Holiday Heroes MARVEL TEAM-UP "Spider-Man and The Watcher in 'Small Miracles' " Conclusion

We Have Already Seen... 


...attending Aunt May's Christmas party, Peter Parker discovers one of her friends, Arthur Chekov, in despair because his granddaughter, Bette didn't show up, and he's worried about her since he's her only surviving relative.

Peter attempts to console him when the webslinger's Spider-Sense goes off!

Excusing himself from the party, Peter goes to the darkened backyard to find...The Watcher...who says nothing, but hands him a glowing gem showing an image...of Chekov's grandaughter, Bette!

Taking this as a portent, Peter, now in costume, attempts to track down Bette, but can't!
Ol' Web-Head doen;t know how to proceed, when none other than the Star-Spangled Avenger himself, returing home via the rooftoops, finds him and offers to help...

Written by JM DeMatteis, penciled by Kerry Gamill, and inked by Mike Esposito, this never-reprinted Yuletide tale from Marvel Team-Up #127 (1983) offers a bit of insight into why the enigmatic Watcher doesn't just observe, but violates his race's version of the non-interference Prime Directive time and again, sometimes during Earth-shaking events, sometimes in matters affecting those who others might consider "unimportant".

Holiday Heroes MARVEL TEAM-UP "Spider-Man and The Watcher in 'Small Miracles' " Part 1

It's Christmas Eve in the MCU...

and a never-reprinted Yuletide tale from four decades ago is about to unfold!

Pay attention, True Believer...

Will Spider-Man Bette in time?

Will the Star-Spangled Avenger pop up again?

Will The Watcher just stand around and watch?

The answers to these and other annoying questions will be found

TOMORROW!

(Because unless you read this story when it came out, or picked it up as a back issue, you don't know what happens!)

Holiday Heroes MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL "Mighty Thor in 'Twas a Mid-Winter's Night' "

We're Taking a Break from Russkie-Smashing Until After the New Year...

...because our hearts are filled with the Joy of the Season, yea, verily!

Written by Tom DeFalco and illustrated by Sal Buscema, this never-reprinted tale from Marvel Holiday Special (1991) celebrates not Christmas, per se, but the Winter Solstice celebrations popular throughout Europe that the Christian holiday is based on!

From 1991 through 2011, Marvel usually-produced an annual-sized anthology Marvel Holiday Special with all-new tales of Christmas, Hanukkah, and other mid-Winter celebrations!
DC did a couple of similar holiday series featuring all-new stories from the 1980s to the present.
Many of them haven't been reprinted since initial publication, like this one with the God of Thunder and his All-Father, Odin!
We're going to be re-presenting long-unseen stories from those series every Monday through New Year, after which we'll return to superheroes, spies, and other good guys beating up Russkies, ChiComs, NoKos, and other Communist miscreants!

NoKo Crushers COMBAT CASEY "Atomic Warfare"

Since it's Veteran's Day...

...let's look at how our comic book military viewed a possible atomic war in the 1950s against the Communist NoKos (aka North Koreans)!

WTF???

Admittedly, in 1954, when Combat Casey #19 was published by Atlas (later Marvel), scientific analysis of actual a-bomb explosions was limited, but I find it hard to believe that this was the cutting-edge of nuclear knowledge as presented in this never-reprinted story by artist Robert Q Sale and an unknown writer!

Then again...maybe it was, as detailed by this legendary character...

MAD-DOG "vs. the Truly Amazing Space Creatures from the Omega Galaxy"

We interrupt "Russkie Smashers" for an important announcement...

WE'RE BEING INVADED!!!
FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Mad-Dog's Silver Age-era creator/writer/artist Bob McKay doesn't exist, despite receiving credit on the cover...

...as well as the splash page.
He's the title character of the 1992-94 TV show BOB, the final series starring the late, great, Bob Newhart!

McCay was the creator/writer/artist of the Silver Age Batman-esque character Mad-Dog!
Unlike most Golden and Silver Age creators, he managed to hold on to the copyright to the character!
When, in the "present day" of 1992, Harlan Stone, editor of Ace Comics, contacts Bob and offers to publish new adventures of Mad-Dog, McCay is ecstatic...until he sees that Stone wants to reboot the character as a grungy, homicidal vigilante!
Stone proposes this comic (published by Marvel) which will present both versions!
Note that, for the purposes of this story, actual writer-penciller Ty Templeton and inker Jeff Albrecht are identified as McCay's "assistants"!
You can read Stone's overly-violent Dark Age version right now over at our 'brother" RetroBlog Atomic Kommie Comics by clicking HERE!
And you can watch (yes, watch) the series' origin story at another "brother" RetroBlog, Secret Sanctum of Captain Video, by clicking HERE!

BTW, Russkie Smashers will return next Monday!

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