By Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo, Tony Isabella, Len Wein, Herb Trimpe, David Michelinie, Ross Andru, Jim Mooney, Sal Buscema, Greg LaRocque & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1368-7 (TPB)
The concept of team-ups – an established star pairing or battling (usually both) with new or less well-selling company characters – has been with us since the earliest days of comics, but making the temporary alliance a key selling point really took hold with DC’s The Brave and the Bold before being taken up by their biggest competitor.
Marvel Team-Up was the second regular Spider-Man title, launching at the end of 1971. It went from strength to strength, proving the time had finally come for expansion and offering regular venue for uncomplicated action romps in addition to the House of Ideas’ complex sub-plot fare. However, even in the infinite Marvel Multiverse, certain stars shine more brightly than others and some characters turn up in team-ups more often than others…
In recent years, carefully curated themed collections from the back-catalogue have served to initiate new readers intrigued by Marvel’s Movie and TV endeavours, and this engaging trade paperback/eBook compilation gathers a selection of pairings co-starring Golden Avenger Iron Man and the wondrous wallcrawler, taken from Marvel Team-Up #9-11; 48-51; 72, 100 and 145: collectively covering May 1973 – September 1984.
It begins with a time-twisting three-part saga that exposes ‘The Tomorrow War!’ (by Gerry Conway, Ross Andru & Frank Bolle) as Iron Man and Spidey are abducted by Zarkko the Tomorrow Man to battle rival chronal creep Kang the Conqueror. The Human Torch got involved to help deal with the intermediate threat of a literal ‘Time Bomb!’ in #10 (with art by Jim Mooney & Frank Giacoia), before the entire Inhuman race led by king Black Bolt pile in to help the webslinger stop history unravelling in culminatory clash ‘The Doomsday Gambit!’ – this last chapter scripted by Len Wein over Conway’s plot for Mooney & Mike Esposito to illustrate.
The steel shod centurion next appeared in MTU #29 beside the Torch, but his next Spider-Man collaboration didn’t happen until #48 and the beginning of a suspenseful extended saga. ‘Enter: The Wraith!’ (Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema & Esposito) introduces feisty, stylish and fiercely independent Police Captain Jean DeWolff as Spidey and Iron Man struggle to stop a mad bomber using model planes to destroy city landmarks and Stark International properties. As the heroes fruitlessly pursue leads, the enigmatic Wraith turns his attention upon them, proving to be not only connected to Jean but also some kind of psionic metahuman…
With Iron Man again the headline guest-star, issue #49 reveals that ‘Madness is All in the Mind!’ The masked maniac intensifies his irresistible psychic assaults: explosively attacking Manhattan even as the tragic story of Jean’s Police Commissioner dad and murdered cop brother comes out…
However, the connection between them and the unstoppable villain is only exposed after the webslinger and Golden Avenger recruit Master of Mystic Arts Doctor Strange who applies his unique gifts to the problem in #50’s ‘The Mystery of the Wraith!’
The saga concludes with Marvel Team-Up #51 and ‘The Trial of the Wraith!’: a legal drama and character confrontation steered by a most unusual panel of judges whose hidden abilities are not enough to prevent one last assault by the unrepentant renegade…
DeWolff features heavily in the Wraith’s demented revenge plot ‘Crack of the Whip!’ (#72; August 1978 by Mantlo & Mooney) which sees the superheroes battling Maggia stooges and assassin Whiplash whilst MTU #110 (October 1981) pitted Stark-tech and web-shooters against tectonic terror deep under the earth. Herb Trimpe plotted and pencilled breakdowns, with David Micheline scripting and Esposito inking the blistering ‘Magma Force’…
Closing the team tussles, MTU #145 (September 1984, by Tony Isabella, Greg LaRocque & Esposito) delivers ‘Hometown Boy’: coming from the period when Tony Stark first succumbed to alcoholism. He lost everything, and his friend and bodyguard Jim Rhodes took over the role and duties of Golden Avenger. As Stark tried to make good with a new start-up company, this engaging yarn sees the substitute hero still finding his ferrous feet whilst battling oft-failed assassin Blacklash (formerly Whiplash) and at a trade fair in Cleveland, as much hindered as helped by visiting hero Spider-Man who was currently wearing the black symbiote costume that would become the terrifying antihero Venom…
The book’s bonus section begins with original art from Andru, Mooney, Sal Buscema and inkers Bolle, Giacoia & Esposito plus cover-art from earlier collections courtesy of John Romita Sr., John Byrne, Bob Layton, Jeff Aclin & Al Milgrom.
These stories are admittedly of variable quality, but all stem from an honest drive to entertain and most fans will find little to complain about. Although primarily a tome for casual or new readers – who will have a blast – there’s also a ton of nostalgic delights and patented Marvel mayhem to be had by veteran viewers, and surely that’s reason enough to add this titanic tome to your library…
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