Captain (Ms,) Marvel or Thing and the gang vs. Thanos? Best Spider-Man Team-Ups, 1977
Captain (Ms.) Marvel - Thanos - Avengers! Best Spider-Man Team Ups, 1977
So, the game goes, team-ups with Spider-Man during the year 1977. Imagine if Spider-Man could’ve even once met the Superfriends, or just apppeared with Batman, drawn by Steve Ditko and Alex Toth. Ah well, when you’re a kid, publishing universes are yours to blend like phonics.
1977. How'd that go...“Night Fever,” Three’s Company….come and knock on our door, dun-na-nuh-na-nuh-na-here we go!
Marvel Team-Up #56 I guess 1st true 1977 calendar date releases. MTU probably shipped first in the rotation of new books? See, by that year, a different Spider-Man comic book series from Marvel published a new issue each week. Marvel Team-Up, Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker(bear w/ me it’s long), The Spectacular Spider-Man, and Marvel Tales. Marvel Tales settled into a groove of reprinting Amazing Spider-Man stories in order from about five years before, and remained so until 1982, the year the title started with the origin story in #137 for a whole new generation (with issues some readers still had never found in those days, too!).
I like Spider-Man team-ups because you have so many choices, the conversation could easily encompass all of Marvel at its different times, its first 25 or so years. That’s what I thought would make a fun theme this summer. Some other hero might be a blast, too, but I have a few more of these, then lots of interview work to catch up while I start my new career.
Captain Britain(65 & 66) Yellowjacket and the Wasp (#59, 60) and Power Man/ Luke Cage (#75) all make great contenders. His part in the Iron Fist wrap up is relatively minor, but if you like those characters, MTU #63 and 64 (with Iron Fist, then the Daughters of the Dragon) are key. So many examples of the co-star being female, this year. Bravo, Marvel, you’re really trying.
Some might even nominate an oddball like Man-Thing and Spidey vs. D’Spayre: those resonate at a certain age, I know, I loved #68, too.
I bet a good number of you would say, "Nova's cross-over with Amazing Spider-Man!" I don't feel like we got to see quite what made Nova unique in that two-parter, but the idea of them working together is cool! I like one thing about the track of the Nova character at Marvel: he remains a youth. Richard Ryder isn't the most important part of the equation, maybe. If we always get stories of rookies gaining the power of the Nova Corp...ah, and then there's the mission of re-establishing the Nova Corp- all these mysteries Marv and company had a hard time serving while keeping him earthbound and crossing other Marvel paths...It's hard to get a "Peter Parker-like" alter ego when space beckons with many of the best possible stories. Maybe this is why, for all his power, Firestorm at DC didn't have extraterrestrial destinations. Gerry Conway kept Ronnie close enough to his supporting cast. He also tweaked the alter ego another few notches for contrast.
Anyway, the A.I.M. plot and Jason Dean- maybe your nostalgic miles may vary.
I like the basicness of early Nova, nonetheless. The Human Rocket!
One story I don’t think I could escape nominating: the two annual crossover versus Thanos! You could argue Spidey only plays co-star in the second half, with the Thing- but was it the greatest team-up he had in ‘77?
The preview for this issue in the Bullpen Bulletins is way tiny but tantalizing! There was little other warning what Starlin had in store.
The one that surprised me- and I am going by memory before I choose these: Marvel Team Up #62. That one spins out of a problem at the Baxter Building that matches him again with Torch, though the cover simulates an FF attack and draws in your curiosity!
The second part features Ms. Marvel, and was my introduction to the heroine. I met up with her again much later, after I was busier making comics than collecting them, in the pages of Captain Marvel #1. I was sure my wife would enjoy the story. These days, buying a physical comic book is almost not worth it to me if we can’t make a date of reading it, but, still nice sometimes.
Kelly Sue Connick was a guest on the Spider-Panel, the last year I attended Comic Con. Her appearance- I think she answered a question from me afterwards about professional writing, so politely- sent me to the comics shop off Ocean Beach, Galaxy, to bike home with Angela Dawn and our carefully-protected copy. Captain Marvel we agreed, was off to a solid rebirth.
I also happen to think Yellowjacket (Antman / Giant Man also, same guy, Hank Pym) and the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) shown more brightly in their team-up with Spider-Man than I think I ever saw them elsewhere. Their best adventure! I was tempted to tie the column in more directly at the headline – those are hard to think up sometimes!
It was certainly more melodramatic than the fight against Super Skrull. Yep, he’s the threat: warrior sent by the shape shifting alien Skrull race, with implanted receptors that allow him to beam in energy with which to duplicate the very powers of the first human obstacle to the Skrull infiltra
tion: the Fantastic Four! So, invisibility, stretching, flaming, flying, and clobbering, all with a shape-shifting touch and many nefarious impersonations to his name from the start. The one cool super villain to emerge from the creation of the Skrulls in the pages of Fantastic Four magazine.
But that Thanos fight, tho’….
I’m going to hold that one, only because it’s by now gotten so much Infinity Wars-related attention, I hope, and Spidey has a small role in it. But that doesn’t mean we won’t pick it back up, ‘cause Jim Starlin rocks! Thing is, Avengers Annual #7 crossed into Marvel Two-in-One Annual starring The Thing and Spider-Man is more of a great Thanos story, a great Warlock story- well, we’ll see upon reading.
In the MTU #62 story, Spider-Man’s more a pivotal character, Byrne’s penciling and Claremont’s writing, and the villain is frankly more awesome than the one Hank and Janet faced with Spidey. Now, I like that one in part because personal friendship moments and a touch of home life really reach me. Here, I like her- Carol’s- evolutionary tie to the Marvel character with Super-Skrull, whose race and the one that spawned her abilities, the Kree, have been at war with each other longer than man’s existed, I think. The Wasp, Ms. Marvel, Daughters of the Dragon, Tigra, Black Widow just before in yet another Claremont-penned MTU, #57 – wow, five issues of Marvel Team-Up with female character headliners, in less than a year. Man-Thing’s in that run, too, and “he’s” more a Whatchamacallit than a male. Pity we couldn’t have seen what Steve Gerber might’ve done with a real meet-up of Spidey and Man-Thing.
Female pilots were oh-so-rare in 1977; Claremont had more female pilots in his stories than I think were flying commercially in the world by the mid-80s. Now, new female politicians who flew in the military pop up around the country- I think we’re in for a time when Captain Marvel the movie will ring home a new cultural icon. But thanks to games and cosplay, most who indulge a bit of geek culture already know she exists. Anyway, Carol’s a magazine editor here so she could be tied into the Bugle publishing enterprise, thus giving us occasional J. Jonah Jameson and other faithful Bugle employees who could tie her world with Peter Parker’s. Characters were rather often running into one another while in secret identities, those days.
Anyway, Carol Danvers has evolved a long ways out of the shadows of past Stan Lee glories, that style, to emerge in the 21st century with a chance to reach her fans at last as never before. Gerry Conway took on an interesting challenge in creating her with Jim Mooney. It would be funny if in time that character outshone his contribution The Punisher! I don’t think he’d mind a bit.
This Marvel Team-Up is important because not only are Claremont/ Byrne giving the title a sense of continuity, they’re tying it to other comics on which they’ve been working, particularly Chris. He stays with Carol on her title until it’s canceled in ‘79. Then he remembers her and works her into the spy side of the X-Men world and then, the cosmic, where she goes Out of this World, as Binary. He really looks out for the character best he can.
So that considered, I bet a lot of people would call the Starlin-directed annual crossover the event of 1977, in a time when publishing events were more rare! You could totally skip it, but if you got hold of both pieces, man- like I said. But I think it means more if you read Warlock #9-15 and Strange Tales #178, 179, 180- and the more appearances of Thanos, the better, if you like them.
You get that deep in, and it should prove worth the wait! (I don’t know what you’ll think of his choices in the end.) But if you don’t have for a zillion comics, reading Avengers Annual #7 and MTIO Annual #2 ought to be perfectly cool reading experiences on their own! They stretch to epic portion.
#61 actually begins in the wreckage wrought at the end of the two-parter, #60, so we've got a nice stretch of issues knit together with no rest for Spider-Man. It's cool we get the resolution of Iron Fist's dangling storyline next, then the American debut of the character Chris wrote at the start for Marvel's UK division, Captain Britain. By 1978 we get that Havok/ Thor story mentioned in my appropriate post July 7th, and then they're too busy making X-Men the cool kid on the stands. There's reams about why Chris is not for everyone, but I honestly treasure his stories by and large. I'm so glad - I assume Archie Goodwin played a role- Marvel Team-Up got this team and consistency. There were a few multi-part stories in the title before, but I guess to my collector's adolescent eye, the pair defined modern comics. There's a lot I didn't know and much that would never be distributed so far as I lived out in the country, but I thought that team did the best rendition of Marvel Team-Up overall and would've liked to see them on Amazing Spider-Man. But, ask Iron Fist, there's only so much time to craft your issue and something has to go, even something as wild and exciting as Power Man and Iron Fist, the title the writer/ artist duo forged from Luke Cage's ongoing series, with #50. The step from Iron Fist #15 to that new series home lies in the pages of Marvel Team-Up #63, 64. Things like this made MTU feel more like a 'real' title and built on previous developments like good Marvel of this period, does.
I loved the depiction of Spider-Man under mysterious attack, spending a while dazed the FF would do this.
The Super Skrull is not revealed until the end of #61. He had last fought Tigra in Marvel Chilers #5, and Tigra is coming up in MTU #67. Lots of MTU co-headliners didn't have their own monthly books. Ms. Marvel was an exception.
Spidey puts his brain to work, like old times with Torchie- but man, they need big league help.
How about this new mystery woman?
Sure! We entrust our lives to strangers with unexplained powers all the time, they say! There's actually a nice bit going on where the situation's thrown these allies together with no time to size up anything but Super Skrull. So, no automatic misunderstanding fight, and the premise is totally launched when the story engulfs Carol Danvers.
If you've never read Marvel Team-Up #62, why spoil it for you, go ahead! Speaks for itself.
Have a killer summer!
So, the game goes, team-ups with Spider-Man during the year 1977. Imagine if Spider-Man could’ve even once met the Superfriends, or just apppeared with Batman, drawn by Steve Ditko and Alex Toth. Ah well, when you’re a kid, publishing universes are yours to blend like phonics.
1977. How'd that go...“Night Fever,” Three’s Company….come and knock on our door, dun-na-nuh-na-nuh-na-here we go!
Marvel Team-Up #56 I guess 1st true 1977 calendar date releases. MTU probably shipped first in the rotation of new books? See, by that year, a different Spider-Man comic book series from Marvel published a new issue each week. Marvel Team-Up, Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker(bear w/ me it’s long), The Spectacular Spider-Man, and Marvel Tales. Marvel Tales settled into a groove of reprinting Amazing Spider-Man stories in order from about five years before, and remained so until 1982, the year the title started with the origin story in #137 for a whole new generation (with issues some readers still had never found in those days, too!).I like Spider-Man team-ups because you have so many choices, the conversation could easily encompass all of Marvel at its different times, its first 25 or so years. That’s what I thought would make a fun theme this summer. Some other hero might be a blast, too, but I have a few more of these, then lots of interview work to catch up while I start my new career.
Captain Britain(65 & 66) Yellowjacket and the Wasp (#59, 60) and Power Man/ Luke Cage (#75) all make great contenders. His part in the Iron Fist wrap up is relatively minor, but if you like those characters, MTU #63 and 64 (with Iron Fist, then the Daughters of the Dragon) are key. So many examples of the co-star being female, this year. Bravo, Marvel, you’re really trying.
Some might even nominate an oddball like Man-Thing and Spidey vs. D’Spayre: those resonate at a certain age, I know, I loved #68, too.
I bet a good number of you would say, "Nova's cross-over with Amazing Spider-Man!" I don't feel like we got to see quite what made Nova unique in that two-parter, but the idea of them working together is cool! I like one thing about the track of the Nova character at Marvel: he remains a youth. Richard Ryder isn't the most important part of the equation, maybe. If we always get stories of rookies gaining the power of the Nova Corp...ah, and then there's the mission of re-establishing the Nova Corp- all these mysteries Marv and company had a hard time serving while keeping him earthbound and crossing other Marvel paths...It's hard to get a "Peter Parker-like" alter ego when space beckons with many of the best possible stories. Maybe this is why, for all his power, Firestorm at DC didn't have extraterrestrial destinations. Gerry Conway kept Ronnie close enough to his supporting cast. He also tweaked the alter ego another few notches for contrast.
Anyway, the A.I.M. plot and Jason Dean- maybe your nostalgic miles may vary.
I like the basicness of early Nova, nonetheless. The Human Rocket!
One story I don’t think I could escape nominating: the two annual crossover versus Thanos! You could argue Spidey only plays co-star in the second half, with the Thing- but was it the greatest team-up he had in ‘77?
The preview for this issue in the Bullpen Bulletins is way tiny but tantalizing! There was little other warning what Starlin had in store.The one that surprised me- and I am going by memory before I choose these: Marvel Team Up #62. That one spins out of a problem at the Baxter Building that matches him again with Torch, though the cover simulates an FF attack and draws in your curiosity!
Kelly Sue Connick was a guest on the Spider-Panel, the last year I attended Comic Con. Her appearance- I think she answered a question from me afterwards about professional writing, so politely- sent me to the comics shop off Ocean Beach, Galaxy, to bike home with Angela Dawn and our carefully-protected copy. Captain Marvel we agreed, was off to a solid rebirth.
I also happen to think Yellowjacket (Antman / Giant Man also, same guy, Hank Pym) and the Wasp (Janet Van Dyne) shown more brightly in their team-up with Spider-Man than I think I ever saw them elsewhere. Their best adventure! I was tempted to tie the column in more directly at the headline – those are hard to think up sometimes!
It was certainly more melodramatic than the fight against Super Skrull. Yep, he’s the threat: warrior sent by the shape shifting alien Skrull race, with implanted receptors that allow him to beam in energy with which to duplicate the very powers of the first human obstacle to the Skrull infiltra
tion: the Fantastic Four! So, invisibility, stretching, flaming, flying, and clobbering, all with a shape-shifting touch and many nefarious impersonations to his name from the start. The one cool super villain to emerge from the creation of the Skrulls in the pages of Fantastic Four magazine.
But that Thanos fight, tho’….
I’m going to hold that one, only because it’s by now gotten so much Infinity Wars-related attention, I hope, and Spidey has a small role in it. But that doesn’t mean we won’t pick it back up, ‘cause Jim Starlin rocks! Thing is, Avengers Annual #7 crossed into Marvel Two-in-One Annual starring The Thing and Spider-Man is more of a great Thanos story, a great Warlock story- well, we’ll see upon reading.
In the MTU #62 story, Spider-Man’s more a pivotal character, Byrne’s penciling and Claremont’s writing, and the villain is frankly more awesome than the one Hank and Janet faced with Spidey. Now, I like that one in part because personal friendship moments and a touch of home life really reach me. Here, I like her- Carol’s- evolutionary tie to the Marvel character with Super-Skrull, whose race and the one that spawned her abilities, the Kree, have been at war with each other longer than man’s existed, I think. The Wasp, Ms. Marvel, Daughters of the Dragon, Tigra, Black Widow just before in yet another Claremont-penned MTU, #57 – wow, five issues of Marvel Team-Up with female character headliners, in less than a year. Man-Thing’s in that run, too, and “he’s” more a Whatchamacallit than a male. Pity we couldn’t have seen what Steve Gerber might’ve done with a real meet-up of Spidey and Man-Thing.
Female pilots were oh-so-rare in 1977; Claremont had more female pilots in his stories than I think were flying commercially in the world by the mid-80s. Now, new female politicians who flew in the military pop up around the country- I think we’re in for a time when Captain Marvel the movie will ring home a new cultural icon. But thanks to games and cosplay, most who indulge a bit of geek culture already know she exists. Anyway, Carol’s a magazine editor here so she could be tied into the Bugle publishing enterprise, thus giving us occasional J. Jonah Jameson and other faithful Bugle employees who could tie her world with Peter Parker’s. Characters were rather often running into one another while in secret identities, those days.
Anyway, Carol Danvers has evolved a long ways out of the shadows of past Stan Lee glories, that style, to emerge in the 21st century with a chance to reach her fans at last as never before. Gerry Conway took on an interesting challenge in creating her with Jim Mooney. It would be funny if in time that character outshone his contribution The Punisher! I don’t think he’d mind a bit.
This Marvel Team-Up is important because not only are Claremont/ Byrne giving the title a sense of continuity, they’re tying it to other comics on which they’ve been working, particularly Chris. He stays with Carol on her title until it’s canceled in ‘79. Then he remembers her and works her into the spy side of the X-Men world and then, the cosmic, where she goes Out of this World, as Binary. He really looks out for the character best he can.
So that considered, I bet a lot of people would call the Starlin-directed annual crossover the event of 1977, in a time when publishing events were more rare! You could totally skip it, but if you got hold of both pieces, man- like I said. But I think it means more if you read Warlock #9-15 and Strange Tales #178, 179, 180- and the more appearances of Thanos, the better, if you like them.
You get that deep in, and it should prove worth the wait! (I don’t know what you’ll think of his choices in the end.) But if you don’t have for a zillion comics, reading Avengers Annual #7 and MTIO Annual #2 ought to be perfectly cool reading experiences on their own! They stretch to epic portion.
#61 actually begins in the wreckage wrought at the end of the two-parter, #60, so we've got a nice stretch of issues knit together with no rest for Spider-Man. It's cool we get the resolution of Iron Fist's dangling storyline next, then the American debut of the character Chris wrote at the start for Marvel's UK division, Captain Britain. By 1978 we get that Havok/ Thor story mentioned in my appropriate post July 7th, and then they're too busy making X-Men the cool kid on the stands. There's reams about why Chris is not for everyone, but I honestly treasure his stories by and large. I'm so glad - I assume Archie Goodwin played a role- Marvel Team-Up got this team and consistency. There were a few multi-part stories in the title before, but I guess to my collector's adolescent eye, the pair defined modern comics. There's a lot I didn't know and much that would never be distributed so far as I lived out in the country, but I thought that team did the best rendition of Marvel Team-Up overall and would've liked to see them on Amazing Spider-Man. But, ask Iron Fist, there's only so much time to craft your issue and something has to go, even something as wild and exciting as Power Man and Iron Fist, the title the writer/ artist duo forged from Luke Cage's ongoing series, with #50. The step from Iron Fist #15 to that new series home lies in the pages of Marvel Team-Up #63, 64. Things like this made MTU feel more like a 'real' title and built on previous developments like good Marvel of this period, does.
I loved the depiction of Spider-Man under mysterious attack, spending a while dazed the FF would do this.
The Super Skrull is not revealed until the end of #61. He had last fought Tigra in Marvel Chilers #5, and Tigra is coming up in MTU #67. Lots of MTU co-headliners didn't have their own monthly books. Ms. Marvel was an exception.
How about this new mystery woman?
Sure! We entrust our lives to strangers with unexplained powers all the time, they say! There's actually a nice bit going on where the situation's thrown these allies together with no time to size up anything but Super Skrull. So, no automatic misunderstanding fight, and the premise is totally launched when the story engulfs Carol Danvers.
If you've never read Marvel Team-Up #62, why spoil it for you, go ahead! Speaks for itself.
Have a killer summer!
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