Mark's Epic Blog of Randomness

 By Mark Rodriguez I managed to grab a couple of Marvel Team-Up books, back in the day when comics still came as one-shots. These guys are pretty old, comics were still 35 cents back then. Checking the comic, it was released August 78. Oh wow. Let's see what Iron Man and Spider-Man were up to in the 70's. "Crack of the Whip!" starts with Spider-Man shining his Spider-Signal upon a group of crooks that are stealing some furs. The crooks try to shoot Spidey with drugged 'Mercy Bullets'. Spidey quickly takes down the bad guys while dodging their shots. He takes their furs, which makes the bad guys think the Bugle was right about Spidey being a thief, but he actually used them to cover them up to make it easier to clobber them.  Suddenly the truck the bad guys were using open fired upon Spidey from its machine gun turret, and the hero is hit. The Mercy Bullets are gelatin encased and shatter upon contact, sending a nerve drug directly into his bloodstream. Spidey

 By Mark Rodriguez Batman finally comes face to face with Hugo Strange after he was framed for kidnapping the Mayor's daughter. Batman was drugged and beaten by Strange and during this, Hugo overheard the Dark Knight call out for his parents. This led to him discovering his secret identity after looking up all police reports on husband and wife murders going back 20 years. When a broken and beaten Batman returns home, he finds Alfred knocked out and mannequins that look like his parents with recordings blaming him for their deaths. Batman loses all control and falls down the stairs to the Bat Cave, letting the darkness consume him. How will this end? "The Kill" opens with Bruce in the Bat Cave, losing himself to his own despair. He laments that maybe he's as crazy as Strange says he is. Everyone is against him from the media to the police. He blames himself for his parents deaths. He also thinks he should end the dream of being Batman since now Hugo Strange knows and

By Mark Rodriguez  Dr. Strange has become obsessed with Batman and has hypnotized Max Cort into being a vigilante named Night Scourge. As Scourge he runs into both Catwoman and Batman and manages to get away. This time Hugo hypnotizes him into dressing up as Batman himself, sending him to kidnap the Mayor's daughter and telling the Mayor that 'Gotham is his'. While this is happening, the real Batman is still out cold, having been knocked out by Catwoman. It's been a while so here are the links to the first 3 parts Prey Part 1   Prey Part 2   Prey Part 3 'The Nightmare' opens with the Mayor understandably upset that his daughter was kidnapped by who he thinks is Batman. He tells Gordon that he has 5 days for his Vigilantee Task Force to catch him or he's off the force for good. Gordon knows in his heart that Batman is innocent, but he has no choice but to order Cort to bring in Batman by any means necessary. Cort says he figured that was the point of the t