Marvel Two-in-One #57: When Walks Wundarr!


Writer: Gruenwald / Macchio
Penciller: George Perez
Inker: Gene Day
Letterer: Costanza
Colorist: Sharen
Editor: Stern

The Guest Star:
      Wundarr

The Villain:
      Klaw; Solarr; Dr. Thomas Lightner

Guest Shots:
      Quasar; Giant-Man; Thundra; Electro; the Cosmic Cube

The Set Up:
      The issue starts with all the major Project Pegasus security figures in a meeting- obviously, based on the events of the previous four issues, something big is up. While Quasar puts the whole place on alert, Ben goes to talk to Thundra, who refuses to tell Ben anything for fear of jeopardizing her 'reward'.
     Elsewhere in Pegasus, Wundarr is up and walking at long last (though he's seems lost in his own head). Unfortunately, his new powers are shutting off all power as he passes, and that includes the power to the detention cells that hold Solarr. Solarr attempts to zap, and then physically attack, Wundarr, to no effect. As Wundarr wanders off, Solarr decides to get some help in his escape. Electro proves worthless (due to being in a full-body cast), but Solarr soon finds and awakens Klaw, and the two make a break for it.
     Back at security, the computers turn up one name who's been at all the trouble, and to Ben's utter lack of surprise it is Dr. Thomas Lightner. Unfortunately, at about the same time, Lightner has completed his 'Nth Projector' and activates it in an attept to restore his one-time powers as Blacksun.
     Klaw and Solarr's escape has been noted, and Ben, Quasar, and Giant-Man head after them, expecting to find Lightner. Surprised, Quasar is quickly taken out by Solarr, leaving Ben to slow the escape attempt using a "gimmick from one'a them old road runner cartoons"...

Clobberin' Time?:
      Nope.

Petunia's Patch:
      No Petunia.

Things of Interest:
      This is part five of the six-part Project Pegasus saga, which runs from MTIO 53 to MTIO 58. All six issues (plus issue 60) were reprinted in 1988 in trade paperback as The Project Pegasus Saga.
     Solarr was an extrememly minor villain, who first appeared in Captain America 160 and never hit it big. He eventually died ignominiously in Power Man and Iron Fist issue 113. He worked together with Klaw in Avengers 126.
     Klaw is the arch-enemy of the Black Panther, and a long-time major Marvel villain. He first appeared in Fantastic Four issue 33, and last appeared prior to this in Black Panther volume 1, issue 15, in which he had been apparently disintegrated.
     The Nth Projector, which we see Lightner finish and use on himself in this issue, next appears again in MTIO 67, when we finally find out what Thundra's mysterious 'reward' was to be. It also plays a major role in Captain America issues 286-288, and a few other places in the Marvel universe over time (in Quasar as the raison d'etre for the Angler, and in the Avengers/Squadron Supreme Annual as the means to send the Squadron Supreme and Magdalene and the Swordsman all off to alternate dimensions)