Crack of the Whip!

MARVEL TEAM-UP — Issue No. 72, May 1978

Book: Marvel Team-Up

Issue No.: 72

Published: May 23, 1978

Title: “Crack of the Whip!”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Digital scan

This story is credited to “guest-writer” Bill Mantlo and “guest-artist” Jim Mooney, so I am assuming it is another fill-in issue. Though, honestly, I am not sure who the “regular” creative team for Marvel Team-Up is these days (these days being May 1978 for the purposes of Marvel Time Warp). I took a peek into the future (via the Fandom.com Marvel wiki), and it looks like Chris Claremont wrote some of the remaining issues of Team-Up for 1978, but there are a few other one-off writers on the book as well. So I guess Claremont will remain the closest thing the book has to a regular writer for the remainder of 1978.

All that said, the cover of this issue is by former regular Marvel Team-Up artist John Byrne, and it is (unsurprisingly) terrific, featuring a dynamic view of super-villain Whiplash attacking Iron Man while Spider-Man lies on the ground, apparently already defeated.

Whiplash (the comic book villain who inspired the Iron Man 2 character of the same name) is the marquee bad guy for this story. Spider-Man busts some costumed goons (they’re robbing fur coats, of all things), and it turns out they’re working for Whiplash. They manage to get the best of Spidey by shooting him with drugged “mercy bullets,” which basically have the effect of making the wall-crawling hero drunk and sleepy. This leads to a good scene where Spider-Man wakes up under the care of police doctors, and the first thing he asks is “did anyone look under my mask?”

Turns out they did not, because Spider-Man has a friend on the force, Captain Jean DeWolff. Aside from making sure Spidey’s secret identity stayed a secret, Captain DeWolff also contacted Iron Man (now it’s a team-up!), who she knew had some experience with the super-whip-cracking super-villain.

Whiplash and the goons are working for a criminal group called the Maggia. Jean DeWolff tags along with Spider-Man and Iron Man when they infiltrate a Maggia compound. Jean is especially interested in this case because her brother Brian (AKA the Wraith) is the Maggia boss Whiplash is reporting to. The Wraith apparently has some mind control powers (that are even more effective when he drugs his victims). By the story’s end, Spidey and Iron Man are kind of the secondary characters, as the main drama is Jean DeWolff trying to bring her brother back to the side of the good guys. She succeeds, and it is a (rather suddenly) reformed Brian DeWolff who defeats Whiplash.

Next time — I'll be back Tuesday with another Marvel book from May 1978!