Merry Christmas, friends! I thought about phoning it in and reprinting that Kingpin Santa article I did, but not this year! This year I’m coming at you with a brand new Cobwebs as a gift! We are checking out Marvel Team-Up #1 and we, folks, are going to go deep! (In other words, in case you are not familiar with Cobwebs, we will research any and all random useless bits of information that runs through my head whenever I read something like this).
Been a while since you read it? Read it on Marvel Unlimited!
Marvel Team-Up
We have a new title for Spider-Man. It is his first real B title, even though there was a Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine earlier, it only lasted for two issues before getting canned. Roy Thomas is tasked with getting this to work and starts with three Human Torch team-ups. If you are wondering why in a series that calls for rotating guest stars that they would not rotate for the first three issues, well that’s because the original idea was to just make this a Spidey and Torch team-up, but the writer got tired of that and decided to switch it up. The series did OK, but once they figured that sales were so unpredictable and too reliant on the co-star, Jim Shooter canned the book and had Web of Spider-Man created instead.
You’ll notice on the splash page that this is story #800Z. The next issue is #842Z. I don’t know that these stand for and am having a Mephisto of a time trying to figure it out. It’s the first time I’ve noticed it and it seems to be numbering the comics as they get published. If you know or find something about that, let me know!
Without Further Ado, the Story!
We start off with a bad take on “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” and Peter Parker trying to snap some photos of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club, a real organization that swims every Sunday from November to April and often raises money for charity. Now judging by the average daily temperature at Coney Island this late in December, assuming it is between 2:00 and 4:00, we can guesstimate that the temperature is about 38 degrees. The average water temperature around this time would be about 48 degrees, which according to the experts at Sea Temperature, it is unacceptable for swimming, but “hardened people can afford to be in such water for 5 to 10 minutes.” Folks, the lowest I’ve gone is 55 degrees because a pool malfunctioned, but we still had a meet to swim. It was awful. But these individuals are apparently more hardened in than I am.
But they don’t make it more than a few seconds because a woman feels something sandy brush against her thigh which, rightfully so, freaks her out. The thing continues onto the beach and…
Wait a minute, that’s not Sandman! This is Sandman!
Who is this idiot?
Well, it’s Sandman, but Kirby-tized. In Fantastic Four #61, Sandman appears with this new suit because Kirby is gonna Kirby. He claims that he took a “refresher course” in science and that allowed him to create this new suit that allows him to mix all sorts of extra gunk (like glue and liquid nitrogen) into his sand to give it other qualities. As a teacher myself, I’ve got to take my hat off to whatever science teacher who can teach a science nobody enough science in a “refresher course” to build a suit like that. It was a really great course, too, because it enabled him to match Reed Richards’s high dollar vocabulary as well. In this issue , though, Sandman gives the credit for the suit to the Wizard, probably because Roy Thomas was a bit doubtful that your local community college night school science course would be that advanced.
Why is Sandman coming out of the water? Because in The Incredible Hulk #134, he fights the Hulk in the ocean and Hulk makes a whirlpool that sucks him away.
The police, unlike the woman who was mildly violated in the water, do not fully understand exactly who the Sandman really is and go all Keystone Cops trying to arrest him for some outstanding warrant.
Fact Check!
So Peter says:
Peter is a science major. Granted, science in the Marvel Universe is a more generic thing (much like being the Professor on Gilligan’s Island), but his field of study is actually biophysics, so this kind of spot observation should be right up his alley. So the question is, could these officers have broken their necks by merely jumping head first into the equivalent of a brick wall.
Let’s take out of consideration, for simplicity sake, the fact that the Sandman would not be immovable like a wall anchored to the ground and that these officers are jumping hands and arms first, which would affect their force of impact.
Let’s first establish how much force does it take to break a neck. I mean, people do it all the time in the movies, so you might be under the impression that we are all at risk of a broken neck every time we trip. This is COBWEBS, however, and we don’t just go with feelings around here! No, we RESEARCH! Our crack team of Cobwebs researchers* found out that it takes about 1,000 to 1,250 foot pounds of torque to snap a neck. OK, so how many foot pounds of torque does one get from jumping head-first into a brick wall?
Well, it is true that you can do severe damage by diving into water with obstructions or is too shallow. In fact, the most people who injure their neck from diving are males age 20-26, so I do hope my good buddy Neil Bogenreider and my son Grant are reading this. The information I found listed diving into swimming pools, the ocean, rivers, and even ball pits, but nothing about diving head-first into a man made of hardened sand. Plus, a dive into water usually means a longer distance and the added pull of gravity, so this information was rather useless.
So I turned to an expert – an actual scientist genius that I keep on retainer for just such an occasion.** I cannot imagine what went through his mind when he got my email, but I was able to get this answer: ESPN calculated that an NBA athlete can jump with 1200 pounds of force. My scientist said that their data was “a tad dubious” and even if it wasn’t, that would be for a highly trained athlete. But he also added, “But I am inclined to trust Peter Parker, the guy is a genius :-)”
OK. so Spidey wants none of this. He has a date tonight with Gwen Stacy, so why would he want to drop it to go get Sandman? He swings in with a swift armpit kick to save the policemen.
Then he decides that Sandman really isn’t his enemy because he’s only fought him once (which is a lie since he’s fought him eight other times, though six of those are Untold Tales sort of stuff, that still leaves another 2 times he fought Sandman before this issue).
If we keep the timing at Christmas Eve, that places this within Amazing Spider-Man #94 and #95 (according to the Marvel Index), which doesn’t work since Gwen Stacy is actually in London at the time. Oops. UNLESS…
*Insert Record Scratch Sound*
Now, I teach AP Literature and one thing we learn early on is that author’s of fiction choose their words carefully – there’s a reason J. Alfred Prufrock dares to consider eating a peach and it’s not because it rhymes with beach. Assuming that is also true of Marvel Comics, then we need to put together that Gwen Stacy is gone, yet Peter has a date. But is it with Gwen… Check out below:
Peter never refers to Gwen as ‘Gwenny’, he calls her Gwendy. So… I think it is obvious and we can go with Crawlspace odds at 85% certainty that while Gwen is away, Peter is putting the moves on some other girl with a similar name. Maybe this was going to be the focus of more Marvel Team-Up stories.
Folks, I challenge you to find some other hard-hitting investigative comic book news site like you get here on the Crawlspace.
The Torch is bummed because his girlfriend, Crystal, is gone and his Fantastic family are all off doing other things, leaving him alone on Christmas Eve. What he should be angry about is his fashion sense.
But when you can only wear fabric made of unstable molecules and you need Reed Richards to fashion it for you, then you get what you get, I guess.
After a little squabbling, they decide to go after Sandman together and take the Fantastic Car.
Rabbit Hole Warning!
We are going to assume that the Reed Richards did not use some sort of Time Lord tech in creating the Fantastic Car model 1, so he has to account for the amount of space fuel takes and the average gas tank for a small car holds about 12-13 gallons.. This section of the Fantastic Car (he could combine it with other sections) can go 100 miles . That means it gets approximately 8 miles to the gallon. It is approximately 9 miles from the Baxter Building to George Washington Bridge (thanks, Google Maps). In 1972, the average price of gas was $.36. If Spidey threw in a buck for gas, he could get the fantastic car 24 miles. He is WAY overpaying for gas here. And if you are out there thinking they could have used an alternative fuel source then one – they don’t mention it, and two – it would probably be cheaper (why pay more when gas is so cheap?), so that means Spidey paid EVEN MORE OVER. With that sort of reckless spending, no wonder our hero is always strapped for cash. Back to our regularly scheduled article.
While they are out and about, Spidey decides to save a damsel in distress, which is none other than Misty Knight!
This is her first appearance and is not the super tough individual she becomes later. In fact, she is unnamed in this issue. If you look it up, Misty Knight’s creators are Tony Isablla and Arvel Jones in Marvel Premiere #20 and #21. But those issues came out in 1975 – three years after this issue. What’s going on? Well, in Marvel Team-Up #64, the connection is made that this unnamed woman who is rescued by Spidey is in fact Misty Knight.
And by the way, that Buffalo Bob allusion is to the kid’s show Howdy Doody! When I was growing up, if I ever made the mistake of asking my mom what time it was, she would break out in song, “It’s Howdy Doody time!”
Not to one-upped by Spider-Man saving a beautiful woman, the Human Torch leaps out of the car and saves a beautiful . . . little red Corvette.
Well, it starts snowing and instead of going Bing Crosby, Johnny instead is one bah humbug away from being Scrooge. He’s about to give up and just drop Spider-Man off when they see the Sandman being all stealthy-like on a roof top. The two disembark and go on the attack.
Now if you have ever wondered how hot one of the Torch’s fireballs are, assuming we can trust his comment up there, it must be upwards of 3090 degrees Fahrenheit. The problem is, Spidey is coming in from behind, thinking Torch would only distract Sandman, not attack (so he obviously has not paid any attention to how the Torch operates). Should Spider-Man get hit with a sand-to-glass fireball, he would get worse than a sixth degree burn*** since Johnny’s fireball here, if we believe him, is hotter than a crematorium gets.
Regardless, the Sandman uses Spider-Man’s last minute dodge to grab him by the ankle and slam him into a wall. He then thwarts the Torch by turning his body into cement (complete with block lines). Then again he lets them dive through his body and slam themselves into a regular brick wall (which, we’ve possibly established can break someone’s neck!). Luckily, the only injuries they sustained was getting knocked-out (and possibly a concussion). They come to just in time to realize they are tied up and Sandman tosses them into a water tank.
This must be some Dyneema ropes, because Spidey can’t break them. He can only hold himself underwater long enough to keep Johnny’s face above so he can use his FIRE SPIT power!
Let’s stop and analyze this a bit – Spider-Man can hold his breath a long time. How long? Well, the average person can hold their breath about 30 seconds to a minute. I swam in college and can hold my breath about 90 seconds. Maybe more if pushed. Spider-Man, though, is a superhero and can certainly hold his breath for at least as long as a navy SEAL, which is at minimum 2 minutes. Spider-Man seems that he almost didn’t survive holding his breath down there for Johnny Storm to figure this out. That means Johnny spent at least this long staring at the rope wondering what Spider-Man was doing:
Of course, we are assuming that Spider-Man doesn’t have the proportionate breath-holding power of a spider since they can stay underwater for 30 minutes. Yes, I looked that up. Why? Because nothing is too good for our readers here.
Spidey reveals that he thinks Sandman didn’t really want to kill them and they easily catch him, despite his spiffy new threads, entering a house.
Again, this may be the result of limited options when you have to use unstable molecules.
Sandman tells Spidey and Torch that he just wants to tell his kindly old sick mother merry Christmas. Even Torch’s heart melted a bit and they not only hold off on taking him in (for what crime other than self-defense and resisting arrest), but Spidey gives him a gift to give to his mother (which is the only time we ever see her in comics). His mom is Ms. Baker and she calls him William, which I am not sure, but I believe this is the first time we start to switch his name between Flint Marko and William Baker.
So in perspective, Peter Parker changes clothes and stashes them somewhere safe (presumably), but he decides to take a gift for Gwen and stuff it down his crotch for safe keeping. The wrapping paper in the early ’70s was made of sturdier material since it isn’t damaged by the dunk in the water tank.
Both Spidey and Johnny reflect on how good things really are (well, until he shows up to his date with Gwen with no present, that is (but then again, what does it matter since she is in London (but then again again, why does he have her present if she is in London?))), and then they find out that Sandman gave them the slip. Oh well, they are filled with the Christmas spirit.
No if that is not enough Christmas cheer for you, try Kingpin Santa or Where’s My Schwinn? – that should help grow your heart three sizes (figuratively speaking, of course – if your heart grew like that you would eventually die of cardiomegaly). If you need an assignment, see if you can’t find a copy of Prep and Landing: Mansion Impossible where the Prep and Landing team are assigned Avengers Mansion to get ready for Santa’s visit. If you can find it, let me know where to get my hands on it!
Sources:
“Burns.” National Institute of General Medical Sciences, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 13 July 2020, nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/burns.aspx.
Coimicsfan. “The Sandman Becomes High Maintenance.” The Peerless Power of Comics, 27 May 2020, peerlesspower.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-sandman-becomes-high-maintenance.html.
Coney Island Polar Bear Club. polarbearclub.org/pb-site/.
“December Weather on Coney Island.” Weather Spark, Cedar Lake Ventures, weatherspark.com/m/24511/12/Average-Weather-in-December-in-Coney-Island-New-York-United-States.
“Episode 140: Marvel Team-Up #1 – Have Yourself A Sandman Little Christmas.” The Fantasticast, 8 Aug. 2015, ffcast.libsyn.com/episode-140-marvel-team-up-1-have-yourself-a-sandman-little-christmas.
“Fact #915: March 7, 2016 Average Historical Annual Gasoline Pump Price, 1929-2015.” Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US Department of Energy, www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-915-march-7-2016-average-historical-annual-gasoline-pump-price-1929-2015.
“Fantastic Four #61-63.” Marvel Comic Chronology, Super Mega Monkey, www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/fantastic_four_6163.shtml.
“How Glass Is Made.” Corning, 2022, www.corning.com/worldwide/en/innovation/materials-science/glass/how-glass-made.html.
“How Long Can a Navy SEAL Hold His Breath?” Reference, 29 Mar. 2020, www.reference.com/world-view/long-can-navy-seal-hold-his-breath-2bb36eeebea48dc2.
“How Much Pressure Does It Take to Break a Neck?” Reference, Ask Media Group, 26 Mar. 2020, www.reference.com/science-technology/much-pressure-break-neck-2c63a950df2b98f0.
“Marvel Team-Up #1.” Marvel Comics Chronology, Super Mega Monkey, www.supermegamonkey.net/chronocomic/entries/marvel_team-up_1.shtml.
“Marvel Team-Up Vol 1 1.” Marvel Database, Fandom, marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Team-Up_Vol_1_1.
“Marvel Team-Up.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia, 6 Oct. 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel_Team-Up.
Mendonca, Shania. “Do Bones Burn?” Science ABC, 24 Feb. 2022, www.scienceabc.com/humans/do-bones-burn.html.
“Mercedes Knight (Earth-616).” Marvel Database, Fandom, marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Mercedes_Knight_(Earth-616).
Nijhout-Rowe, Danial. Personal Interview. 13 Nov. 2022.
Progin, Emily. “5 Unforgettable Facts about Diving and Spinal Cord Injuries.” Help Hope Live, 21 July 2016, helphopelive.org/5-unforgettable-facts-about-diving-and-spinal-cord-injuries/.
Sabastian, Xavier. “What Is the Capacity of a Car’s Gas Tank?” Way, 2022, www.way.com/blog/car-gas-tank-capacity/.
“Spider Can Hide Underwater for 30 Minutes.” Science Daily, 9 May 2022, www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/05/220509132627.htm.
“Water Temperature in Coney Island in December.” Sea Temperature, 2022, seatemperature.net/monthly/coney-island-new-york-united-states-sea-temperature-in-december-5694.
“Vehicles of the Fantastic Four.” Marvel Database, Fandom, marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Vehicles_of_the_Fantastic_Four.
By the way, if you like useless information like this, you really need to check out the “Seven Little Superheroes” Cobwebs article where I figure out how much the Chameleon paid for his death trap mansion. I am quite proud of it.
* And by “crack team” I mean Google and me.
** And by “on retainer” I mean a science teacher down the hall, but this guy is awesome smart.
*** Yes! Burn degrees go all the way up to 6th degree in classification.
‘Nuff Said!
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“Never let something as mere as facts and common sense get in the way of a good narrative!”
That is the same things they say when writing a Hollywood movie!
Damn the Americans and their swearing! 🙂
The book is rich enough for a couple of or more articles, but it’s not Spider-man nor Marvel-centric, I’m afraid.
Happy Holidays to you all!
@Aqu@, @Hornacek, and @Evans
Aqu@ – You know, I am fairly certain that there are alternative chronologies, both official and unofficial, but this one fit nicely into my Gwenny theory that I decided to go with it. Never let something as mere as facts and common sense get in the way of a good narrative! As for being mindful of the way the rest of the world measures things, well I’m sorry. We Americans have all sworn (we do so in the second grade) to never use anything to measure stuff with that makes sense! You are correct, sir, the spider that was in the study I found was actually breathing from a small film of air around it in the water, so I guess it wasn’t technically holding its breath, but close enough! If that book is as good as you say, maybe it can be the topic of a future Cobwebs.
Hornacek – I remember that episode (and the other Clark Kent/Lois Lane essay from way long ago).
Evan – Great Scott! Another Back to the Future allusion? Well, at least it’s not another Shawshank Redemption one!
@hornacek — What’s a rerun?
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
The Physics of Superheroes does sound familiar, that’s probably it. I love when people use real-world science to investigate/disprove events in comics.
It reminds me of the one episode of The Big Bang Theory I saw. Well, I only saw the opening scene – the guys are in a comic book store discussing the first Superman film, saying that when Lois falls out of the helicopter and Superman catches her, his impervious skin would have sliced her into 3 (?) pieces considering how fast she would have been falling (fun fact: years after I saw that clip from that episode, I was flipping around the channels one day and stopped on a BBT episode, and it was that same clip from that same episode. I think that’s called The Law of Reruns).
Oh, I forgot: about spiders and breath-holding, is 30 minutes a reference to those spiders that use air-bubbles to submerge or is it a general thing?
@Mark
Yes, that’s exactly the book I was going to suggest on the matter of the death of Gwen Stacy. Great book.
Spider-man did kill her with the web (as if the Snap weren’t clear enough).
Good article, I laughed hard at Peter keeping gifts in his crotch (but it’s for his girlfriend, after all).
Only, damn you english speakers for using different units of measurement! At the beginning of the article I was a bit confused how the water could be so hot in winter: 38° C! It took me a while (too much, actually, since I was sleepy) to realize they were °F. Suggestion: when you report measurements and figures, don’t forget u.m. (and maybe use SI units).
Is the Marvel Index still in use, despite such blatant errors? The editor of a chronological collection of Spider-man stories in my country did such a mistake in placing this issue right after Gwen Stacy departed for London, stating it was the official Marvel order, but since the collection is fifteen-and-something years old I thought they had rectified this error by now. (I also thought the editor was an idiot, because he added: “you’ll see how perfectly they fit in with the narration!”… Evidently, he didn’t read the final result.)
More than a spit, I think Johnny is blowing the flame; how, I don’t know, since usually we exhale CO2, which extinguishes flames.
@Hornacek
I think I found the guy who created the web site – Jim Kakalios. He now has a book called the Physics of Superheroes that I just purchased. Let’s see if it comes to anything!
@Evan and @Hornacek
I love it when you two start your own conversations on here.
Yes, Evan, it certainly means that, though to pull up Hornacek’s theory about Torch, it would get quite fiery.
As for Gwen, according to Slott, she was not only alive, but conscious right before the fall. I assume that is canon? But it was the clone’s memories, so does it count? Regardless, I always like to think that it was the webbing that did a sort of ‘crack the whip’ with Gwen, though she would have died from the fall anyway.
I will now have to spend countless hours searching for your webpage, Hornacek. Thanks for that. Since Marvel Unlimited doesn’t include letters pages, for whatever reason, I won’t be able to check your statement that Conway admits to doing it on purpose. I do know that he blamed Stan and Stan blamed Conway for it.
I am feeling better, though still lower energy levels (but then again, I am lazy, so it is hard to tell). It makes me happy to know that someone actually clicks my links! 🙂
Have a great Christmas to both of you!
@Evan Berry – This wasn’t the thing I mentioned, pretty sure the one I found was an actual webpage, not a download. But it was many years ago, who knows if it is still around? At the time I equated it to the famous “Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex” essay about how someone took a real-world medical look to prove/disprove if Superman and a non-Kryptonian woman could have a baby. The Spidey one I remember had measurements of the actual bridge, windspeed, gravity upon a falling object, etc – very scientific.
And despite what Conway is quoted as saying in that download, I’m pretty sure he says in the letter’s page ~5 issues later that he deliberately had them add the SNAP to that panel to categorically state that it was Spidey stopping her fall with the web that broke her neck. And I’m sure I’ve heard/read Conway say this over the years.
@hornacek – With due credit to the writer of that thesis, for whatever reason, the hyphen is actually in the thesis’s title. It just didn’t paste for some reason when I was commenting. (I had to double-check because I’d hate to think that a committee would grant a master’s degree if that hyphen was missing.)
@hornacek — I did some searching, but all I could find with this 2014 master’s thesis, entitled “With Great Power and Great Responsibility: The Representation of America’s Social Anxieties and Historical Events in The Amazing SpiderMan, 1962-1979” by Mathew Todd Shaeffer at the NC State University, which makes for pretty interesting reading in its own right:
https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/bitstream/handle/1840.16/9715/etd.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=2
@Evan – There’s been a webpage on the internet for years of an actual thesis/paper/whatever written by a scientist determining if Spidey’s webs killed Gwen or if she was already dead, if there was any way for Spidey to save her, etc. It goes into a lot of real-world depth. If you spend some time on the Googles you could probably find it (or something like it).
@Mark — Wait, wait, wait…You mean to tell me that “Dare I eat a peach?” means what I think it means, and none of my teachers ever told me? Granted, now it seems kind of obvious, but still. No wonder it’s call “The Love Song…”
Can you apply your knowledge of neck snapping to solve the mystery of whether it was the webbing that killed Gwen Stacy or if she was already dead? And if so, what does that mean for the power of Peter’s webshooters? (Though I guess that would apply not to frontal impact as in the case of Sandman but to the inertia after stopping a fall.)
Your links scattered throughout make your articles a multimedia presentation.
I hope you’re feeling better!
@Magic Spidey, @Hornacek, and @Stenurus
Magic Spidey – Thanks! I don’t believe I have ever noticed them before. I look forward to reading the article! Thanks for the kind words and merry Christmas to you too!
Hornacek – My understanding is that the Wizard is the one getting unstable molecules for Sandman’s suit. So do you think Reed and the Wizard just give Johnny and Sandman the fabric and then they go and get it made into clothes or do you think Reed and the Wizard sew shirts, pants, and underwear in their spare time? And I have no idea why the new Sandman suit was needed other than Kirby didn’t want to draw Ditko style. It is pretty useless. Peter has on a heavy jacket at the beginning and he’s shivering, but when he takes off his civilian clothes, he’s just fine in the cold. Go figure! And you know that riding around in the FF car would be all kinds of extra cold. As far as holding breath goes, the record was set by Budimir Šobat in 2021 at 24 minutes and 37 seconds. How, I have no idea. As far as Avatar actors, I highly doubt that they were holding their breath 5 minutes. Maybe I’m wrong. I was once in college and will freely admit if I am ever wrong again. As for Johnny’s … fiery bodily fluids… some things are best just left alone! 🙂
Sthenurus – Well, you have this one, the Peter David one that Hornacek mentioned, the Kingpin Santa one, and one where Peter and MJ get kicked out of their apartment shortly after getting married. I’m not familiar with the X-Man one Hornacek mentioned. I do have links to Cobweb articles on the Peter David and Kingpin Santa one in the above article. They were fun reads (the comics, not the articles probably).
@Sthenurus – The one I always remember is in Peter David’s PPSSM run (around the Death of JDW) when there was a guy dressed as Santa breaking into people homes and robbing them. Pretty sure that subplot finished on a Christmas Eve.
Oh, and when Pete and X-Man (Nate Grey) were friends I think they spent a Christmas together. But I’m not sure if that happened in Spidey or in the X-Man comic.
Do we know how many Christmas story we got with Spidey?
LOL at Roy Thomas writing this issue but Stan still puts his own name first in the credits.
I assumed the “800Z” was just some in-house classification system for Marvel to number their comics. I know some TV shows have a similarly weird system to number their episodes. For example, The Simpsons display a weird episode number at the end of the credits – the one where they go to Japan says “THE SIMPSONS EPISODE #AABF20”.
So Sandman built this new suit but it can turn into sand just like he can? Did Sandman invent unstable molecules? Or did he steal the invention from Reed Richards? (I can’t remember when unstable molecules first appeared in FF)
I like that this story takes place on Christmas Eve, we’re told that it’s very cold, and it’s snowing at parts, and yet both Peter and Johnny in their civilian identities are wearing spring-type clothes and not actual winter coats (at least from the panels shown here).
“and can certainly hold his breath for at least as long as a navy SEAL, which is at minimum 2 minutes.” Haven’t we seen Avatar actors on talk shows recently saying that they learned to hold their breath for 5 minutes for the sequel?
Human Torch’s spit being on fire leads to other questions about other … natural bodily excretions (you know where I’m going with this) – are they also on fire to if Johnny is in Human Torch mode when they … exit his body? (I never thought about this before, and hope I never do again)
Who has worst fashion sense in this issue – Johnny in his civilian clothes or Sandman in his suit and tie? The “winner” is … Sandman in his new Sandman suit.
Mark, that mysterious number at the beginning of the book is called the “job number”. Marvel used them to keep track of comics from the time they were assigned to creators to publication. A great article about them is presented here:
http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2022/02/marvel-job-numbers.html
Fantastic article! Merry Christmas!