Spider-Man, Storm, And Power Man

Public service comic from the 1980s. From the backlog. No idea where I picked this one up.

Title: Spider-Man, Storm, And Power Man
Date: 1982
Publisher: Marvel Comics, American Cancer Society

This is a public service comic co-published by Marvel and the American Cancer Society as part of an anti-teen-smoking campaign.

Before I get further into the review, let me mention that none of the creative team on the book are credited, which is something I absolutely hate to see. Fortunately, this isn't as common now, but it is still worth mentioning. There wouldn't be a comic without writers and artists. Is it really that difficult to spare a bit of space to give them credit? Stan Lee's name still manages to get prominently featured, of course.

On an unrelated note, why is it that Spider-Man's name has a hyphen but Power Man's doesn't? Just wondering.

So, on to the story. Bret, a star track athlete, has fallen in with a bad crowd and picked up some bad habits, including smoking cigartettes. Luke Cage is the volunteer coach for Bret's team and there is a big relay race coming up.

Cage is concerned about the group that is influencing Bret and follows him to the local hangout where some fairly stereotypical mobsters are engaged in mobster type activities. Spider-Man and Storm get involved. I am guessing that this is happening on a week when Galactus and Magneto are not, in fact, threatening the world, and there are no major Marvel crossover events going on.

Storm finds the secret lair of the bad guys and is immediately knocked out and captured by their supervillain leader Smokescreen (yeah, you had to know that there was going to be a goofy villain with a smoke theme). At least she does self-rescue later in the story.

The ending has Bret trying win the race while the superheroes take down the, um, evil gambling ring that is betting big money on high school track meets. Oh, and the book clearly shows Bret lining up to start the race and the starting gun goes off, and later cuts to him making a final push for the finish line. Last time I checked, the same dude is not supposed to both start and finish a relay race. Just saying.

But this book is not about continuity! It is about smoking! The discussions of the effects of smoking on the body are incorporated into the narrative about as well as could be expected. There are a couple of quick quiz type activities along with the main story. And aside from a few of the goofy bits like Smokescreen's name and gimmick, the book does not get overly preachy. I don't think anyone is going to smoke or not smoke just on the basis of having read this comic, but it manages to be relatively true to its purpose.

And also, given what the book was, it did manage to put together a reasonably entertaining story.

Rating: 5.5/10

Oh, and don't smoke!