Issue(s): Captain Marvel #35
Cover Date: Nov 74
Title: "Deadly genesis!"
Credits:
Steve Englehart - Plot
Mike Friedrich - Script
Alfredo P. Alcala - Penciler
Alfredo P. Alcala - Inker

Review/plot:
Captain Marvel is unconscious on Earth after absorbing the exploding nerve gas canister triggered by Nitro last issue. This leaves Rick Jones stuck floating in the Negative Zone, and unfortunately Annihilus shows up.

Luckily (for Rick, anyway) the 3 hour time limit on Rick and Mar-vell's body swap expires, leaving Annihilus with an unconscious Captain Marvel instead of Rick. Instead of just killing Mar-vell, Annihilus realizes he could potentially find a way to Earth by studying the way Rick and Mar-vell swap places.

Rick gets picked up by Mordecai P. Boggs, Rachel 'Dandy' Dandridge, and Carol Danvers, and taken to a hospital because suddenly he passes out too.

Mordecai tries to get some publicity around the fact that his musician helped with the gas canisters...

...but that attracts the attention of a new Lunatic Legion, and the Living Laser is sent to assassinate him.

Luckily Janet and Hank Pym also hear about Rick being in the hospital, so they are able to fight off the Laser.

However, when the Wasp disables the gems that the Laser uses to focus his powers, he winds up short-circuiting and turns out to actually be an android (actually in this story he's said to be a cyborg, but that will get retconned).

Don't worry. Hank and Jan are still bickering.

Rick Jones finds that he can project his mind into Captain Marvel.

The Supreme Intelligence appears to tell Rick that this is by design; he's got plans for CM.

Rick-as-Marvel gets himself free. But his control over Marv isn't complete, and he has trouble with Annihilus and eventually flees, but luckily the photon trail that he generates when he flies causes Annihilus to explode, since he's made of? generating? negative energy as a denizen of the Negative Zone.

At the hospital, Rick Jones swaps places with Captain Marvel so that he can be given a cure for the nerve gas, but we know that cure doesn't completely solve the problem.

To maintain his secret identity, Rick makes up an outlandish story about meeting a cigar-smoking duck.

This is a busy issue with a lot of characters, but that makes it fun.

Alcala's art has a sort of realistic-but-stylized look to it, kind of like P. Craig Russell.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This issue takes place in the immediate aftermath of the nerve gas explosion caused by Nitro so it more or less continues directly from the previous issue. Next issue is largely a fill-in, and then issue #36 begins with Ant-Man and the Wasp still in the hospital with Captain Marvel.

References:

• Rick is still not happy that he's been allowing Captain Marvel to switch places with him (granted this is while he's floating in the Negative Zone, about to get attacked by Annihilus, while Marv is unconscious), which he's been doing more since the threat of Thanos emerged with Captain Marvel #25.
  
• The last time Rick Jones faced Annihilus, in Avengers #97, he was able to drive him off with an energy beam.
  
• The real Living Laser was last seen in Avengers #79, but this one is actually a fake.
  
• Captain Marvel's photon trail is the result of the power-up from Eon in Captain Marvel #29.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I was looking at the artwork thinking, man, that looks good. Turns out its Alfred Alcala, my favourite Savage sword of Conan artist. Just strange to see his work in colour. He's best in B&W

I like Alcala's art in general, but in a straight superhero story it comes off too often like static illustration, and some of the poses are weird. I'm guesing this was his tryout for superhero stories, and Marvel ultimately decided he was best on the Barbarian books(DC didn't let him draw superheroes either).

The decision to make this Living Laser an android is weird. It's not like this villain had a complicated background or was really popular.

I think that the idea in CM 35-36 was supposed to be that this was the real Laser turned into a cyborg by the Lunatic Legion but Gerry Conway either misunderstood or wanted to use the Living Laser again, so he decided it was an adroid duplicate.

An android drammatically disturbed by ants. I guess not everyone builds robots the way Doctor Doom does.