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 ti...

OK, Best Spider-Man Team-Ups of the Years brings you a quartet of comics this time out, so Face Front! First, the two-parter that won the spotlight: 1978’s Best, with the grand prize, Spider-Man with Mighty Thor versus The Living Monolith in Marvel Team Up #70! What epic spectacle, the great in power shaking the city while our point-of-view character, Spidey, at one point hitches a ride on Thor’s hammer, Mjonir! That scene’s homaged on the very cover of Marvel Team-Up #148, where I first caught that tactic with my young eyes. So, Marvel Team Up #68 set up the return of Havok, the X-Man whose origins share the source of power with the villain of our piece, the archeologist who also shares mutant solar-absorbing abilities. But should Havok fall…! Let’s say, Thor is just about the only cavalry who’d have a chance. The 1972 first pairing of the god and the graduate, Marvel Team-Up #7, was my choice of winner in that year! Here, it’s my 2nd favorite Spider-Man/ Thor story. ...

Captain America is such a wonderful touchstone to cultural values, history, and an enduring sense of decency fostered in a time we try to preserve in us. I knew I had to participate in my country’s culture today by discussing someone whose courage transcends politics. He’s just the sort of fellow we need to make real from our own hearts and determination. From soldier to teacher to playground child to handicapped shut-in, to believe in Cap gives an intangible form to what we admire in ourselves in the face of adversity. Yes, in his stories, he’s a hero who finds a way to win. Along the way, he finds a way to never quit! In my selection for Spider-Man’s most awesome team-up of 1981, I went with the spirit of Marvel Comics Group at that time. Frank Miller was completing the new, rather basic crime noir Daredevil; John Byrne began a back-to-basics approach with Fantastic Four. I might’ve cocked an eye at first, how Cap spouts historic object lessons throughout. But isn’t this a ...