The Human Fly #5-8

HUMAN FLY #5.
COVER TITLE. Towering Doom!
INSIDE TITLE. Fire in the Night!
COVER DATE. January 1978
COVER PRICE. 35¢
COVER ARTIST. Un-credited
NUMBER OF PAGES. 17
WRITER. Bill Mantlo
PENCILLER. Frank Robbins
INKER. Rod Santiago
LETTERER. Joe Rosen
COLORIST. Jan Cohen
EDITOR. Archie Goodwin

This is a classic comic and a great one, but if you look at it in 2008 you will notice that it is something from the past. Nobody could publish now a comic with this kind of villain, that remains me of Kraken the Hunter from Spiderman (the outfit, mainly). And the kind of adventure is so seventies that it could not be translated to any other time period. And that’s the reason I simply love it.
Again, I will not follow the flow of events as it is related on the comic book. I will start with a sunny morning. The Human Fly is in Quebec, Canada, walking a high-wire strung between two skyscrapers. It is a stunt just for a group of schoolchildren with mobility problems. Watching the Fly crossing the sky is a great stimuli to this children that someday will be able to just walk.

But in the middle of the path a man dressed with a vigilante uniform shoots a gun an cuts the wire in half. It is a free fall! Unless the Human Fly grabs the wire in the air. The body of the Fly is something out of the common Human limits.

He survives and Blaze notices that the same gun that cut the wire in mid-air is now pointing at the kids. The perpetrator is Malik, a crazy glory-seeker. And he had soaked the top five floors of the building with gasoline and cut off the sprinkler system. It is a suicidal move. No intention to let any survivor. Only the camera attention and the World watching in wondering horror.

The skyscraper begun burning like a torch and the Human tries to help the kids and the TV stuff (Harmony included) who stand on the top of the building. The Fly, who knows Malik, carries a oxygen tank that limits his movility but allows him to breathe. He adds to his uniform a set of sution cups that will serve as a real Human Fly outfit.

In less that twenty minutes, the Human Fly is adhering to the smooth stone walls of the top of the building and begins his climbing. Harmony is taking care of the children and asks Malik why he is doing this. We then get to know the secret origin of the character. He performed the same stunt as the Fly. He was an aerialist that tried to walk a wire from the Empire State Building to the Chrysler Building but the wire broke and he survived, but with every bone in his body broken. When the next morning paper arrived, the news of Pearl Harbor bombed “robbed” the news of his stunt. It was, of course, overshadowed, and he then thought that he was forgotten by an uncaring world. Back to present, The Human Fly’s stunt made Malik angry.
The jet-copter serves as a decoy. While Malik fires his gun at them, the Human Fly climbs the building. The wall is too hot to the cups to adhere. Then he fire his cable-gun and a spear is anchored to the top. He breaks into a window and races to the stairway. But the metal is overheated and he almost fails. Malik notices the Human Fly, and recognizes his voice. That gives a little time for a child to unarm Malik while the Fly’s Baton knocks him down.

Now he has to rescue the children and Hamony’s crew. To accomplish that, he uses the jet-copter with Ted and Blaze. The trio is in danger, too. A spark could ignite the Fuel-Tank. A ladder from the top of one building to the other will be used as a bridge. Malik will help now the Fly to save the children. A revelation is made: Malik is the teacher of Highwire of the Fly. The child forgives Malik and thanks him for saving his life.

Malik promises not to reveal the Human Fly’s secret identity. And states: “give them hope. It’s worth more than glory”. Authorities take care of him.

Tony Hertel wants to know the real Human Fly and the people at bullpen pass to the readers a letter from him, dated October 7, 1977. There he announces that he will jump, riding a motorcycle a rack of twenty six parked buses. The event took place in the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada.

Eric Hochberg points to the uniqueness of this comic book. He ask about his steel-mesh cape. Michael White wants more information about the real Human Fly and states that the doctors who treated him will know who he is. The answer is quite revealing. There was a car crash and the doctors were ask to secrecy.
Praises from Stan Curtis and Steve O’Brien (from WABC-Radio). Jeff Goodman says that he has watch the Human Fly on TV.

HUMAN FLY #6.
COVER TITLE. Fear in Funland!
INSIDE TITLE. Fear in Funland!
COVER DATE. February 1978
COVER PRICE. 35¢
COVER ARTIST. Un-credited
NUMBER OF PAGES. 17
WRITER. Bill Mantlo
PENCILLER. Frank Robbins
INKER. Rod A. Santiago
LETTERER. Jun Cristi
COLORIST. Fracoise Mouly
EDITOR. Archie Goodwin

A story co-written. The Human Fly is in Funland Amusement Park. Arnie’s idea was to let the Fly enjoy a day with fathers and children of handicap boys and girls. The city (which one?) is paying all the expenses. A group of crooks think that the Human Fly is Daredevil.

Something odd happens in the shooting gallery. He is not allowed to fire a gun. The Fly spies the concession and spots the crooks talking to the owner. Here we can see something out of a comic book. If a special bullet is shot with this gun, it opens a door in the haunted house.

Ted, Arnie and Blaze are taking care of the kids. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Hamony Whyte’s boss gives an ultimatum to her. Is the Human Fly’s head or hers. Harmony does not believe now that the Human Fly is a charlatan, but she must try to expose him.

Back at Funland, the Human Fly is forbidden to come into the Tunnel of Fear. It does not mater, our hero is one of a curious kind and he comes into. He hear a noise and leaves a decoy made with his baton and his cape. The decoy is being shot and the Fly intervenes. The two crooks are Slade, a funky criminal, and Clyde a common thief from the Marvel comics back to this years. The Fly knocks them down and comes farther in the cave, discovering a stolen car ring. Slade gets up and shoots the Human Fly.

With a kick, the hand that carries the gun lifts and the bullet severs the main power cable, cutting the lights. Chaos strikes the mechanicals and the Fly escapes. The gunshots alert the Human Fly’s crew.

This entire action sequence is a trademark of the series. The Human Fly escapes the criminals, he does not fight them, because he is no common super-hero. He is a real life character. He asks himself what Spiderman will do in a situation like this and the answer comes right before his eyes. An attraction called “Parachute Jump”, similar to a wheel attraction could be the only way out.

But Slade don’t think so. He thinks the Human Fly is trapped and jumps into the free seats of the Parachute Jump and a long ascent begins. The bullets are scarce in real life situations, but this guys has an infinite munition gun. They keep shooting our hero.

On floor, Arnie and Ted fight head to head with the mechanicals (I know they had it into them).

The Fly gets to the center of the pin-wheel and then Ted removes the governor on the lever which control the attraction’s rate of rotation. The Human Fly is secure in the non-revolving center. The goons suffer the increasing speed, while the officers await them.

No letter page on this issue.

HUMAN FLY #7.
COVER TITLE. Fury in the Wild!
INSIDE TITLE. Snow Blind!
COVER DATE. March 1978
COVER PRICE. 35¢
COVER ARTIST. Un-credited
NUMBER OF PAGES. 17
WRITER. Bill Mantlo
PENCILLER. Lee Elias
INKER. Mike Esposito
LETTERER. Patterson
COLORIST. Mary Titus
EDITOR. Archie Goodwin

The Fly and the snow. As you all know, a cover date should be taken not seriously, because this comic was on racks in January. In fact, it is the Christmas issue. Therefore, there is snow all over the place. The site is Vermont and the main characters are a kid (named Andy) who lost his mother and his sight in an auto accident and his father (named Mal Evans), who fix and rents snow-mobiles. He is resented with the people who has enough money to live a life of luxury (to him, they are the “filthy rich”) and considers himself a Grease-Monkey. There is also a dog called Frost.

There is a possibility to cure the blindness of Andy if his father could reunites enough money to pay the bill of a doctor in New York.

The Green Mountain Winter Festival reunites many people and the Fly & Co. are ready to perform a stunt with a snow-mobile. The money will go to build an orphanage.
As a surprise, Harmony apologizes to the Human Fly and he accepts it. She feels pretty awful, knowing that his assignment is to destroy his reputation.

The Fly is ready to perform the main event of the Festival. He will cross a ravine named “Deadman’s Drop”. The snow-mobile must be steady, because any variation to the left or right will slow the speed and the jump will be impossible. The trajectory has to be precise and a set of powerful rockets on the back of the snow-mobile helps the Fly to fly over the pines bellow. Meanwhile, Andy and his father are taking a ride with their own snow-mobile. Mal spots the audacity of the Human Fly over their heads. The a hungry bear crosses his path and they spill. Mal is unconscious and Andy does not know what to do.

The Fly, on top of his jump, has seen the accident and landing on the other side of the ravine, leaves his snow-mobile and ask to signal his crew to follow him to the bottom of Deadman’s Drop. Of course our favourite supporting crew see the signal of the Human Fly and follow on snow-mobile where our hero is. They set free Frost, Andy’s dog, because he will lead them to his master. Harmony also follows on skis the supporting crew of the Fly.

The Human Fly races down not without incident. Andy could not see the bear and the Fly jumps over the animal back just in time. It would be occupied with him until his people rescue the boy.

The bear weights an estimated four hundred pounds. It is about “to hug” the Fly and squeeze to death. Andy looks for a disaster flare under his father’s bike and Frost attacks the bear.

This surprise attack leave unbalanced the bear and the boy fires the flare, because he can aim to where his dog is. The wild animal runs away. Andy is now an official hero. His father recovers conscience and has a few broken ribs. The Human Fly offers the money he obtained with the jump to pay for the operation that the boy needs to see again. What a great guy!

Charlie Kile is not pleased with teaming up with superheroes and “Rescue Boy” states that he is a real superhero (sic).

Betsy Jacobs also despised the idea of fighting supervillains, but time would tell that the next to chapters in the Human Fly Saga will be facing a Marvel Villain. People at Marvel wanted to change the chores of non-villain stories as a test. Then we get to know that Bill Mantlo and Archie Goodwin tended towards single-issue, human drama stories (as Mantlo called the “Playhouse 90”).

Kirk R. Pfeffer doubts of the authenticity of the real Fly, because of the indicia where we can read “No similarity between any names, characters (…) is intended, and any such similarity which may exist is purely coincidential.” Wow! What a Detective!

PMM Matt Kaufman though that this comic was inspirational. In the answer, there is information about Lee Elias and Frank Robbins being BOTH the book’s permanent pencillers. This is something uncommon for Marvel at that time. But since the series consist of independent issues, mainly it was no problem at all.

HUMAN FLY #8.
COVER TITLE. Mayhem at the Metropolitan!
INSIDE TITLE. The Tiger and the Fly!
COVER DATE. April 1978 (it did not appeared on cover).
COVER PRICE. 35¢
COVER ARTIST. Un-credited
NUMBER OF PAGES. 17
WRITER. Bill Mantlo
PENCILLER. Frank Robbins
INKER. New York Tribe (?)
LETTERER. Joe Rosen
COLORIST. Mary Titus
EDITOR. Archie Goodwin

This is the first two part story of the Fly that I will have to put the “To Be Continued” at the end of the post. Please, be patience and next week you will read the continuation.

The story begun at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where an innovative young curator, Margarita Mercado, has turned this cultural palace into an inner city festival! The Human Fly is the main attraction. He skates a pool with jets attached and performs a nearly impossible loop.

The Fly talks to Margarita and explains his intentions to give hope to anyone and Harmony interviews our hero.

Among the spectators is Puerto Rican Hector Ayala, as you all know, the secret identity of the White Tiger, the first Hispanic Superhero. He is in bad mood.

At the Museum’s second floor, the Villain promised last issue comes to be the Copperhead, an archivillain of Daredevil. He kills an administrative that was his informant.

Inside the Museum, a multitude follows the Human Fly and the curator into an exhibit. Harmony infuriates Blaze with the questions she threw at the Fly. Hector finds the dead administrator and the police mistake him with the killer. The officers begin shooting at him and he runs free miraculously.

The Human Fly hears the gunshots in the Hispanic Exhibit and takes care of the security of the people who is with him. As he says, he is no crime-fighter. With the children at a safe room, the Greek Statuary, he runs to check out the reason for all the shooting. Blaze is amazed: the Human Fly is a crime-fighter or not. Of course, he travels by skate-board. Yipie!

Trouble comes this way! Copperhead is in the Greek room. He intends to steal an ancient urn. A boy down on the floor gets a glimpse of the killer and the White Tiger and the Fly races to stop him. The floor bellow the kids, Margarita and the dynamic trio from the Fly’s Crew are trapped there. Copperhead fights with the White Tiger and the Fly falls just in time to be side by side with the kids and his friends. He leads them to an abandoned subway tunnel below the Museum.

The problem is that the tunnel is being flooded with water. And the White Tiger is shoot down. Will Copperhead’s sinister plans reach to dramatic end? More next week.

First, the sad news about the accident the Real Fly suffered while attempting the 26 parked buses. No more information is given about his condition.

L. Henken wonders what will happen if the Human Fly suffer such a tremendous accident that his recovery seemed improbable. The bullpen answers wisely. It is not the man, but the concept, they are writing of.

Tom Gordon feels touched by the series, more noticed on issue five. To him this is not a comic book but a moving work of art (and who am I to contradict this. I adhere to his opinion).