This story begins with Terry Stewart, one of the more interesting overlords Marvel had. Titularly, President, Marvel Entertainment Group—yes… back when Marvel was a little bunch of comic enthusiasts just getting together to put out some comics and “entertainment” cards. We were well-entrenched at 387 Park by this time.

Now Mr. Stewart was an executive’s executive, he had come from Bechtel Engineering (eventually doing support work for The Chunnel! Yeah, that kind of ‘big!’) and was one of those guys who told Westinghouse where to get off. So he must’ve needed a break from Very High CEOing and came to Marvel.

My favorite story about him was when he just arrived at the building, he found a cache of marketing promotional costumes. Hearing of an editorial meeting, he quickly donned his Green Goblin costume (or was it Hobgoblin?) and hurled himself into the middle of the meeting, jumping up on the table. Executive Editor, Tom DeFalco was ready to tackle the guy, who obviously was short a few goblin bombs and broke into the place. In the nick of time, Mr. Stewart took off his mask, saving himself from an ugly takedown.

In truth, despite his corporate inclinations, he was the closest thing to a comic’s fan Marvel ever had. Which I thought was a really good thing. Not that that accomplished much to us lower orders in the trenches…

Anyway! Rank doth hath its privy privileges! And he managed to have a full blown video arcade game put into his office. The most intriguing detail as far as I was concerned, was that it didn’t need money of any kind to operate. It would go forever…

One imagined that Mr. Stewart might offer to play against an adversary negotiator to win psychological points or even just leverage the contract more.

And here it is! I note that the walls are new-ish and this seems to be in an alcove that wasn’t there when we first moved in. So I guess this point in time is after the 10th Floor Renovation. Which means Mr. Stewart took the opportunity of a remodeled office to jettison this white elephant. Or he found it clashed with his piles of canvas bank sacks marked: $$$.

But he gave it to the Bullpen! Which was a very nice thing to do.

Anyone not of the Bullpen might make a tchh sound and think, gee, no money needed to play… how does any work get done?

Now, c’mon everybody. We were hard-core nerds but we prized our jobs and labors. Plus there may not have been any money needed but there was an off-switch! It made a great little fun-time with buddies—it was great to blow off a little steam.

I managed to get to play it a couple of times (I was off-staff at the time but harder to get rid of than a bad penny). It was one of those flat 2-D rolling background games. Where the characters did their thing on an imaginary ground.

Fun! But, for me, still not better than the free coffee.