{"id":19530,"date":"2019-01-11T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T09:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=19530"},"modified":"2019-01-10T16:52:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T16:52:51","slug":"marvel-team-up-marvel-masterworks-volume-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2019\/01\/11\/marvel-team-up-marvel-masterworks-volume-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvel Team Up Marvel Masterworks volume 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"
\nBy Len Wein<\/strong>, Gerry Conway<\/strong>, Steve Gerber<\/strong>, Gil Kane<\/strong>, Ross Andru<\/strong>, Sal Buscema<\/strong>, Don Heck<\/strong> & various (Marvel)
\nISBN: 978-0-7851-5933-9 (HB)<\/p>\n

Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact, as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was the en masse<\/em> creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.<\/p>\n

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing or battling (often both) with less well-selling company characters – was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of this new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch<\/em>. In those long-lost days, editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline at that time they may well have been right.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Marvel Team-Up<\/strong> was the second full-Spider-Man title (abortive companion title Spectacular Spider-Man<\/strong> was created for the magazine market in 1968 but had died after two issues), launching in March 1972, and becoming a resounding hit.<\/p>\n

This second sturdy compilation (in hardback or digital formats) gathers material from MTU<\/strong> #12-22 plus a crossover with Daredevil <\/strong>(and the Black Widow<\/strong>) #103 spanning August 1973 to June 1974 and opens with a fond, if self-proclaimed foggy, recollection from then Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas in his cheery Introduction<\/em> before we plunge into the many-starred dramas\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Len Wein scripted a Gerry Conway plot for ‘Wolf at Bay!’<\/em> from MTU<\/strong> #12 as the Wall-Crawler meets the Werewolf By Night<\/strong> Jack Russell<\/em> and malevolent mage Moondark<\/em> in foggy San Francisco, as deftly delineated by Ross Andru & Don Perlin, after which we divert to the Man without Fear and the Black Widow’s own title. Here they share the left coast limelight as Daredevil<\/strong> #103 sees them joining with the still California-bound wallcrawler. A merciless cyborg attacks the odd couple while they pose for roving photojournalist Peter Parker<\/em> in ‘\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Then Came Ramrod!’<\/em> – by Steve Gerber, Don Heck & Sal Trapani – and the only response can be battle\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia illustrated ‘The Granite Sky!’<\/em> wherein Wein pits Spider-Man and Captain America<\/strong> against Hydra<\/em> and the<\/em> Grey Gargoyle<\/em> in a simple clash of ideologies after which ‘Mayhem is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the Men-Fish!’ <\/em>(inked by Wayne Howard – and, yes bad grammar, but great action-art!) matches the webslinger with the savage Sub-Mariner<\/strong> against vile villains Tiger Shark<\/em> and Doctor Dorcas<\/em> as well as an army (navy?) of mutant sea-beasts.<\/p>\n

Wein, Andru & Perlin created The Orb<\/em> to bedevil Spidey and the Ghost Rider<\/strong> in ‘If an Eye Offend Thee!’<\/em> in #15 after which Kane & Jim Mooney illustrated ‘Beware the Basilisk my Son!’<\/em>: a gripping romp featuring (the original Kree) Captain Marvel<\/strong>, which concludes in ‘Chaos at the Earth’s Core!’<\/em> (inked by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153everybody\u00e2\u20ac\u009d!), as Mister Fantastic<\/strong> joins the fracas to stop the Mole Man<\/em> from inadvertently blowing up the world.<\/p>\n

Human Torch Johnny Storm<\/em> teams with the Hulk<\/strong> in MTU<\/strong> #18 to stop antimatter malcontent Blastaar <\/em>in ‘Where Bursts the Bomb!’<\/em> (inked by Giacoia & Esposito), but Spidey blazes back a month later with Ka-Zar<\/em> in situ to witness ‘The Coming of\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Stegron, the Dinosaur Man!’<\/em> (Wein, Kane & Giacoia) whose plans to flatten New York by releasing ‘Dinosaurs on Broadway!’<\/em> is foiled with the Black Panther<\/strong>‘s help – as well as the artistic skills of Sal Buscema, Giacoia & Esposito.<\/p>\n

Dave Hunt replaced Esposito and aide Giacoia inking ‘The Spider and the Sorcerer!’<\/em> in #21 as Spidey and Doctor Strange<\/strong> once more battle Xandu<\/em>, a wily wizard first seen in Spider-Man Annual<\/strong> #2, before ‘The Messiah Machine!’<\/em> brings the story glories to a conclusion by depicting Hawkeye<\/strong> and the Amazing Arachnid frustrating deranged computer Quasimodo<\/em>‘s ambitious if absurd mechanoid invasion.<\/p>\n

Adding extra lustre before we close, there’s a brace of original art pages from Andru & Perlin and Kane and Mooney to drool over, too\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

These stories are of variable quality but nonetheless all have an honest drive to entertain and please, whilst artistically the work – particularly action-man-on-fire Gil Kane – is superb, and most fans of the genre would find little to complain about. Although not really a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers there’s lots of fun on hand and young readers will have a blast, so there’s no real reason not to add this tome to your library\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6
\n\u00c2\u00a9 1973, 1974, 2018 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Steve Gerber, Gil Kane, Ross Andru, Sal Buscema, Don Heck & various (Marvel) ISBN: 978-0-7851-5933-9 (HB) Inspiration isn’t everything. In fact, as Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in the wake of the losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by experimentation … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Marvel Team Up Marvel Masterworks volume 2”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[72,79,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marvel-masters-masterworks","category-marvel-superheroes","category-spider-man"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-550","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}