Plot/Pencils: Steve Ditko
Script: Roger Stern
Inks: Bruce Patterson
Colors: Tom Vincent
Review: Madman

Even if I wasn’t a fan of Speedball, I’d have bought this book just for the cover. We’ve got a cannonball smashing through a brick wall, an anthropomorphic mouse blasting away with semi-auto gun of some sort, a mysterious silhouette of a man about to toss a rope, an alley cat, and Speedball caught in the middle. This action-packed covers’ built-in tagline sells the issue and asks the question, “Will even Speedball, the Masked Marvel, be able to . . . beat the Basher . . . follow the Freak of Science . . . and trap the Two Legged Rat?!”

Well, then . . . suddenly I must know the outcome and fate of my beloved kinetic ball speedster.

In the first little short titled, “Beware the Basher”, our beloved Speedball finds himself struggling to control his Speedball powers while trying to apprehend a thug called the Basher that’s been picking off police officers. There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about Basher. It’s later revealed that Basher is a Police Academy dropout working as a bus boy and just really hates cops. The Basher's weapon of choice is some sort of cannonball thing that he shot-puts at unsuspecting police. Someone had rent due and was cranking out pages . . . lame. Speedball actually does little more than slow Basher down, but the police take Basher down.  


The features’ second short is titled, “The Two-Legged Rat”. Now this sounds promising! Sadly it wasn’t. The “Rat-man” isn’t even a real rat-man, it’s some whack-job in a rat mask who stalks around the park picking off cats with his high powered rifle . . . seriously . . . he just hates cats, man. Secret origin of Vermin?? No. Once again our masked villain gets the better of the Masked Marvel, but the same copper from the Basher fiasco gets the collar on the Rat Cat Sniper. I did get a chuckle out of the action taking place in Hammond Park, and I’ll mention that Robbie Baldwin had his little super-power mishap and is currently employed by Hammond Research Lab . . .

It’s the simple things.

The grand finale is dubbed, “The Freak of Science”. This was pure filler perhaps elaborated upon in later issues but not much happened other then Robbie found out another kid in his high school, Rico, was a “freak of science” and a guy with a net was after him. Rico runs away . . . the end.

This was disappointing. It seems this is one of those books that were cranked out without much enthusiasm. The scripts within, while being quirky and cheesy fun, were super lame. The art was your classic 80’s Marvel. Even though this issue was by no means ground breaking, in all honesty I'll buy every issue I see. I got into the New Warriors during the ‘90s, and Speedball was my favorite Warrior, even that time when Ben Riley . . . oh, whatever, Nevermind.