Nothing can save you!

Welcome to part 17 of

With The Human Fly hanging on for dear life in mid air onto The Mercenary, luckily enough spider-man is around with his web parachute in this next recreated page:-

The Human Fly Visits The Marvel Bullpen!
The following "Marvel Special Feature" was printed inside the 15th issue of The Human Fly comic, The scans are the best I could do, but all of the photos are incredibly hard to see… as is some of the text, so I will type the text again above each frame of this feature

The "commentary" (or text) is by Bill Mantlo, Photos by D. Jon Zimmerman

"Imagine our surprise one sunny day earlier this year when one of Marvel's very own super sensations presented himself (along with his new sidekick, MERCURY) in the Crimson-costumed flesh at the Reception Room of the Marvel Bullpen itself! STAN (THE MAN) was the first to extend a warm, if somewhat awed welcome to the HUMAN FLY!"

Yes that's Stan Lee, of course!  as for Mercury being a "new" sidekick, we saw him in the video footage of the wing walk over the Mojave Desert, where he is described as the Human fly's "long term friend"

"Then AMIABLE ARCHIE (Star Wars) GOODWIN put in an appearance with a few of the pulse-pounding HUMAN FLY covers he'd helped to design as former Editor-in-Chief"

The caption provided for Archie has some fun at the expense of Mercury…

"While shutterbug DWIGHT ZIMMERMAN snapped away, the FLY autographed pages to be offered as prizes in the HUMAN FLY STUNT CONTEST! (See Below) Then he and MERCURY stopped in to say 'Hi!" to JAZZY JOHN ROMITA,  Marvel's Art Director and SPIDER-MAN artist supreme!"

(The Virginia in question is Virginia Romita, John Romita SRs wife and mother of John Romita Jr)

"Next to greet Marvel's own Dynamic Duo was JIM (TROUBLE) SHOOTER, hardworking Editor-in-Chief!  The FLY introduced MERCURY, and plans were immediately hatched to work Merc into the Fly's own mag!"

Here is proof that Jim Shooter did indeed meet The Human Fly for real - Hopefully we remember that it was Jim Shooter himself is cited as making the link between The Human Fly and Rick Rojatt - at least in terms of his comic book identity - (Jim shooter, incidentally is probably standing on a box or something similar as he is well known for doing this in any photo to make himself look even taller than he already was)

"As the FLY talked about his stunt-cycle failure in Montreal last year (shown in HUMAN FLY issue 11), of his plans for future feats of daredevil daring as well as giving us a progress report on his upcoming career as a recording artist… who should come running into Marvel's Editorial Office but BOISTEROUS BILL MANTLO - Fly-scripter par excellence?!"

This gives us a rough idea of when the Human fly did visit the offices of Marvel and it would appear to be before the publication of issue 11, but after Montreal, making this possibly the last recorded appearance of The Human Fly in costume

It also cements again the source of the "real-life" details published in issue 11

"Finally, BOISTEROUS BILL MANTLO (Ya can't keep a good man down…or out of a picture!), The FLY and MERCURY tossed around a few plot ideas for upcoming issues of the HUMAN FLY! Then they all posed for the historic photo you see to your left before a giant mockup of the memorable cover of HUMAN FLY 1"

Mercury never did appear in The Human Fly comic, and with the possible expection of issue 11, none of the issues of the comic included any "plot ideas"

Luckily enough I have managed to find a much better quality version of this photo,which follows below and confirms that it does appear to be the same person wearing The Human Fly costume as seen in the video of the wing walk over the Mojave Desert, as The Human fly is clearly taller than Mercury in both

Finally there was also this announcement for The Human Fly Stunt contest

"Design a stunt that not even the Human Fly can perform, using whatever props your imagination can conjure forth - then figure out how the Fly can do it and live!  Ideas must be typed or clearly written - no more than one page (with a sketch of your idea, if possible…"

"Winners will see their stunt in print, as drawn by a marvel artist and will receive a credit plus an original Human Fly art page signed by the Fly himself!  Deadline is October 31, 1978 pilgrims… so if you're gonna do it - do it now!"

We will return to the the Stunt contest in two weeks time - but…

NEXT WEEK: We reach the last page of The Human Fly issue 1 and finally I attempt to answer all the questions about The Human Fly, Was he really real? Was he really Rick Rojatt?? All this and more next week