Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #10 (Machine Man)
Cover Date:
Title: "Machine Man meets the F.F. ... Failure Five"
Credits:
Mike Rockwitz - Script
Steve Ditko - Plot
Steve Ditko - Penciler
Dave Cockrum - Inker
Mike Rockwitz - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
Now this is the sort of 8 page story that i can get behind for the Marvel Comics Presents book. It's got Steve Ditko revisiting Machine Man, with inks by Dave Cockrum. I don't even mind that the Assistant Editor of the book is also scripting it, because when Steve Ditko hands you some pages, you want to get that into the book and it's really not important who adds the dialogue.

The story has Machine Man stumbling upon an attempt to kidnap Peter Spauling and his wife Jill. When Machine Man intervenes, he's suddenly jumped by a bulky robot.

The robot has a power failure and flees. Machine Man stopped the kidnappers from taking Jill but finds that Peter was taken. So he begins tracking the robot.

Meanwhile we see that the robot has basically taken over an operation by the military to build robots. He's specifically bossing around a Dr. Wurno, the scientist in charge.

General Simon Kragg is in charge of the base where this is going on, but he doesn't know that Wurno has been compromised.

When Machine Man approaches the base, he's shot down by the military, but before the military can investigate, he's captured by workers loyal to Wurno. It turns out that the robot wants Machine Man's body and that's why Spaulding was kidnapped in the first place.

Machine Man escapes and starts battling the robot...

...while Kragg investigates the fact that the target that got shot down has disappeared, and he winds up apprehending Wurno and rescuing Spaulding.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you tell a full story in eight pages, something Steve Ditko has been doing since the Silver Age. As for the art, i've always said that the further away you are from reality, the better Ditko's art is. His Speedball was way too dependent on him drawing lots of real people, including teenagers, and that's why it looked so terribly retro. Machine Man was never quite the full fledged cosmic weirdness of Dr. Strange, but it's further along down that scale than Speedball. So while this is certainly retro-looking, a battle between two robots is much more enjoyable.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A