Retro Comic Recap: Marvel Two-In-One #14

Good afternoon,

I hope everyone's been enjoying the wonderful weather this weekend. I'm wrapping up my writing today with a synopsis of the fourteenth issue of Marvel Two-In-One. The cover showed the Thing and Daimon Hellstrom (aka the Son of Satan) preparing to do battle against a sword-wielding rider on horseback. The tale was titled "Ghost Town!" The issue had a publication date of March 1976.

The story started in the deserted desert town of Lawless, Arizona. Grimm appeared to be the only person occupying the village at the moment. It looked like something out of a Western television program or movie. The buildings were literally crumbling around our hero.

Ben thought back to an incident hours earlier, in the lab at the Baxter Building. His Fantastic Four teammate, Reed Richards, was working on a psych-detector, which seemed to indicate a powerful presence in the town that Ben now occupied. Grimm's girlfriend, Alicia Masters, apparently confirmed that suspicion when she felt compelled to place her hand over that section of the map below her, right before she was stunned herself by a similar burst of energy like the one that had just fired from Reed's machine minutes before.

Richards sent his former college roommate out to the quiet town to investigate. By then, he had come across an old saloon and found himself staring at the portrait of a rider that would undoubtedly strike fear in most people. Grimm's sentiment was then echoed by someone from behind him. He turned to see Hellstrom, in his Son of Satan guise, a few feet away.

Daimon had met the Human Torch before (in Marvel Team-Up #32). He explained to Ben that he'd been drawn to the location by the man in the picture hanging on the wall. He was once Jedediah Ravenstorm, a notorious criminal who had been hanged for his misdeeds. However, that didn't mean that his evil was over.

 A few moments later, a whirlwind prefaced Ravenstorm's return. He rode toward the superbeings and ordered them to leave his town, or else harm would befall them. Daimon wasn't about to depart until he'd rid the town of Ravenstorm's possession of its soul spirit. It wasn't an easy battle against someone already dead, but Ben and Daimon fought valiantly.

At one point, Hellstrom tossed his pitchfork at their foe, releasing him of his human shell and allowing their true opponent, Kthara, to take to the air. For a while, things appeared to be most dire. However, it wasn't long before the spirits of the townspeople that Ravenstorm had wronged began to fly toward the mystic villain, and apparently claimed their revenge before vanishing into thin air.

Hellstrom deduced that Kthara was no more, and he and Ben were safe. Grimm thanked his companion for his assistance before the duo made their separate ways. After returning home, Ben told Reed that he hadn't found anything of importance on his journey. Reed was a bit skeptical, but didn't press his friend on the matter, now that he was back home with the ones he loved. 

Before reading this issue, I didn't know a lot about Hellstrom, except for a few of his stories in Marvel Spotlight and some of his appearances in the Defenders before he married Patsy Walker (aka the Hellcat) and the couple left the team before the book had a new lineup and was christened the New Defenders in issue #125. Marvel did more of a deep dive on this character in the Hellstrom series that was released in the 1990s.

Ravenstorm was another one of those one-and-done villains that we'd see periodically throughout this series' initial run. Daimon had tussled with Kthara once before (in the pages of Marvel Spotlight), but there wasn't much time in this single-issue story to delve into his background. I would have liked to have learned a bit more about them, but I guess the tale was okay, especially for those who were just jumping onto this title or who were Bill Mantlo or Herb Trimpe fans. One problem with team-up books like this is that there usually aren't very many multi-part storylines, and the creative teams usually change fairly regularly, so there typically aren't very many opportunities in them to expand upon new or existing characters. 

That's all I have for you today. Tomorrow, I'll begin the day with a recap of the fifteenth issue of this series. The Thing will meet a character who initially appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man as they go up against someone who was seeking retribution against one of the original Avengers. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.