Issue(s): Nova #13, Nova #14
Cover Date: Sep-Oct 77
Title: "Watch out world, the Sandman is back!" / "Massacre at Truman High!"
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Joe Sinnott / Dick Giordano - Inker

Review/plot:
In these issues, Nova fights the Sandman.

After an initial failed bank-robbery, halted by Nova and a new hero, the very retro Crimebuster...

...(and i should note the heroes only win by tricking the Sandman into the air tight bank vault, which he soon escapes from) the Sandman is contacted by an agent of the the Yellow Claw (shown only in silhouette) and brainwashed. He is sent after a Wakandan scientist...

...and manages to capture both him and Nova.

He's next sent after Mike Burley. Nova escapes his deathtrap...

...and arrives at his school in time to fight the Sandman. Nova is on the ropes pretty much the entire fight...

...but wins when the Sandman accidentally falls into a cement truck, which Nova then says was his plan all along.

Since Burley isn't kidnapped, the Claw's henchman contacts him and tells him that his brother is already a prisoner, so he'd better do what they tell him.

Meanwhile, Nova's dad is getting desperate due to being out of work, and is contacted by a shady organization.

Brief cameo by the Thing, seen reading the novel Dracula while Nova flies past his window.

Just about every issue of this series seems to have a letter with someone complaining that this book is retro, or at least trying to get Marvel to admit that it is. Marvel deflects by pointing to other letters that like the series. It definitely is very deliberately an attempt to re-create the early days of Peter Parker as a new super-hero, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's a decent book even if there isn't a lot of depth. Mike Burley continues to be an interesting character; since he's a star athlete and good in school, while Rich is flunking out, it's a clever inversion on the Peter Parker/Flash Thompson relationship.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• While the Sandman is hooked up to the Yellow Claw's henchman's mind control device, he's subjected to scenes of some of his past defeats, including Amazing Spider-Man #154, Fantastic Four #177, and Hulk #138.
  
• In some goofy sequences, a few of the kids at the school attack the Sandman. Rich Rider's friend "Caps" says he's tired of getting pushed around by super-creeps since Nova #8-9.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

After Crimebuster, Wolfman created a very similar Character when he left to DC: Gangbuster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangbuster

The title to #14 probably refers to the 1976 film "Massacre At Central High".

The loan officer who rather smugly turns Charles Rider down for a loan is "Benjamin Dover". Surely a "Ben Dover" reference as Rider is being turned down by a bank he has been a customer of for years.

I notice that you include the Yellow Claw’s ex-Nazi henchman Fritz [von] Voltzmann, aka Karl von Horstbadden, as a “Character Appearing” in the 1950s YELLOW CLAW comics, but not for his Bronze-Age appearances. It’s true that in STRANGE TALES c. #161-167, he—as well as the Claw himself—turns out to be a robot, so he technically doesn’t “appear” in those issues. But I believe he’s seen in CAPTAIN AMERICA #166, although I don’t have it handy; he’s definitely here, posing as Dr. Heinrich von Flessle; and he returns under his “real” name (i.e., Voltzmann, as seen in your panel grabs) in NOVA #16-18.

Thanks Matthew. I've added him in the Nova entries. A quick flip through Cap #166 shows him appearing in flashback only, and the MCP don't list him appearing in the Cap story. (They do, however, list him for the Strange Tales stories, which i think is incorrect for the reason you note.)

Voltzmann doesn't appear in the Cap story; that's only a panel of his robot.

Crimebuster probably feels retro because he is a deliberate retread of his namesake, a Lev Gleason character published in "Boy Comics" from 1942 to 1956 (under his civilian name of "Chuck Chandler" in the last few months). The resemblance is only thematic, not visual, though.