SPIDER-MAN, STORM AND CAGE "vs SmokeScreen" Part 2: Where There's Smoke...

When Last We Left our Non-Smoking Heroes and Heroine...

Luke Cage is mentoring a teen track team of kids representing every district in NYC.

He confides to photographer Peter Parker, who's covering the team for a human interest story, that one of them, Bret Jackson, isn't performing up to his previous levels.

But why?

As Spider-Man, Peter recruits the X-Men's Storm to trail a couple of suspicious fellows who are supplying cigarettes to Bret and other kids!

Though Ororo eludes detection by flying after the creeps, she's caught when entering their headquarters...

And if that sounds familiar, it's the synopsis I used HERE!

Now let's continue this twice-told tale...

What would you do, True Believer?

If you're still undecided, perhaps this back cover will sway you...

And, as a final treat, here's the inside front cover with some background about the heroine and heroes...

Talk about deja vu...sort of!

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SPIDER-MAN, STORM AND CAGE "vs SmokeScreen" Part 1

If you read this tale...

...this one will sound familiar...but look quite different!

The Story Concludes...

TOMORROW!

Using the exact same script by a unknown writer we saw HERE, penciler David Tata and inker Norman Lee re-tell the cautionary tale originally-seen in 1982!

However, the page between chapters about "Window Shopping Fun" and "Classroom Activities" was not redrawn for this version!

The book is now titled Spider-Man, Storm and Cage instead of Spider-Man, Storm and Power Man, since Luke Cage had dropped the super-heroesque "code name".
Exactly why the book was "recreated" in 1998 after being reprinted that same year is unknown.

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Giveaways that Fought Commies, Sold Cars and Cigars, Showed How to Buy a TV and Avoid VD, and are now Saving Lives!

Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES Ferret

Criminals are a cowardly, supersitious lot...

...but even they weren't afraid of this lame character in his only Golden Age appearance!

The writer and artist of this tale from Centaur's Man of War Comics #2 are unknown, and so was this character...until the tail-end of the B/W indie craze in 1992, when Malibu Comics revived a revamped group of Centaur Comics heroes as "The Protectors".

The Ferret was remade into a feral character who looked almost exactly like Marvel's Sabretooth, but was obviously-intended to capitalize on the popularity of Wolverine!

The Protectors ran 20 issues and Ferret starred in a one-shot book that sold well enough to prompt a 10-issue run of his own title.

Not bad for a guy who appeared in only one story before his revival.

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Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE & THE SHADOW "Case of the Shrieking Skeletons" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Art by Stan Manoukian and Dave Stevens

The plot's a bit convoluted, but you can re-read it from the beginning with Part 1 HERE, Part 2 HERE, and Part 3 HERE.

Right now, all you need to know is that Doc Savage and The Shadow have been taken prisoner by an alliance of Nazis and gangsters who are using genetically-modified humans turned into giant monsters who then deteriorate into shambling skeletal zombie-like creatures.

But holding the Man of Bronze and the Master of Darkness is another matter...

Writer Steve Vance tossed in a kool Easter Egg...Professor Reinstein himself, and the "secret government project"!

If you're a fan of a certain Star-Spangled Avenger, you'll recognize the scientist's name!

Professor Reinstein did receive a position at a government facility where he perfected his formula...

 But Professor Reinstein's legacy lives on...

Reading Room: DOC SAVAGE & THE SHADOW "Case of the Shrieking Skeletons" Part 1A

It's the team-up tale too big for just one blog to host...

..combining the two greatest heroes of the 1930s in a horror-themed story just right for the Halloween season!

And who would know more about shadows...than Lamont Cranston?

The tale continues tomorrow, at our "brother" blog Crime & Punishment™!

This never-reprinted tale from Dark Horse's The Shadow & Doc Savage #1 (1995) came out just as the ill-fated Shadow movie starring Alec Baldwin hit movie theaters.

Written by Steve Vance, penciled by Stan Manoukian, and inked by Vince Roucher, it's actually a pretty good combo of the two series' characters and storytelling styles.