Captain America
Welcome back to 1 out of 5 – Would Recommend, which will go back to its eldritch slumber just as soon as we mine the vein I found on Amazon Video. In celebration of Avengers: Infinity War (SPOILERS: Superman comes back to life to help fight Steppenwolf), we intellectuals are watching what is truly the most ambitious Marvel team-up movie of all time: Captain America and luchador El Santo battling Spider-Man in 1973’s 3 Dev Adam (called “Superhero Force” on Amazon Video).
What’s The Plot?
The criminal mastermind known only as “Spider-Man” enacts an evil plot to steal antiquities from Turkey, sells them to American dealers at rock bottom prices, and then buys them back (through proxies) with counterfeit bills. Turkish authorities enlist the aid of Captain America and Mexican hero El Santo to put a stop to this murderous masked man’s criminal enterprises, a war between these Three Giant Men!*
El Santo, seconds before stuffing things into his pants.
*Giant-Man was apparently unavailable.
Who Made This Beautiful Garbage?
Some Turks with a big love of superheroes, a little bit of money, and zero respect for copyright law.
Five Reasons to See It
- Evil Spider-Man’s Clone Saga is apparently in full swing, since no fewer than five of him show up and several are killed.
- At one point, Cap is asked why he wears a silly costume. He explains that Spider-Man is childish and hates anyone else wearing a mask, so the costume will provoke the Wall-Crawler’s anger. And also it’s bulletproof.
- Santo’s hero outfit doesn’t have pockets (or, y’know, a shirt). When he infiltrates a bad guy’s office to steal evidence, he secures the incriminating documents in… the crotch of his spandex pants.
Spider-Man, with a more realistically homemade costume.
- Spider-Man murders people with a verve and brutality that would make Norman Osborn say “Dude…chill.” He gets creative. Starving mice and beached motorboat propellers become involved.
- “Your Turkish is very good.” – Said to Santo and Captain America, who are clearly Turks.
Recommendation
It’s worth a watch. It’s more or less what would happen if you tossed somebody one of those weird foreign bootleg action figure sets with a name like “Sense of Right Alliance” (that ALWAYS include Spider-Man) and said “make this into a movie”, and manages to have more compelling fight scenes than either Reb Brown Captain America flick. It is available on Amazon and YouTube – there’s no big difference in print quality between the two.
A visual summary of Spiderverse.
Come Back Next Week for a Brand New Installment of Strange Times & Places!
