Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #134
Cover Date: Oct 83
Title: "The boy's night out!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Ron Frenz - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker
Bob DeNatale - Assistant Editor
Tom DeFalco & Danny Fingeroth - Editor

Review/plot:
With this issue Danny Fingeroth becomes the editor of this book along with all of the Spider-Man titles, and J.M. DeMatteis is no longer the regular writer. As far as i can tell, there is no regular writer from this point out. But Bill Mantlo is filling in here and next issue, and he uses the opportunity here to focus on his Jack of Hearts.

Jack has been kept in his mansion by SHIELD, bathed in the neutro-mist that keeps his powers in check. This is to preserve his own life, since his powers are killing him. But he's gone a little nutty in isolation and has decided that SHIELD is keeping him a prisoner, and now that he's built up a tolerance to the mist, he decides to break out. And with that, a revelation that he had a relationship with Spider-Man supporting cast member Marcy Kane when they were both undergraduates.

So he shows up at her school while Peter Parker is there collecting items from his locker now that he's quit.

This is the first Jack and Marcy have seen each other since he disappeared with the accident that turned him into Jack of Hearts.

SHIELD is hot on Jack's tail. They are wearing "Uni-Lens Battle Armor" that Jack says "is a cruel mockery of my own condition" but i think was just Nick Fury's way of playing a joke on his agents.

Spider-Man misses the big SHIELD symbol on their helmets at first, and assumes they are the bad guys, so he jumps in to help Jack...

...but then realizes his mistake.

He tricks Jack of Hearts into a lab where he's opened up the gas valves, triggering an explosion that knocks Jack out. When he wakes up, Marcy volunteers to help him find a cure.

An end blurb touts the upcoming Jack of Hearts mini-series, where things for Marcy will take a weird turn.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Amazing Spider-Man #244-245; i actually have those in a single entry with this taking place afterwards.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A