NULL-MYTHS: SPIDER-MAN * THE HULK AT THE WINTER OLYMPICS (1980)

 Since I just reviewed CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS, I took a quick first-time look at the Marvel Treasury Edition that preceded it, #25, in which Spider-Man and the Hulk found themselves brought into a conflict centered around the Winter Olympics. 

It's an even more average story than CONTEST, with the same story-concept stemming from Steven Grant, Mark Gruenwald and Bill Mantlo, with Mantlo scripting dialogue and the always dependable Herb Trimpe supplying pencils. The two heroes are largely pawns in a war between two underground-dwelling villains, Queen Kala and the Mole Man, and the story, unlike a lot of the Treasury stories, is firmly in mainstream continuity, following up a story featuring both villains in the pages of the FANTASTIC FOUR. For good measure Mantlo also thrown in another Lee-Kirby creation, the subterranean Lava Men, as well as three real-life Olympic champions turned into super-powered combatants and a handful of mutant characters whom I don't think ever appeared again. So the crossover of Marvel's major down-under characters is the main feature of interest here.