Posted - August 22, 2018

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Marvel Two-In-One No. 68
Discos and Dungeons




Since this comicbook was created in 1980 I can't help but think that the title is a play on the name of a game that was becoming popular at the time - Dungeons and Dragons.

This issue is a real period piece. The splash page is a homage to the golden age of disco and the hit disco movie Saturday Night Fever. With the Thing dressed in the outfit and adopting the classic dance pose of the movie's lead, John Travolta.



Johnny Storm has taken his pal, Ben Grimm, for a night on the town, seeing as how Ben has been feeling glum from his breakup with Alicia and also the loss of Thundra as his 'rebound' girlfriend.

While in the disco bar, they bump into the Angel.



That's not just any girl with Warren. That's Candy Sothern - she's been Warren's girl since the days of the original X-Men.

Shown below is an elevator trap. Inside the elevator is the unconscious Angel and Thing.



This is a pretty expensive trap - I wonder who the villain is?

When the pair wake up they find themselves in a place inspired by a medieval dungeon.



Those chains are no problem for the Thing. One would think that the Angel would need his help but Warren shows tremendous flexibility.



It must be on account of his super-light bird-like bones.

They are still hanging by their ankles though. Ben uses Angel's wings to clumsily get both of them out.



I find the miniature Magneto robot kind of cute.



Upon seeing this guy, my immediate canditate for the villain is Arcade. The super-rich and sadistic robotics expert who likes to build Murderworlds and have heroes run the gauntlet.

It's almost cliche for the walls to sprout spikes and to start crushing a room's occupants. This is exactly what happens next. But for Ben this is less than nothing - he simply pulverizes the other wall and both he and Warren walk out.

The pair don't stay together for long though.



The Angel is confronted by dangerous blades but his long years of training in the X-Men Danger Room has prepared him for just this kind of challenge.



The Thing uses his strength to avoid falling into a pit of blades.



Since the Thing can shrug off gunfire I don't think those blades would pierce his armor even if he did fall in.

With the Thing crashing through castle walls as if they were made of paper the pair meet up again and go into yet another dangerous room. This time mechanized knights attack them. It's just a matter of time before they take these opponents down with the Thing being unstoppable on the ground and the Angel as air support.



The most striking room in the entire castle is this mechanized swamp.



The author of these relatively harmless shenanigans is a big surprise. It wasn't Arcade after all. It's Toad!



Magneto's rather servile underling has set out on his own and has chosen to be a kind of Arcade-style assassin. I never thought he had it in him. Aside from profit, vengeance is also a big motivator. Thus his entrapment of the Angel. The Thing was just an accidental catch. Haha. You should have ditched Ben from the beginning Toad, his presence pretty much guaranteed that you would not succeed.

All the power of the Thing and the Angel are nothing to what happens next:



The Toad's financing just got pulled out from under him.

Warren's long experience with Toad has given him the impression that Toad is not truly evil; he just fell in with an evil lot (The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants - it's in the name, duh). So Warren decides to talk Toad out of the assassination business and bankroll him into another kind of business. And thus is born . . .



Next: Marvel Two-In-One 69 Homecoming