Today's topic is the ninety-eighth issue of Marvel Two-In-One. The cover showed Ben Grimm's face as he played a video game. The tale was titled "Vid Wars!" The issue had a publication date of April 1983.
The story started at a video arcade in New York, where the Thing stood next to his godson, Franklin Richards, who had just defeated him in the game Star-Fighter 15 times in a row. Afterward, Ben asked Franklin if he was interested in a game that was more in line with Grimm's physical abilities. Franklin politely declined, and the two headed back to the Baxter Building.
On the way, Ben asked his godson how he got to be so good at games like that. Franklin replied that he merely observed patterns in the game. At the entrance, they were met by the doorman and overheard a stranger trying to enter, who wanted to find a way to market his new video game. Ben's ears perked up upon hearing that, and he allowed the man inside.
He introduced himself as Dr. Giles Niven, and he was hoping to market a game he'd created called Space Saver. Niven was inspired by the odd sounds he'd been hearing from deep space. Once inside the Fantastic Four's headquarters, the good doctor brought out the console and loaded the game disk.
Ben took to the controller and started playing immediately. In a setup similar to the Pac-Man franchise, players moved their character around the screen to set up shields in the maze before them while trying to evade the enemy known as the Grungy Gobbler. Grimm had no sooner plugged in a set of controllers and pressed the interactive mode button on the computer when he, Franklin, and Giles disappeared.
They arrived on a plane named Krith, which was occupied by tall, green alien humanoids. One of them, called Sharilla, was the leader of their security forces. She had brought the humans to their world to assist them in getting rid of a large monster that looked very similar to the antagonist in Niven's video game.
The doctor saw the correlations to the current threat and his game, and asked Sharilla if they had any vehicles capable of producing force fields. They did, and he, Ben, and Sharilla set off in one. Franklin tried to warn his uncle about the patterns from the game, but Grimm didn't make time to hear him out.
It wasn't long before the trio found one of the monsters, which soon spewed smaller red gobblers from its maw, just like in the video game. Ben eventually found himself face to face with two of the red gobblers, who crashed into each other and were destroyed after Grimm ducked out of their paths. The smaller drones were surprisingly intelligent, but still beatable.
Niven took the controls of the ship and launched a force field bomb at one of the drones, encasing it in a transparent bubble. Afterward, the flier landed to pick up Ben before returning to the base. Franklin continued talking to the Thing about the patterns, which Sharilla noted might be true after all. They discovered where the larger creature went to recharge, which was identical to the game.
The shuttle set out again in search of the gobbler, who had retreated to a large circular generator. It resumed its defense upon seeing its attackers, and while Ben led the forward charge, the doctor and Sharilla examined the structure. Giles and Sharilla figured out that if they sent the ship into the belly of the generator, it would explode.
After the detonation, the gobbler lost its primary power source, and soon disappeared into nothingness. K'rith had been saved. The doctor chose to stay behind on the planet to further aid its people. A while later, Franklin and Ben were having a rematch on a console back at the Baxter Building. Franklin's parents, Reed (Mr. Fantastic) and Sue (the Invisible Girl) were watching. Reed remarked that the game was selling well, and that they planned to use the proceeds to establish a grant in Giles' name. Franklin won again, leaving his uncle to wonder if they might have been better off playing checkers instead.
This issue was billed as a team-up with Franklin Richards, although he didn't contribute as much to the plot as other guest stars have during this series' run. It was still in line with the video game craze of the Eighties, and a decent single-issue story before the title's cancellation.
That's it for me today. Tomorrow, I'll talk about the ninety-ninth issue of Marvel Two-In-One. The Thing pairs up with someone who was the subject of my first retro comic book series to take on a terror that most of us thought had been extinguished quite some time ago. Until then, have a great week, and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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