Merry Marvel's chance encounters

[Shiryu]

I was re-reading some old Thor issues, when Jane Foster puts up an ad for a housemate, and the person replying happens to be Tana Nile, bent on Earth's colonization (and who really doesn't need a flat anyway). She sends Jane away, and on a plane Jane just happens to run into a man working for the High Evolutionary who has need of her and basically kidnaps here.

Just what are the odds?

I remember this plot device was not unfrequent back in the day. Jean Gray took Misty Knight as housemate for a time, and Peter Parker shared his dormitory with Captain Britain. Can you think of any other instance like this?

[sharkar]

 
Shiryu, good topic. I think we had a similar thread some months ago (fwiw I like your "old school Marvel" title better) and you may want to check it out, as it contains examples/ideas regarding what you are describing. Here's the link
vplexico.proboards.com/post/38798/thread

For me, the scenarios that always come to mind are 1) Johnny running into and meeting (for the first time) Crystal in a desolated part of NYC in Fantastic Four #45; and 2) after Ben punches the Silver Surfer, the Surfer oh-so-conveniently landing in Alicia's apartment in FF #49.

Hmmm, maybe cases could be made for foreshadowing/precedents here. One could argue that Johnny had already been shown a tendency to clear his head by walking around in deserted or seedy NYC neighborhoods. After all, take a look at at FF #4, when he wandered into the Bowery and discovered Namor in a flophouse.
 
As for Alicia and the Surfer: a mere couple of issues before the Surfer crashed through her skylight, the FF were fighting Dragon Man and while fighting they crashed through Alicia's window (FF #47). It seems she lived in a central part of the city, close to the Baxter Building, and so her building was usually in the line of fire, prone to collateral damage, etc. 

Okay, okay--maybe I don't really think Stan and Jack planned all this; but as an FF/Mavel reader I reserve the right to judiciously subscribe to Coleridge's suspension of disbelief theory... so this is how I rationalize these occurrences! 

[humanbelly]

It's almost like the entirety of Marvel U history is built on this sort of thing, isn't it?
I do remember that earlier thread, but it's the kind of subject that one just LOVES to revisit. I believe all of Alicia's initial connection with the FF was something we discussed at length? (Her uncanny resemblance to Sue-- to the point that it fooled Reed; the fact that she bore that resemblance AND happened to be the Puppet Master's loving niece; and so on).

The Hulk's encounters of this nature had a little less to do with the whole Seven Degrees of Separation thing, and more to do with who he would "happen" to run into by pure chance at just the right time. BIG one would be Hulk #179, where he crash-lands back on Earth after a pretentious Counter-Earth epic, and finds himself near a very small Appalachian mining town, and gets a job w/ the local mining company. He finds lodging w/ a poor-but-but-generous family. . . who have also taken in another lost soul by the name of "Lincoln". This guy, of course, turns out to be the re-constituted Missing Link from issues 105-107(!), who just happens to have made a nice life for himself right here in the same little state, in the same little town, and in the SAME LITTLE HOUSEHOLD! To further the coincidence, Bruce has come onto the scene at just the time when Linc's un-realized personal radiation is starting to cause ill effects on his adoptive family.

It's actually a pretty darned good issue, where both man-monsters feel that they're trying to protect this home and community from the dangers that the other presents. It's never vicious-- just earnest, and there's a moment where the Hulk reflexively commiserates with Linc's despair over the damage that his radiation is causing.

But. . . c'mon. He was in OUTER SPACE at the beginning of the issue! He's going to wind up in the middle of nowhere with this long-lost foe by page five???

And don't get me started on how often he encounters the Abomination under circumstances where the odds of their meeting are astronomical. . .


HB