Issue(s): Power Man & Iron Fist #108
Cover Date: Aug 84
Title: "Slime Street"
Credits:
Archie Goodwin - Plot
Christopher Priest - Script
Greg LaRocque - Penciler
Andy Mushynsky - Inker

Review/plot:
Jim Owsley/Christopher Priest scripts this issue. Two more fill-ins, and then he'll be the full writer on the book until it is canceled, but for now, just scripting. That said, this is a much more enjoyable issue since the fill-ins we've been getting since Kurt Busiek's short run.

At a basic level, we've just got a crazy guy with pyrokinetic fire starting powers who is burning down seedy building in Times Square.

He's got a sister who's a precog. They were both raised by a religious father who blamed Times Square on all of the corruption in the country. Luke and Cage stop him after several buildings are burned, but the guy dies - as his sister predicted he would.

Another angle is that one of the building owners has actually been manipulating the pyrokinetic into burning down his own buildings for the insurance money. He dies too.

So this isn't too different from past plots. But the scripting makes it better than usual. The pyrokinetic is crazy, and in between his diatribes against immorality, he mixes in random advertising slogans that he's picked up from TV. The result is amusing and the juxtaposition works well. More generally, everyone talks a little more realistically. It's also funny.

Here's a fun scene of the whole cast just hanging out and having a pizza.

Incidentally, this is the last time we'll see Harmony Young before her death in an issue of Marvel Comics Presents almost a decade from now.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A