Marvel Two-in-One #28: In the Power of the Piranha!


Writer: Marv Wolfman
Penciller: Ron Wilson
Inker: John Tartag
Letterer: Irv Watanabe
Colorist: Irene V.
Editor: Marv Wolfman

The Guest Star:
      Sub-Mariner

The Villain:
      Piranha

Guest Shots:
      Deathlok; Nick Fury; Mr. Fantastic; Human Torch; Invisible Girl

The Set Up:
      Ben and the rest of the Fantastic Four, with Nick Fury, are in one of Reed's labs examining Deathlok. Reed comes to the conclusion that the Fixer's mind control device (from last issue) cannot be removed without killing Deathlok, and if they don't remove it, he'll die anyway. Reed believes, however, that a scientist (Prof. Louis Kort) in England might be able to help him, so Ben loads Deathlok in a jet for England, and takes Alicia along as well for a vacation.
     Elsewhere, Prince Namor, the Sub-mariner, is returning home after having been a slave to Dr. Doom. He's ambushed by an old villain from the pages of his own magazine, the Piranha, but quickly kills him dead. Continuing on, he sees Ben's jet passing over. He flies up to greet Ben, but as he does so he's attacked by the Piranha, again. At Alicia's urging, Ben sets the jet down on the ocean surface, and bails out to help. As soon as he leaves, Alicia is kidnapped by.. the Piranha! Ben clobbers him, and returns to the surface for air. As he does so, Namor is attacked (and overcome) by another dozen of the Piranha. When Subby doesn't arrive, Ben heads back down, and he too falls beneath the large horde.
     Ben and Namor come to in a large arena, filled with hundreds of the Piranha. They're told that they will fight to the death, or else the Piranha(s) will kill Alicia...

Clobberin' Time?:
      Nope.

Petunia's Patch:
      Nope.

Things of Interest:
     Namor's mind control storyline ran over the course of Super-Villain Team-Up.
      The Piranha last appeared in Submariner issues 70-71. The story of how there got to be multiple versions of the Piranha is kind of fun, and leaves me assuming that there's probably a few more of the Piranha floating around out there. The Piranha just recently finally appeared again, in Defenders Vol. 2, issue 7.
     The nice thing about having a steady writer- though the main plot of this issue doesn't relate to last issue and the story could have been told without mentioning last issue, the fact that we finally have a steady writer means that the events of previous issues can continue affecting this issue, and we get the feel of an ongoing story (or set of stories) instead of a lot of stand-alones.