Issue(s): Marvel Comics Presents #88 (Solo story only)
Cover Date: 1991
Title: "Hero of the people"
Credits:
Eric Fein - Writer
Mark Runyan - Penciler
Don Hudson - Inker
Mark Powers - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
The Tarantula is hunting his Delvadian government's political enemies.

And i guess that's a form of terrorism, because it attracts the attention of Solo, who attacks Tarantula in Delvadia a few days later.

Solo gets Tarantula on the ropes, but he's interrupted by the Delvadian police. Tarantula flees, but Solo catches up thanks to his teleportation ability. But the locals stop Solo from executing Tarantula, saying that it's murder regardless of the crimes he's committed.

Solo won't shoot into a crowd of innocents, so he leaves. And in the end, it sounds like Tarantula plans to kill all the people that saved him, because he doesn't want witnesses of his defeat.

I don't want to get into a debate about what constitutes terrorism, but this doesn't seem to be Solo's beat. He should stay away from fighting state sponsored oppression for exactly the reason we see here. Unless he's willing to foment a revolution, there's not much he can do in this case.

Tarantula, meanwhile, seems incredibly evil, considering his upcoming quasi-face turn in Punisher #67-70. But that's more a problem with his characterization in that story than this one.

A Solo story should have been relatively easy to write. Mike Baron has been doing a good job writing essentially the same Punisher story over and over again, and a Solo story shouldn't be all that different, except that he focuses exclusively on killing terrorists (and it's not like the Punisher never fought terrorists). If more super-ish villains were wanted, Marvel has plenty of super-terrorist organizations to work from (ULTIMATUM, AIM, Hydra, etc.). It's odd that on Solo's first, er, solo outing, Eric Fein decided to subvert the character's basic premise instead of just writing a hard boiled Punisher-esque story about Solo living and terror dying. Maybe it will become more clear why Fein chose to do this when we get to Marvel Comics Presents #124, which has another Klein-written Solo story featuring the Tarantula.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I guess this should take place before Tarantula promises the Punisher that he'll keep his nose clean, although it's not like that lasts forever.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

It's such a pity these MCP stories arent better. They have all the elements to be an obscure character lovers dream

Part of the problem is that American creators don't have much experience or training writing 8-10 page stories since most comics are 20-30 pages.

If they wanted MCP to be halfway decent they'd have gotten Marvel UK to bring in some British writers. Feels like 99% of them got their start doing short stories for 2000 AD and most of the artists drew at least one Judge Dredd story.

I suppose one might consider Tarantula a state-sponsored terrorist.

In any case, Red Comet has a good observation. There are a lot of British writers who cut their teeth writing for 2000 AD, and any of them would have been well-suited to work on MCP.

Yet this is something that can be learned. Writing 5 page stories was done in the early days of Marvel, and many of the MCP writers had extended runs in the series. After the third or fourth story, they should know how to do it. Certainly the EDITOR should be coaching the writers on how to do it.

I think it's more of a situation that 1) Marvel doesn't care to put out quality product at this point, they just want quantity, 2) the editor doesn't care or know how to either, and 3) the writers aren't interested in learning either.

For some reason the casual use of teleporting devices by Solo and (later, IIRC) Deadpool troubles me.

It feels like too much of a departure from the real world to me. I assume it was perceived as a good way of keeping the characters competitive against opponents that can fly, have superhuman speed or climbing cables or webbing. But the implications are IMO much too significant to remain uncommented just like that. Teleportation is too much of a strategic game changer for it not to be commented upon. Domestic drones are a significantly lesser innovation and they seem to have made more of an impact in the real world than those teleporters did in the MU.

Wait, the guy the Tarantula is hunting is named Alvarez? Isn't that actually this Tarantula's last name? Geez Marvel, can't you come up with a few more Hispanic surnames?