Issue(s): Marvel Two-In-One #97
Cover Date: Mar 83
Title: "Yesterdaze!"
Credits:
David Michelinie - Writer
Ron Wilson - Penciler
Jon D'Agostino - Inker
Tom DeFalco - Editor

Review/plot:
This is a cute Hollywood spoof sort of story. The Thing is invited to play a cameo role in a movie in return for a $10,000 check to a children's hospital.

But the director of the movie has a grudge against the Thing and is really using this as an opportunity to get him back. Not to kill him or anything, just to humiliate him on camera and then release the footage.

The special effects for the movie are produced via an experimental projector that has a time machine built into it. It scans the timestream for whatever you're looking for, and when you identify the subject you want, it projects it into the present.

You'd think that would have immense value for all sorts of scientists and historians, but the inventor of the device sells it to the movie producer for $5,000. It does have a flaw: the projector will actually grab the subject physically and bring it to the present if it's left on too long.

I kept waiting for the inventor (with his outrageous accent)...

...to be revealed as a more sinister bad guy or maybe Reed Richards playing a practical joke on the Thing. But he doesn't turn up again.

Iron Man is the guest star in this issue, and he gets involved because Stark Industries has decided to invest in this movie. It obviously wasn't too much on an investment, because the $15,000 the producer spent on the Thing and the projector is said to be half the budget.

The movie is called Mechagrub Meets Goddangit but we unfortunately don't get to see either of those characters, i guess because the Thing's role is just a cameo and/or was never intended to be part of the film.

But we do get to see a bunch of spoofs of other movies. Starting with the Sump Thing.

Next is OS, the Outer-Spaceman.

Traum, which takes place inside a digital watch.

Then John Carpentry's The Mess.

It's on the set of The Mess where the dinosaurs are frozen so that they can be brought to the Savage Land. I wonder how well these dinosaurs, and the ones from Marvel Two-In-One #35-36, assimilate into the Savage Land.

We also met Bo Drip, star of Ape Man Gets a Hickey, who keeps hitting on Tony Stark.

Obviously it's not a story that takes itself too seriously, but it's fun. It would feel intolerably Mad Magazine-ish with a different artist (say, Bob Budiansky or Dave Simons) but Ron Wilson plays it all straight which keeps it from being over the top.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I've got this in the same gap as a lot of other Two-In-Ones, from #92-100, between Fantastic Four #250-251. Iron Man appears in a gap between issues of his series between Iron Man #164-167 where i've got a number of additional appearances, including Marvel Two-In-One #96. Iron Man falls off the wagon after Iron Man #164-167.

References:

• The director here is the one from Marvel Two-In-One #78. Odd that he blames the Thing and not Xemu for his troubles.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A