Issue(s): Marvel Two-In-One #26, Marvel Two-In-One #27
Cover Date: Apr-May 77
Title: "The Fixer and Mentallo are back and the world will never be the same!" / "Day of the Demolisher! / War in Washington! / Battle with the bionic berserker!"
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Writer
Ron Wilson - Penciler
Pablo Marcos - Inker

Review/plot:
The Thing is contacted by Nick Fury...

...and told that Mentallo and the Fixer are returning, and they are apparently after him. Despite the warning, the duo, one of the few successful and non-dysfunctional super-villain alliances...

...easily fight their way through SHIELD and defeat both Fury and Ben. They use Ben to gain access to the Baxter Building, where they access a time machine (they say it is Doom's time machine, but i dispute that - i believe Doom still retains his time machine and the FF have the copy created by Gregory Gideon). In any event, they use the time machine to capture Deathlok, who they became aware of by scanning the mind of Spider-Man after he had a time-traveling adventure (which is kind of convoluted...).

Issue #27 might as well have been an issue of the Fantastic Four.

The Thing's nominal team-up buddy is Deathlok, but he's actually under the control of the bad guys. They are using him to cause a distraction at the inauguration of Jimmy Carter, who they intend to then make a slave of Mentallo so they can rule the US by proxy. Reed Richards prevents this by having Carter replaced by the Impossible Man.

Deathlok eventually breaks free of his control. Not exactly a story where the Thing is the protagonist.

There's nothing inherently wrong with these issues. They are solid action stories with nice traditional art from Ron Wilson.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - brings Deathlok into the present

Chronological Placement Considerations: See the Considerations section for Fantastic Four #176; this takes place during that issue.

References:

• Mentallo and the Fixer first appeared in Strange Tales #142-143.
  
• Spider-Man encountered Deathlok in the future in Marvel Team-Up #46.
  
• Deathlok subsequently appeared in Marvel Spotlight #33.
  
• Deathlok first appeared in Astonishing Tales #25.
  
• Deathlok also references the events of Astonishing Tales #33, but it's a litle vague and i don't have the issue so i'm not sure what he means. He says he's "trapped in this decaying corpse for a second time".
  
• The Thing says that they have to thank the Impossible Man for "saving our hash a second time", the first time being in Fantastic Four #175.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

The 1976 Fantastic Four Annual(#10?) does state that Reed Richards had to hand back Doom's time machine because of Doom being a head of state. Before doing so, Reed did copy it for the FF, adding some improvements.

FNORD - you wrote "•Deathlok also references the events of Astonishing Tales #33, but it's a litle vague and i don't have the issue so i'm not sure what he means. He says he's "trapped in this decaying corpse for a second time".

I have the "Deathlok The Demolisher" TPB. It reprints all the Astonishing Tales issues. In Issue #33 of Astonishing Tales, Deathlok finds out there is a clone of Luther Manning that was made before he died. However, he is told that there isn't enough of the first Luther Manning left to transfer. This is confirmed by his computer. I believe that's what he was referring to.

Fnord12 explains why he thinks Reed's time machine was really Gregory Gideon's time machine in the entry for Fantastic Four Annual #11. I'm largely in agreement with this theory. We saw that Gregory Gideon built a time machine, based on Dr. Doom's plans, in Fantastic Four #34. We also know that Gideon moved his time machine to the Baxter Building in that same issue. After that, Gideon's time machine isn't mentioned again, nor is what the Fantastic Four might have done with it.

Next thing we know, Mr. Fantastic has his own personal time machine. In FF Annual #11, he said he "duplicated" Doom's time machine, and added some of his own "improvements." So maybe Reed is embellishing the truth a little, and actually he "duplicated" it by cannibalizing Gideon's already working time machine, disassembling it for parts, and putting it back together again, while adding his own "improvements" to give it his personal engineering touch. What else would he be likely to do with Gideon's already-tested time machine? He wouldn't just throw it away unexamined. Simple logic.

Another more interesting question, which hasn't yet been answered yet, might be this: Where did Gideon get the blueprints for Doom's time machine in the first place?