Marvel Two-In-One Annual #3 (Marvel/1978)

 

Marvel Two-In-One Annual #3: 

Marv Wolfman (w) Sal Buscema (a)

It's been a while since I read an old Marvel comic and I just happened to notice whilst moving stuff about that despite having had the is comic for some time I had not even opened the bag so sat down for what turned out to be a nostalgic read.

Marvel Two-In-One was a vehicle for teaming up the lovable Benjamin Grimm a.k.a. The Thing from the Fantastic Four with other players in the Marvel Universe. This comic along with Marvel Team-Up allowed Marvel to feature a lot of characters that  did not have their own comics nor were members of teams and otherwise might not get an outing.

These were usually "done-in-one" stories that are rarely if ever seen these days and frankly are in part responsible for the decline of the medium as these allowed for casual readers to pick up comics at random rather than be forced to track down every issue of a multi-part adventure or complex crossover.

This particulate over-sized comic the American version of an "Annual" features Nova who was a not just a super-hero rookie as seen in the story but new to Marvel. Aliens known as "Monitors" have landed on Earth to see if the planet is fit to be allowed to live. In thousands of years no planet has ever met their standards. 

Unable to face the threat alone Nova seeks help firstly from the Avengers and then from the Fantastic Four after amusingly asking Jarvis for the address of the Baxter Building! Help is also at hand as a woman, seemingly a prisoner of the Monitors gets freed and the trio seek to free the others to weaken & help save Earth.

It goes without saying that Ben and Nova succeed but one has to ask where were the Celestials during all this as they were sitting in the Andes with yet another judgement to make on the future of mankind. The Marvel Universe is sure a dangerous place to live what with these Monitors, Celestials and Galactus consuming life everywhere it is a wonder any survives.

An inexpensive buy if you come across a copy and most of the 100 issue series is worth a read.