Jim Starlin draws a great Thing.
There really wasn’t much of a reason for Thanos to be in this comic, but Marvel never was one to miss a chance to cross-promote. It offers a nice summary of the prior early appearances of Thanos.
It’s kind of a tie-in to the ongoing Captain Marvel story, but he still doesn’t look sinister enough.
The rest of the story is just Thanos’ henchmen The Blood Brothers beating on Iron Man…
…and then Thing helping out:
This is really just an extra issue of Iron Man. But together, these two issues formed the basis for the launch of the Thing and ____ comic, Marvel Two-in-One.
A little rough there, Mr. Ekko- “The Bite of the Blood Brothers!” was written and drawn at a level that I would consider to be memorable even a full half a century later, especially when you consider that this story could technically be considered the very first battle between superheroes and vampires. Chronologically, of course, the “first” ( recorded ) battle between superheroes and ( a ) vampire transpired in ‘The Invaders’#7, which transpired in January of 1942, but that milestone epic would not be revealed until three years later, in 1976. This ‘All-in-One’ is also memorable for the dramatic gaffe that Mike Friedrich wrote in at the conclusion, when Iron Man reports to the Thing that he cannot fly him back to civilization because the battle with the Blood Brothers has exhausted his armor’s power supply. This would be patently impossible, especially in the heart of the American Southwest which is absolutely drenched in murderous levels of sunlight, due to the fact that, earlier in the year, Iron Man redesigned his armor to operate on converted solar power, which means that, considering where they are, after just a few MINUTES in the sunlight, Iron Man would have enough power to fly the quarter-ton Thing all the way back to the Baxter Building non-stop!! Of course, IF I were angling for a Mighty Marvel No-Prize, I would argue that perhaps Shellhead was so ( physically ) exhausted from the battle, that he copped out on Ben even though he actually had enough recharged power to fly him back to New York City. Iron Man has shown ruthless tendencies at times, but I just don’t believe that he would strand anyone- even someone as tough as the Thing- out in the middle of the Southwestern American desert, which is as close to Hell as I hope any nice human being ever gets! A good bit of the action in Marvel’s ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Son of Satan’ series were set in the American Southwest, and I believe that is precisely the reason why. But that is a blog for another day, and now that I have reviewed “The Bite of the Blood Brothers”, I am going to bestow it with my Mighty Marvel award of “B”!! I have spoken!