Issue(s): Speedball #3
Cover Date: Nov 88
Title: "The loony larcenies of Leaper Logan / For kicks"
Credits:
Roger Stern / Mary Jo Duffy - Script
Steve Ditko - Plot
Steve Ditko - Penciler
Bruce D. Patterson - Inker
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
Leaper Logan has re-invented the Jack O'Lantern's Pogo Platform.

More uniquely, he's the first villain to truly embrace the genre's alliteration.

And he also goes a bit meta by stealing a valuable comic book.

Speedball (or rather, the Masked Marvel, since that's the name he's still going by) gets involved when the Leaper steals a pendant that his mom was holding for the historical society...

...but the bad bully proves a better bouncer than the boy.

Since he's such a 1960s era villain, it's no surprise that he's spelling out his name with his crimes.

The Masked Marvel surprises Leaper Logan while he's robbing a Roman Coin Collection, and this time manages to hang on to him long enough to deposit him in front of the police.

An ongoing subplot of sorts at this point is Robbie trying to catch the cat, Niels, who was exposed to the same energy that turned him into Speedball. Another lab assistant named Claude is more interested in killing the cat than catching it.

The second story in this issue has Speedball teaming up with Chick Harris, master of Hoo-hah.

One interesting thing about the Roger Stern scripted stories so far is that while Steve Ditko was pretty clearly drawing the "boy picked on by the cool kids" scenes, Stern scripted them to be a little less cliche, e.g., it looks like the kids are laughing at the nerdy Robbie but instead the dialogue is showing that they are inviting him to come play sports with them, like he used to, but he has to beg off thanks to his new powers. That changes here, and it's probably as much thanks to the art sequence making any other interpretation impossible, but Mary Jo Duffy does at least acknowledge that it's a change for Robbie's friend David.

Robbie is forced to become Speedball when a group in some nicely knit ski-masks takes hostages during Harris' assembly. They call themselves the Proletariat.

Robbie finds out that bullets bounce off of him during the fight.

And he gets his team-up with Chuck Chick.

When it's over, the Masked Marvel runs away to keep his identity a secret, but Chick Harris shouts after him that he should consider a job as a stunt man.

With these stories, Tom DeFalco is no longer getting a co-plotting credit, but he obviously helped set the tone and direction of the series with the first two issues and the Amazing Spider-Man annual appearance. I don't know if without DeFalco's influence/direction this series might have been different or if this is exactly what Steve Ditko wanted to do. Ditko has shown us that his later Marvel work didn't have to be a complete rehash of his early 60s work, especially with the right inkers (his work on ROM is a good example), but "rehash of his early 60s work" is exactly what this series is.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A