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Marvel Two-In-One #48

Feb 1979
Bill Mantlo, Chic Stone

Story Name:

My Master…Machinesmith!


Synopsis

Marvel Two-In-One #48 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 3.5 stars

At his New Haven, Connecticut, estate, Jack of Hearts is testing himself against an automatic weapons system he had purchased and set up. His butler Martins brings him a message from the Corporation, inviting him to a meeting at the docks. He has Martins notify SHIELD….

At the lair of the villain Machinesmith, Thing is held captive on an X-shaped force-bar while the Yancy Street Gang is pinned to a nearby wall. When Thing tries to pull himself off of the force-bar, waves of pain run through the Yancy Streeters, quashing plans of escape. Machinesmith places an alpha-headset on Ben’s head which allows the villain to control him totally, demonstrated when he releases Ben from the force-bar. He enunciates his plan to use Thing to gain control of Reed Richards’ fantastic inventions so he can take over the Corporation. And the Corporation has ordered MS to use the mind-controlled Thing to destroy their enemy Jack of Hearts…

…who is arriving at the rendezvous at the docks. He boards Machinesmith’s boat and is beset by robots. Jack clobbers them all and is then attacked by Thing, confusing him as he had always seen Ben as a good guy. The fight continues….

Machinesmith orders his men to abandon this base and set it to self-destruct. A low-level henchman heads for the controls but passes too close to the Yancy Streeters, one of whom snags the hood around the neck with his legs and hurls him into he control panel, shorting it out and freeing the Yancy Street Gang who immediately start throwing punches with Machinesmith’s men….

On the deck, Jack spots the headset on Thing’s noggin and assumes that his opponent is just a robot built to resemble the Thing so he blasts Ben with full power from one hand, knocking him out but also destroying the alpha-headset. Machinesmith witnesses this and immediately switches to an alternate plan of either learning the secret of the Zero Fluid or putting an alpha-headset on Jack. But then he is interrupted by the Yancy Street Gang who have just defeated his gang and they knock him cold. The Gang, thinking Thing is dead and start speaking kindly of him but then their longtime nemesis walks in, hale and hearty, and they go back to their usual relationship. Jack looks over Machinesmith and finds him cold—dead. But further examination reveals he is a robot. Thing leaves it to the Yancy Streeters to call the cops and they offer him a cigar…which explodes in his face….



 

Review / Commentaries


Marvel Two-In-One #48 Review by (August 20, 2024)

Review: Wait, the Yancy Streeters wear hard hats and carry construction gear? Anyway, this was a nice tie-in to Jack of Hearts’ usual schtick by randomly making Machinesmith an employee of Jack’s enemy, the Corporation. Some bits are good, like the introductory scenes with Jack and others are dismal, like the Yancy Streeter snagging the hood and tossing him into the controls; that last had some very dubious logistics. And TMI for the baddie’s alpha headset. All we really needed to know was that it was a mind control device, like so many other bits of villainous hardware. Wait, hardware? Maybe that’s why the Yancy Street Gang looked like a bunch of construction workers, it was a union thing. No, not that Thing.

Comments: Part two of two parts. Daredevil villain Starr Saxon, introduced in DAREDEVIL #49 who became Mr. Fear in DD #54, was reinvented as Machinesmith in the previous issue; his next appearance is in CAPTAIN AMERICA #247-249. First page lettered by Gaspar Saladino. The letters page includes one by future comics legend Kurt Busiek.



> Marvel Two-In-One comic book info and issue index

Elektra

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Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)

Chic Stone
Tex Blaisdell
Mario Sen
Chic Stone (Cover Penciler)
Chic Stone (Cover Inker)
? (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Elaine Heinl.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Jack of Hearts
Jack of Hearts

(Jonathan Hart)
Thing
Thing

(Ben Grimm)

Plus: Machinesmith, Yancy Street Gang.