Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain #246

Issue Date: 
October 1977
Story Title: 
Tunnels of Terror!
Staff: 

Larry Lieber & Jim Lawrence (plot), Jim Lawrence (script) Ron Wilson (pencils) Fred Kida (inks), Larry Lieber & Danny Fingeroth (editors)

Brief Description: 

Captain Britain manages to fend off the Gila monster and learns from Dai Thomas that Slaymaster usually has his base of operations in the sewers. He is distracted by a skull-like construct hovering over London, which attacks him. He is brought into the sewers before Slaymaster, who intends to feed him to a shark. After Slaymaster leaves, Cap manages to reach his star scepter and free himself. He finds hints that point towards the identity of Slaymaster’s employer - a shipping magnate named Kharkov - and Captain Britain decides to pay his yacht a visit. As he gets close, though, he is attacked and trapped by Kharkov’s robot octopus.

Full Summary: 

A triumphant Slaymaster jets to his secret hideout, clutching his prize – the golden griffin.

Inside Lady Gila’s mansion, the police enter to find another corpse and Captain Britain about to be attacked by a poisonous Gila monster. Nervously, he reaches for his star sceptre. The creature stares at the weapon as though hypnotized and suddenly recoils from its potent forcefield.

Captain Britain jumps up, fends off the policemen with his sceptre and flies outside where a police car is pulling up. The driver is Cap’s nemesis, Chief Inspector Thomas. Instead of hurling his usually abuses at the hero, he waves him down though and lets him know about a tip Scotland Yard received from Interpol: anywhere Slaymaster carries out a contract, he always hides out in the city’s sewers.

Cap thanks him and flies off to find the huge image of a skull hovering over London. He correctly figures that it’s Slaymaster’s.

Beneath the streets, Slaymaster watches Captain Britain flying closer to the skull, which suddenly emits a ray of energy at him. At that moment, a serpent-like form shoots up from a manhole beneath the streets. Its jaws open to gulp in the stunned falling hero. Like a telescoping tube, the mechanical snake draws back into its lair far below street level and spits out its prey before its sinister master, who announces that this time Captain Bitain won’t escape.

Cap stumbles to his feet, announcing this war isn’t over yet. Slaymaster kicks him in the face. He moves a lever and a robot arm swings Cap out over London’s underground river of sewage, where Slaymaster’s pet, a shark, is already moving in for the final cleanup.
Slowly the robot arm lowers Cap inch by inch towards the man-eating shark. The laughing Slaymaster leaves in a motorboat, announcing he has a meeting with another kind of shark.

Minutes later, the master assassin emerges from a sewer manhole, in the Lodnon Street where his rocket car is parked.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to escape the looming jaws Cap swings to and fro desperately trying to reach his star scepter.

Soon after midnight, Slaymaster’s plane streaks down over the west counts to land on the Mako, a sleek yacht putting out from Falmouth with an interesting guest aboard. Greeting the man as Kharkov, Slaymaster asks if he has received the items he sent. Kharkov replies that he has.

At that moment, Cap has reached his star scepter, hits the shark with it and manages to bust loose. He takes a look at the lighter Slaymaster left. The engraved monogram ‘K. K.’ looks familiar. It stands for ‘Konrad Kharkov’ he realizes. The shipping magnate. According to the news, he gives those lighters to all his pals, and lives on his yacht, the Mako. A Mako is a kind of shark!

It’s dawn, as Cap sights Kharkov’s yacht off the Cornish coast. Cap dives into the ocean, intending to get close to the yacht undetected. However, that moment, a buzzer sounds in Kharkov’s cabin, a sonar alarm courtesy of his underwater sentry, a robot octopus whose steel tentacles are reaching for and trapping Captain Britain.

Characters Involved: 

Brian Braddock / Captain Britain

Chief Inspector Dai Thomas

Other policemen

Slaymaster

Konrad Kharkov

Story Notes: 

This story was published by Marvel UK.

The issue contains three reprinted backup stories:

The second part of Amazing Spider-Man (1st series) #168, the second part of Thor (1st series) #210 and the second part of Avengers (1st series) #122.

Issue Information: 
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