Marvel Two-in-One #78
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMarvel Two-in-One #78 is a compact, self-aware Bronze Age story that uses its own medium as the subject of its conflict: the Thing's outrage over a TV series exploiting his likeness literalizes the long-running tension between Ben Grimm's monstrous body and his desire to control his own image. The issue also marks the in-continuity debut of several minor but catalogued characters — Monster Man, Kid Monstro, and Captain Chlorophyll — and serves as one of the more prominent 1981 showcase appearances of Wonder Man as a working Hollywood actor, a character dimension that was still being actively developed at the time. As part of the DeFalco-era run that was later collected in Marvel Masterworks, the issue represents the creative team's effort to keep the series fresh by rooting cosmic-villain plots in pop-culture satire, with the pre-superhero Atlas-era monster Xemnu serving as both antagonist and meta-commentary on Marvel's own monster-comic past.
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The issue was written by Tom DeFalco and David Michelinie, penciled and cover-drawn by Ron Wilson, inked by Chic Stone, colored by George Roussos, lettered by Joe Rosen, and edited by Jim Salicrup under Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. DeFalco was in the middle of a 1981–1982 stretch writing Marvel Two-in-One team-up stories for the Thing, simultaneously rising through Marvel's editorial ranks, while Wilson had been the series' primary penciler since 1975 and remained so for most of its run. The DeFalco–Michelinie co-writing credit mirrors the arrangement seen on neighboring issues such as #76, suggesting a collaborative scripting workflow typical of the title in this period.
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- Cover-dated August 1981; released April 28, 1981; titled 'Monster Man!'
- Written by Tom DeFalco and David Michelinie; penciled and cover-drawn by Ron Wilson; inked by Chic Stone; colored by George Roussos; lettered by Joe Rosen; edited by Jim Salicrup.
- Features the Thing (Ben Grimm) and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) as the two-in-one team-up duo, with supporting appearances by Beast, Alicia Masters, Franklin Richards, and members of the Fantastic Four.
- First appearances of Monster Man, Kid Monstro, and Captain Chlorophyll — fictional characters within a Marvel Universe TV show whose production is the story's central setting.
- Antagonist is Xemnu the Titan (also called the Living Hulk), an Atlas-era Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creation who first appeared in Journey Into Mystery #62 (1960); his scheme here is to use a specially rigged TV camera to broadcast mind-controlling signals to viewers of the Monster Man show.
- The story's central conflict — Ben Grimm's anger that a children's TV show has adapted his likeness without consent — engages the then-contemporary real-world question of celebrity likeness rights and media exploitation, an unusual thematic layer for a Bronze Age team-up title.
- Xemnu hypnotizes Wonder Man, forcing the two heroes to fight each other before Ben eventually breaks the psychic hold, a classic Marvel team-up story structure used to justify hero-vs-hero action.
- The issue was later collected in Marvel Masterworks: Marvel Two-in-One Vol. 7, which gathers issues #75–82 and Annuals #5–6, giving it hardcover archival status alongside the surrounding DeFalco run.
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↩ Reprints [Marvel Hostess Ads] #60 (1981)
Reprinted in Marvel Superhelden #5 (1981), Essential Marvel Two-in-One #4 (2011), Wonder Man: The Early Years Omnibus #[nn] (2023), Marvel Masterworks: Marvel Two-in-One #7 (2024)
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