Marvel Team Up

This is the best of all the team up comic books as far as I am concerned. It started in the early 1970's and ,just as Superman's run at a team up book started with him teaming up with the Flash for two issues, this series started by going it one better. In the first three issues Spider-man teamed up with the Human Torch in all three issues. Soon he was teaming up with the entire Marvel Universe.

Like any good team up book the fun was seeing Spider-man team up with others that normally he would not be able to meet. The oddest team up was with the entire cast of Saturday night Live. Peter and Mary Jane had tickets to the show. Backstage John Belushi got a package that contained something that the Silver Samurai wanted. So along with the cast Spider-man tried to keep it away from him and tried to figure out why he wanted it.

The first letter I ever wrote to a comic book was to Marvel Team up telling them how much I liked issue 22 when he teamed up with Hawkeye. Over the years I grew to love this book more then any other book that Marvel published. It seems odd to me that the ones that stick out the most in my mind were the ones that I didn't really like. Perhaps it is because the book was usually so well produced that there were very few bad ones.

The one issue that I was really disappointed with was issue #30. Spidey teamed up with the Falcon but at first glance inside you may never know it. They were both tackling a crime from two different angles and didn't know that the other was also working on it. They didn't really team up till the last two or three pages. They were so surprised to see each other that it gave the crooks an advantage. Still they did save the day.

Another issue that I did like had him team up with Daredevil. They trailed the villians to Coney Island that they were using the abandoned amusement park as their hideout. I remember buying it at Denham's Drug Store in Florence, Ky. I quickly read it in the car and loved it. I was impressed with how Daredevil was able to use his super sense of smell on a simple clod of dirt to determine that it was from Coney Island and that it came from a boot of one of the villains.

I was always puzzled by why they sometimes replaced Spidey as the mainstay of the book with either the Human Torch or Hulk. Actually the Hulk was easy to understand. He now had a hit show on TV and they probably were hoping he would boost sales for his issues. Torch may not be too puzzling in hindsight. He and the Thing were always popular members of the Fantastic Four and since the Thing already had his own series with Marvel Two in One (we'll talk about that tomorrow) they may have been hoping that they could spin him off into a third team up book.

Speaking of the Human Torch team ups look at issue #22 above. Notice anything different? Thor's helmet has no wings! That observation got a letter writer a no-prize. I wish I could say that it was me but it wasn't.

Over the years MTU lost its appeal to me. I am sure that the stories were just as well done as

the others I did read. When I heard the last issue in the run that I loved was going to be issue #150 I had to have it. The X-Men were, as they are now, on a hot streak and they helped the series go out with a bang.