On that same trip, they also ran into a failed actor who wrongly placed the blame for his failure on Robbie's mother. Donning a green mask, the actor tries to get Robbie out of the way and kill his mother at a theatre and then a theatre supply store, only to be thwarted by Robbie using the Masked Marvel powers that allow him to absorb kinetic energy and bounce a lot. Not great powers, but sufficient to defeat a Shakespeare-quoting nutjob.
While none of the Masked Marvel stories is really great, they are often really good and the visuals are always nice and inventive, with Ditko's rendition of his out-of-control bouncing.
Roger Stern scripts the story, and Jackson Guice inks.
Speedball seemed incredibly promising to me. Neat powers, neat costume, good choice of inkers and scripter. It never quite came together though. The stories didn't have the suspenseful development of Ditko's work in the sixties, and eventually got downright goofy. I remember one story involving aliens that looked like cats that particularly made me wince. Very disappointing, because I was really hoping Ditko would have a new success, and Speedball seemed like the best opportunity he had in the '80's.
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Speedball really was a fun character that never really took off...it's really strange now to look at the bizarre things that Marvel has done to him in the last year.
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