be more palatable . If not for a person than maybe for an organization. “Yellow” is too engrained as a racist slur.
But I like the idea of 2 ancient rival menacing warlords, that happen to be Chinese, or even East Asian.
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I liked Agents of Atlas’ solution well enough. Got rid of problematic elements and gav ea good story engine going forward.
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I remember the series, but didn’t stick with it.
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The concept devolved into basically Asian Avengers eventually over time. It lost me with having all these characters from other cultures and glossed over it. Why have a distinction if you don’t use it?
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Or just call him Huang Zhao ( Yellow Claw in Mandarin – just Googled it ) and link his name to the Five Emperors ( who represent the 5 cardinal points – East, West, North, South & Center — each has its own colour which I mentioned before ) and Yellow Claw/Huang Zhao as the human counterpart to the Yellow Emperor/Huangdi. Plus get rid of the yellowish skin like they did in Marvel: The Lost Generation.
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Did you know that the Yellow Claw prototype Fu Manchu mostly got to keep his name when Marvel renamed him Zheng Zu? My Funk and Wagnalls Dictionary says Manchu means Pure and my city’s library Collins Chinese Dictionary says Zheng ( 5. pure ) and Zu ( 1. grandfather. 2. ancestor. 3. founder ) and one of the Fu words means Father ( So Fu Manchu ( Father Pure ) & Zheng Zu ( Pure Grandfather/Ancestor/Founder ) ).
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Thanks for all that, John. Good stuff
What’d all you think about Morrisson’s Great 10? I thought August General in Iron was kind of bad ass.
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Never got the 52 and dc.fandom.com’s information for the Great Ten is unfinished, but the August General in Iron seems interesting from what I read on the site.
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I don’t care if they call the Asian evildoer Yellow Claw or Golden Claw; I just wish someone had followed through on the plot-thread Englehart introduced when he resuscitated the original Yellow Claw, because it’s been giving me fifty years of Plottus Devisus Interruptus. HOWEVER– it now occurs to me that I might find “satisfaction” in one outcome of the Super-Villain War back around the same era. Some may remember that the IRON MAN writer of that period, Mike Friedrich as I recall, introduced the War by having three prominent villains– two Marvels, Doom and Red Skull, and the third, Fu Manchu, on “lend-lease” from our British allies– declining to join the Black Lama’s villain-war. But Yellow Claw and Mandarin do. Friedrich *might* have been referencing the very different way Englehart treated the Original Claw’s resources. Doom, the Mandarin, and the Phony Claw are all of a type: able to pull infinite numbers of high-tech weapons out of no place to battle their foes. In the YC-Mandarin fight, the Claw doesn’t display as much sheer weapons-might as Mandarin, but Claw booby-traps Mandarin and fatally (for a little while) wounds the more powerful fiend. Mandarin even has a protesting line about how much stronger he is than the Claw. Could that have been an intimation about how things would have gone, had the Claw actually squared off against the similarly outfitted Doc Doom? Well, I’m gonna pretend that I know that was Friedrich’s intent, because it indirectly solves the problem of the Unresolved Plot Thread on SOME level.
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I enjoyed Friedrich tackling “why aren’t these villains playing?” and the motives, like Fu Manchu declaring he knows the Black Lama’s agenda.
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Sign me up as another one who thought this was terrific. I picked it up for Wonder Man and the Beast and loved it because it was such a patchwork of random, thrown together elements from different stories.
I agree Peter Gillis has done some fun work, including Strikeforce: Morituri and Blaze Barlow at first.
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loved this issue as a kid. Still great now.
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But WHAT is “BHOC”? …Anyone?
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Brevoort History of Comics
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“Big Honkin’ Office Chair”
“Bad Halitosis Offends Clients”
“Buy Him Oversized Crocs”
“Bobby Hates Orange Cellophane”
“Blind Hamster Operation Concludes”
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Thinking about how Marvel made so much use of “emergency fill ins,” I found myself thinking that most of Rian Johnson’s LAST JEDI movie was sort of a “fill in” until Jar Jar Abrams could come back to the series.
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