Every now and then I like to go back through my comic collection and remember some of the titles that are no longer around. For one reason or another, they were discontinued, due to lack of sales, the character going into hiatus or some other obscure reason.
Such was the case with the original Marvel Two in One starring Ever-Loving Blue-Eyes, The Thing. Every month, a new issue would come out teaming up The Thing with another hero, and of course, zany adventures would happen. While the Fantastic Four book was serious at times, Marvel Two in One gave The Thing a chance to shine.
The big draw for a Marvel Two in One book was the guests, sometimes very obscure to most readers. I mean some were relavent at the time, but have no basis now. Anyone remember ROM: The Space Knight? He was in issue 99. How about a little Wundarr, remember him? Probably not, but he was in issue 57. Maybe to get a little more obscure, you could got with Stingray. Yeah, remember Stingray? Of course the Spider-Man’s, Iron Fist’s, and Hulk’s were present at some point, but it was nice to see some lesser used heroes get the limelight, even if only for one month on the shelf.
If I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be Marvel Two in One issue 51. It actually starred four heroes, Wonder-Man, Nick Fury, Ms. Marvel and The Beast. The five heroes were meant to play a simple card game, but an alarm goes off at the Baxter Building, and all the heroes end up having to stop an attack on the SHIELD Helicarrier by HYDRA. Full of great one liners and one of my favorite heroes (Wonder-Man), I still own two copies so I can read one and keep another in storage.
From my understanding, Marvel has brought back the Marvel Two in One books, but they just do not seem to have the fun vibe that they did back in the 70’s and early 80’s. The Marvel Two in One series from my memory ended at issue 100 with the best guest star possible – Ben Grimm.
