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

We have Already Seen...

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...

Now that the story's concluded, the comic presents the reader with a quandry...

What would you do, True Believer?

If you're still undecided, perhaps this back cover by John Romita Sr, will sway you...

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

Penciled by Herb Trimpe and inked by Joe Giella, Marvel's Spider-Man, Storm and Power Man (1982) was commissioned by the American Cancer Society to discourage 'tween and teen smoking.

Oddly, the writer is unknown, but is suspected to be an ACS staffer.
Now here's where it gets wild...
Years later, the American Cancer Society reprinted the comic.
But, within a couple of months, it commissioned Marvel to re-do it...using the exact same script!

See the Result...

Tomorrow!

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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!

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

Here's a hard-to-find educational giveaway comic that was both reprinted several year later...

...then re-presented that same year!
(We'll go into that tomorrow...)

Between chapters is "Window Shopping Fun"...

The Story Concludes...

TOMORROW!

Penciled by Herb Trimpe and inked by Joe Giella, Marvel's Spider-Man, Storm and Power Man (1982) was commissioned by the American Cancer Society to discourage 'tween and teen smoking.

Oddly, the writer is unknown, but is suspected to be an ACS staffer.

Please Support Hero Histories!

Visit Amazon and Order...

Free Comics

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

Holiday Reading Room GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG " 'Tis the Season..."

As your Christmas gift from us this year...

...we offer a never-reprinted story from Marvel Treasury Edition #13 (1976) featuring a slew of superheroes and superheroines...in a tale unseen for two generations!

Segue into a reprint of Marvel Two-In-One #6 (1973) "...as Those Who Will Not See!" featuring Spider-Man and the Thing.

After that, we return to the narrative...

Cue the reprint of Avengers V1N58 (1968)..."Even an Android can Cry!", which features the Vision joining the Avengers!

Then back to the snowball fight...

If you think we're about to do another "flashback" involving a reprint, specifically "He Who Strikes the Silver Surfer!", the Hulk story from Tales to Astonish #93 (1967), you'd be correct, True Believer!

But, after the not-so jolly green giant relives the adventure in his head...

...as a reprint of "Once Upon a Time---the Ox!" from Daredevil #86 (1972) which featured Matt Murdock breaking up with his then-girlfriend Karen Page and hooking up with Natasha Romanova, the Black Widow demonstrated!

Speaking of Natasha...

It's a very cleverly-done "framing sequence" to tie the reprints together.

In fact, it's so clever that, when it was reprinted (in Spanish) in Grandes Herois Marvel #2 (1983)...

...the story was presented as a self-contained tale...without the reprints!

The book used different Yuletide-themed reprints after "'Tis the Season!"!

(So, technically the story was "reprinted", but since it wasn't in English, and my audience is 99.99% English-speaking, I consider it "never-reprinted")

BTW, it did use the Treasury's front cover by Gil Kane, John Romita, and Joe Sinnott...

...but not the back cover...which we present here!

And, just to show you our hearts are filled with the Joy of the Season, here's the inside covers, which feature new John Romita/Frank Giacoia art...

Don't say we never gave ya nothin'!

Merry Christmas

and

Happy New Year!

To paraphrase what they say at the end of the James Bond movies...

Hero Histories WILL Return...

Holiday Reading Room DCU HOLIDAY BASH "The House of Peace"

There are many, many, tales of super-heroes at Christmastime...

...but sadly, few Hannukah (or Chanukah) stories...except for this never-reprinted one from DC's DCU Holiday Bash II (1998)!

The DCU Holiday Bash annual only ran three years in the late 1990s with a few of the stories collected in a now out-of-print hardcover in 2000.

The rest of the tales (including this one) have never been reprinted, so we thought that, a generation later, these time-lost classics deserved to be seen by a new audience!

Halloween Horror THE SPECTRE "You Have Failed, Spectre!"

One of the least-known facts about DC's resident Angel of Vengeance...

...is that, for a while, he was reduced to being a CryptKeeper-style horror-host in his own book!

This status-changing story from DC's The Spectre #9 (1969) by writer Mick Friedrich, penciler Jerry Grandenetti, and inker Bill Draut has never been reprinted in color, so unless you have this over 50 year-old issue, you probably haven't seen it like this!

In the previous issue, God (yes, that guy!) removed the Ghostly Guardian's sight, forcing him to resolve a situation while blind, but restored it by the story's end!

The Spectre's comic lasted only one more issue, and the character's final Silver Age appearance a year later was in an annual Justice League/Justice Society team-up where he sacrificed himself  to keep Earth One and Earth Two from colliding!

He returned as the lead feature in Adventure Comics, in 1974, where the character was far more merciless and lethal than ever before!

But that's a story for another time...

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Showcase Presents

The Spectre

(which reprints this tale...but in black-and-white!)