Essential X-Men volume 7

Essential X-Men volume 7 comprises Uncanny X-Men #214 to #228, Annuals #10 to #11 and the limited series Fantastic Four Vs the X-Men. Bonus material includes an article from Marvel Age about the "Fall of the Mutants" and a special promotional card for a competition linked to the crossover. Everything is written by Chris Claremont with the regular series drawn mostly by Marc Silvestri with individual issues by Barry Windsor-Smith, Alan Davis, Jackson Guice, Bret Blevins, Kerry Gammill and Rick Leonardi. The annuals are drawn by Arthur Adams and Alan Davis and the limited series by Jon Bogdanove.

This volume covers a somewhat odd period in the X-Men's history as they try to cope with the fallout from the "Mutant Massacre" and really stumble around more than anything else until the next big event, "Fall of the Mutants" (a pun that doesn't translate well). The lack of direction is extenuated by some vague questioning as to what the overall purpose of the team is, but it doesn't really get very far. Significantly, this is the first volume to be completely devoid of any of the original team, leaving the long-term continuity in the hands of Havok and, to a surprising but small degree, Magneto. But the Master of Magnetism makes rather fewer appearances in the regular issues than one would expect. Instead his main contribution comes in the limited series.

The "Vs" limited series was a curious phenomenon in the 1980s whereby characters from two titles would meet for a special story but one told in its own release rather than as a crossover between the two regular titles. It has the advantage of allowing a single writer and artist to handle the project (at least under normal circumstances) but it can also wind up dancing on the periphery of the regular series, trying to adapt to ongoing developments whilst also telling its own story. From the perspective of this volume Fantastic Four Vs the X-Men is fortunate in this regard as it is written by the regular Uncanny X-Men writer and comes at a time when not too much is happening in the main title. However it has to leap through some hoops in order to include She-Hulk amongst the Fantastic Four's line-up, a point commented on in-story. The series seeks to justify its place by resolving the worst of Shadowcat's injuries that have left her trapped in her intangible form and slowly dissipating, but does so amidst a struggle of mind games between Doctor Doom and Reed Richards. This limited series is actually quite a good Fantastic Four tale that delves into one of the biggest question marks surrounding the four's origin and looks at Reed Richards's approach to those around him and Doctor Doom's ultimate goal in their struggle. But amidst all this the X-Men are something of a bolt on to provide recurring conflict. Any group and problem could have served their purpose in the story and it wouldn't have made much difference. Even Shadowcat's recovery is not immediate and as she doesn't return to active duty with the team before the end of the volume it doesn't have much of an impact on the story. The one notable feature is the continuing rehabilitation of Magneto, with the Fantastic Four slowly coming to accept him, but in the battles which break out too easily his magnetic powers prove more dangerous than helpful when he accidentally nearly costs Kitty her last hope. Overall this is good Fantastic Four, and in the very long run a good audition piece for Claremont eventually taking up the main series in the late 1990s, but rather forgettable and inessential X-Men.

The two annuals both feel somewhat superfluous to the main narrative beyond the first one introducing Longshot, previously seen in his own limited series, to the regular series. But it does so in a very awkward way by giving him amnesia and then comes with some awkward continuity as the presence of Shadowcat, Nightcrawler and Colossus implies it takes place before the "Mutant Massacre" in the previous volume yet this doesn't explain why Longshot is then absent for several issues of the regular series and both his amnesia and ongoing culture shock goes against the idea that he has been exploring the world around him. Otherwise the annual sees the X-Men's first encounter with Mono and the wackiness of the "Mojoverse" but it's never been a very good fit with the more gritty style of the X-Men's adventures and just feels like silliness for the sake of it. Amidst this comes a piece of role reversal as the New Mutants temporarily step up to the role of being the senior team, complete with individualised costumes intended for when they graduate. Meanwhile the X-Men are reduced in age in one of the examples of babyfication that was all the rage following the Muppet Babies, becoming cute toddler versions of themselves. Were it not for Longshot and later appearances by Mojo, this annual could be so easily forgotten. The other annual is also trying to incorporate elements from other series into the mainstream Marvel universe with guest appearances by Captain Britain and his girlfriend Meggan, even though neither is essential for the story told. In it the X-Men and guests are captured by Horde, a never before seen alien, and taken to a strange citadel to secure a crystal of incredible power, in one of the most generic plots going. Whilst making their way through the citadel the group gets picked off one by one and offered their hearts' desires by the citadel itself. It's a minor character study that doesn't leave much of an impact beyond the scene where Wolverine is killed by Horde but his whole body regrows itself from a single drop of blood, aided by the power of the crystal. The whole group gets returned home to exactly when they left with memories fading, making the whole thing no more significant than an obscure dream.

Over in the regular issues the team continues to develop. Injuries meant that both Shadowcat and Nightcrawler are off the active roster and stay that way when big changes come though Colossus has returned to the team just in time. He's not quite the same Peter of old as his injuries have left his armoured form as the default norm with a great deal of effort required to turn to his human self. Also rejoining the team is Havok, who finds himself in the curious position of being the earliest member of the X-Men yet is treated by the others as an untested member. Returning to the team after Polaris is possessed by Malice and joins the Marauders, Havok finds himself in the horrific situation of having to either let her go to harm others or else stop her permanently - and winds up releasing a plasma blast though Malice/Polaris manages to block it and escape. Alex is somewhat taken aback by what the X-Men have become, particularly their alliance with Magneto, but doesn't really have the long-term history with the team that allows him to perform the role of keeper of the original aims. Nevertheless he stays around, particularly to help protect his sister-in-law Madelyne Pryor who has had her husband walk out on her, all records of her past erased and who is now being hunted by the Marauders. There are signs of an attraction between them but they're not developed just yet.

The other new addition to the team is also driven to them by the actions of Malice. Since the end of her own series Dazzler has been trying to rebuild her career, starting out as a backing artiste but both her own ambitions and the interference by Malice soon put paid to this. Alison soon accepts the protection of the X-Men and undergoes training to refine and enhance her light powers, putting especial emphasis on being able to use them as a laser, but there's an ongoing tension between her role as an X-Men and her ambitions to be a singing star, making for an especially tense confrontation with one fan, none other than the Juggernaut. Also causing tensions is the presence of her old enemy Rogue, with Alison making it clear she hasn't forgiven the past enmity until another battle with the Marauders where she risks her all to save Rogue from drowning. At this stage Dazzler is still the only member of the team to have had her own series and as well as her past battles with Rogue the series is also echoed by the return of O.Z. and Cerberus in a tale about a mutant drug dealer.

The old ways also come up in another fashion when Storm is kidnapped by the Crimson Commando, Stonewall and Super Sabre, a trio of old heroes fighting against the values of the modern world. They take Storm and another girl and release them to be hunted in the wilderness. Later on they're captured and agree to join Freedom Force, which continues to skate the line between a government sanctioned team of mutants and a group with its own agenda. The hunt also puts both Storm and Wolverine to the test as the former faces up to the fact she may well need to adopt her comrade's ethics of kill or be killed whilst the latter struggles to retain his humanity as he faces confusion all around him. The threat level is also raised by the introduction of the Marauders' master, Mr Sinister, but for now he remains a dark force on the edge of things.

A lengthy storyline sees Storm searching for Forge in the hope that he can restore her powers, helped by Forge's shaman mentor Naze. In the process she also finds it in herself to forgive him but also discovers the presence of a demon known as "the Adversary". Meanwhile Destiny of Freedom Force has a vision of the X-Men all dying in the near future. The storylines merge and climax in the "Fall of the Mutants" issues, #225 to #227. This was an unusual crossover between the three mutant titles as they shared a theme of big status quo changing events, rather than a single storyline running across them all. The X-Men find themselves first battling Freedom Force and then facing the end of the world due to the magic of the Adversary and the past mistakes of Forge. In full view of a camera broadcasting to the world, the X-Men set out to risk their all to build a better world. It's a dark moment for them but a great one for mutantkind, setting up a new position for the future. However we don't get to see that in this volume as the last issue has all the feel of a standby fill-in being pressed into service, hastily turned into a flashback.

Overall this volume isn't a particularly great period for the X-Men. It's a time of stumbling more than anything else, with no great sense of purpose or direction. The newer members of the team help to keep the cast fresh but rarely bring any particularly exciting story elements with them. Overall this volume shows the team going from one big event to the next with not too much of note happening in between.

Essential Defenders volume 6

Essential Defenders volume 6 is made up of issues #107 to #125 plus Avengers Annual #11 and Marvel Team-Up #119. Nearly everything is written by J.M. DeMatteis with some assistance by Mark Gruenwald and Don Perlin and one issue by Steven Grant. Perlin draws all but one of the regular issues; the exception is drawn by Sal Buscema. The Avengers annual is drawn by Al Milgrom and the Marvel Team-Up issue is drawn by Kerry Gammill.

The main themes in this volume is of resolving outstanding matters from the past and tidying up loose ends and inefficiencies. Over the course of these issues we get a number of solo tales of the various heroes that see them exploring past connections and resolving ongoing troubles to the point that they become much more complete individuals who are able to move forwards. At the same time there are a number of returns of old foes, with attempts to give some of them clear conclusions. This even spills out beyond the regular series.

The Avengers annual comes from a period in the early 1980s when a number of Marvel annuals often forget just which title they were for. This works in this volume's favour as it feels more of a Defenders story than an Avengers one, though in its implicit sequel to the Avengers-Defenders war it can just about claim a place in either's title. But it focuses on the Defenders' old foe Nebulon who has been exiled to Earth and seeks help from the Avengers whilst another of species, the lady Supernalia, recruits the Defenders into battling them. It's a strong story but its placement feels odd as it serves as part of a wider wrapping up of various long-term themes for the series. Also reproduced from the annual is the Avengers Membership Manual, containing the organisation's charter and by-laws. It's a surprise to find it included here but it helps to show just how different the Defenders are from more conventional superhero teams. The theme of old foes returning for seemingly one last attempt comes up again in the regular series when Yandroth returns briefly, having taken over a woman's body to seek revenge by setting the Defenders against one another.

Big revelations come as Hellcat searches for her father and also the truth about Satan's claims. She settles the question of her paternity by fighting off her darker self and showing she is not a true daughter of hell. This is also, I think, the first time the various characters representing the Devil/Satan are addressed with Satan explaining they are all different manifestations. Patsy then finds her real father and reconciles with him, discovering that she also has a step-mother and step-siblings. It's a key step towards bringing her and Daimon fully together for the climax at the end of the volume.

Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan is himself undergoing a further voyage of discovery as he learns that a demon has impersonated him to take his place teaching at a university and marrying an old sweetheart, depressing the real Daimon further as he realises even the demon has a happier life. He then turns to a monastery but finds one of the fellow monks is an amnesiac Miracle Man who soon regains his memory and steals the power of Daimon's Darksoul, leading to a final showdown between the two which the other Defenders arrive in time for. With both their problems resolved, Patsy and agree to get married and leave the group to pursue their own aims, with the wedding right at the end of the volume. In typical superhero wedding style the ceremony gets interrupted, this time by Mad Dog, aka Patsy's former husband Buzz Baxter, and the Mutant Force members Burner, Lifter, Slither and Paralyzer.

Devil-Slayer also gets a strong solo tale as he faces up to his guilt from his past and travels across the world via his shadow cloak, slowly making peace with his ghosts before reconciling with his wife and then surrendering to the police for his past crimes. A more literal completeness comes with the Valkyrie, who in the opening issues is killed. But after her funeral the Defenders learn that her soul has survived inside her sword and this leads to a quest to recover her original body in which they have to battle with the Enchantress. There are some wacky moments along the way but they have a serious side such as when half the Defenders find themselves in a bizarre world of tranquillity brought by the Rose of Purity and Hellcat has to struggle with her conscience as she decides whether or not to cut down the Rose for the Enchantress or else lose the chance to save her dearest friend forever. Once restored Valkyrie is different from before, exercising her full memories and speaking in a more traditional style used by many of the Asgardians. She seems much more brutal and ever more an Asgardian warrior than before, a change that horrifies Hellcat but the two soon rediscover their close friendship.

A trip to the Squadron Supreme's world brings up the possibility that Nighthawk has in fact survived but it turns out to be his alter-dimensional counterpart. On that world the Defenders and the Squadron battle Null the Living Darkness and his agents, including the composite entity the Over-Mind who combines the minds of six individuals from the regular universe including Nighthawk's old girlfriend Mindy. The oversized Over-Mind comes to the regular Earth when the Defenders return and becomes the group's newest member but he never really gels as part of the group and just fades away to the point that he is noticeably absent at the end when most of the other current non-founder members agree to the formation of the more organised New Defenders. His most notable story comes as he tries to come to resume the lives of his various component selves but finds they are generally considered dead and he must move on in life.

Over than the Over-Mind there aren't many new Defenders in this volume until the run-up to the final storyline. The Scarlet Witch and the Vision make multiple appearances in this volume but always decline to join the team, much to the Beast's disappointment. The one other character who can be said to have become a Defender in the early pages is none other than Spider-Man, with the cover box on issue #109 including his head and thus cementing his claim. Spider-Man attends the Valkyrie's funeral and stays around afterwards to join the quest for her body, but he doesn't really add anything to distinctive to the group. After this adventure is over he heads off with the Gargoyle in toe and never returns to the title, though the Gargoyle soon does. Also included in this volume is another issue of Marvel Team-Up which shows what Spidey and the Gargoyle get up to, at first working together but then separately dealing with the problems of long life and facing up to mortality. It's not the most essential of inclusions, as it doesn't contain anything especially important for the regular issues in this volume, but it's a nice little character piece that fits in with the overall theme of time marching on. The remaining new members come towards the end.

The big storyline at the end of the volume seeks to resolve matters from right across the whole history of the Defenders. Doctor Strange, Namor the Sub-Mariner, the Hulk and the Silver Surfer are all kidnapped from their current place in time and space and brought before the Tribunal, a group that exists outside of time and seeks to cure problems in the time stream. Meanwhile back at home the other Defenders have to face off against agents of the Secret Empire, including Cloud, Harridan and Seraph. The four original Defenders are shown a horrific vision of the future destruction of Earth due to their own combined actions. It becomes imperative that they prevent this and they agree to cease working as a team, a rather odd and drastic solution to a problem instead of working together to seek it out and resolve it. They return home just in time for Patsy and Daimon's wedding and to see the Beast's proposal for the future of the Defenders.

One of the surprises of the storyline, built up over many issues, is the return of the Elf with a Gun, the curious character who appeared at random and shot a passer-by in interludes completely detached from the main story in many issues during Steve Gerber's run on the title before being run over by a lorry under a new writer without ever really being tied in to the wider story. The Elf with a Gun was clearly a symbol of the wackiness of the Defenders' adventures and a reminder that not everything in life comes with an explanation. But now we find out that the appearances were by multiple Elves who are agents of the Tribunal undertaking actions to heal the timelines through transporting individuals away before they cause significant damage. It just feels like a complete misunderstanding of the original concept. The Elf with a Gun had not been seen for many years and even if there had been a wider purpose enough time had elapsed that this element did not need revisiting. It just feels like a gratuitous attempt to tidy up as many threads as possible in finishing off the story of the original Defenders.

Throughout the volume there's an ongoing tension between the traditional "non-team" ethos of the Defenders and the Beast's desire for the group to be a more efficient and organised team. Over successive issues he becomes increasingly convinced that much more could be achieved with a more organised structure that can have clear leadership and hold people together. At the same time there's a small influx of characters he's worked with on teams before, starting with Iceman and then the Angel, whilst Valkyrie is given a mission by Odin to watch over Moondragon who has had her telepathic powers restrained by a special headband. At first it seems as though they are all just old acquaintances passing through but after working together to defeat the attack against Patsy and Daimon's wedding they agree to the Beast's proposal to come together as a fully organised team, with the original members arriving in time to announce their split and give their blessing to the New Defenders. And so the torch is passed from the old to the new.

This is thus the final volume of the traditional Defenders and it has been aware of that for some time. The overarching themes of resolution and completion generally work well in bringing individual characters' stories to a conclusion before they step away. However it completely missteps when it comes to the Elf with a Gun, failing to realise that the lack of an explanation was part of the whole point of the character. It also rather stumbles into getting the original team members to disband and leave by decree, rather than making it a more natural development, perhaps as the conclusion to a conflict with the Beast over just how the Defenders should function. This makes for a rather weaker ending for the original Defenders than would have been desirable and an inauspicious start for the New Defenders.

Essential Doctor Strange volume 4 - creator labels

Yet again we have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for some of them.

Essential Power Man and Iron Fist volume 2 - creator labels

We have yet another volume with lots of creators so here's a separate post to carry the labels for them.

Essential Power Man and Iron Fist volume 1

Essential Power Man and Iron Fist volume 1 contains issues #50 to 72 & 74 to 75, comprising the first third of the merged series. Issue #73 is absent, due to it featuring a guest appearance by Rom whom Marvel no longer holds the rights for. Bonus material consists of a couple of in-house adverts for the series but it's clear from the advertised prices that these come from later on. The writing sees the end of Chris Claremont's run on the characters, a brief stint by Ed Hannigan and then an extended run by Mary Jo Duffy with the odd plot contribution by Bob Layton or Steven Grant. The art takes a while to settle down with a brief run by Trevor Von Eeden before an extended one by Kerry Gammil; other issues are drawn by a mixture of John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Mike Zeck, Lee Elias, Marie Severin and Alan Weiss.

The idea of merging one weak selling title into another series has been common place throughout the history of publications, not just comics. However, often "absorption" would be a better term because one title would make little contribution beyond a small addition to the cover logo and maybe the odd feature that wouldn't last long. But occasionally the fusion would be on equal terms, with both halves at the forefront throughout the rest of the series's life. Power Man and Iron Fist was one such series.

Taking a streetwise product of the blaxploitation genre and pairing him with the rich but other worldly product of the martial arts craze was not the most obvious of moves. Indeed I'm not certain who came up with it, though as the merger coincided with a run on Power Man by the Iron Fist creative team of Chris Claremont and John Byrne there's an obvious place to start looking. But whoever had the idea, there was little to lose as both characters were slumping in sales as their respective crazes were dying and the alternative was most likely cancellation. Instead an odd couple teaming up permanently was tried. It wasn't without precedent at Marvel - there were some similar themes and half of the locations in the teaming of Captain America and the Falcon, whilst Iron Fist's solo title had already teamed up a practitioner of oriental fighting methods with a streetwise black in the form of Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, the Daughters of the Dragon. But it was still an awkward pairing. What makes it credible is that it takes a number of issues before the two are in permanent partnership and even then the differences between them are brought up from time to time. But wisely the series isn't played for laughs even though odd couples from very different backgrounds with all the problems and conflicts that arise from them are staple fare for sitcoms. We get the odd lighter moment, such as Power Man having to crash at Iron Fist's place whilst his own home is rebuilt, only to find his partner's place just makes him uncomfortable. Or when we see how Iron Fist's upbringing as first a pampered rich child and then a member of a hidden civilisation have left him lacking some basic knowledge about and skills for life such as the value of money or how to control a vehicle. But these are individual aside moments and instead the focus is invariably serious. Indeed this is a book that doesn't shy away from pain, with some especially brutal maimings and deaths shown with all their consequences. The Heroes for Hire have noble motives but they inhabit an increasingly gritty world.

The early issues in the volume are surprising in that it takes a while, and several writers, before a permanent partnership is established between the two. I'm informed that the legally registered name of the series did not switch from Power Man to Power Man and Iron Fist until issue #56 (although the legal info on the inside front cover of this collected edition draws no such distinction; either I'm misinformed or whoever prepared the Essential's information made a mistake), which almost matches the fictional solidification of the partnership. Were Marvel's editors nervous about the combination even after the launch and so hedged their bets so that they could quickly return to a solo Power Man series if needs be? That's more plausible than it being a deliberately planned story arc running over seven bimonthly issues and a variety of creative teams. But once Mary Jo Duffy arrives the series quickly finds a firm footing for the rest of the volume, cementing the series as her defining title.

If there's one particularly awkward aspect to the series, it's the whole "Heroes for Hire" concept. It made sense for Power Man on his own to be working as a mercenary as he was a man of limited means and whose criminal status meant it was impossible for him to find a sufficient paying day job that would supply the funds needed to be a hero - in particular to keep up a constant supply of shirts. But Iron Fist is independently wealthy and the co-owner of a business even if he hands over the day to day running to his co-owner Joy Meachum once they've resolved some personal matters. He has so much money he never wants for anything and indeed at times just doesn't know the meaning of it. So why does he need to earn money through super heroics, a vocation traditionally provided for free, and where the jobs can wind up as being little more than glorified security guards? It's an aspect to the series not really cleared up - perhaps this is why Power Man is initially placed working instead for Colleen and Misty's agency, Nightwing Restorations - but as the series progresses there's a steady diminution of focus on big corporate hiring, although as Power Man maintains his old office above the cinema there is still an outreach to the ordinary person on the street. They also make a point of going off duty at 5pm each day to maintain their principles.

The series maintains many elements from both characters' solo titles, starting with the supporting casts. Because Power Man maintains his office above the cinema, we still get to see D.W. Griffith and Toby, and even the occasional appearance by the notorious soft drinks machine or its replacement. Iron Fist is still seeing Misty Knight and in turn her partner Colleen Wing is also around a lot. Misty was a police officer before losing her arm to a bomb and the impact of having a cybernetic arm is explored several times, including when she chillingly relives the moment. Her former police partner Rafael Scarfe is the series's most regular cop, and he often works in conjunction with Assistant District Attorney Bill Hao under DA Blake Tower. Elsewhere Iron Fist often works out with Bob Diamond, formerly of the Sons of the Tiger. He and Colleen eventually become an item but they seem to rapidly going from tensions hiding attraction to dating that I wonder if the missing issue #73 has a key scene that resolves this. Colleen also gets a memorable reunion with her father as he recovers his memory. Meanwhile the Heroes for Hire business is managed by lawyer Jeryn Hogarth, creating tensions over some of the contracts he accepts, with the office itself managed by executive secretary Jennie Royce. The most notable character to disappear is Power Man's girlfriend Dr Claire Temple who has been kidnapped one time too many and decides that she can no longer handle Luke Cage's life and he cannot give it up so they go their separate ways. Luke subsequently settles with fashion model Harmony Young. Also dropping away is Dr Noah Burstein who no longer has to give Luke support but he returns when his honeymoon is interrupted by an old foe. Then there's the return of Power Man's lawyer Big Ben Donovan, but now trying to steal drugs for himself. Another Power Man ally to reappear is Thunderbolt, only to die from accelerated growth. Also dying is Tony, the projectionist at the cinema. This is a much darker world than that inhabited by the average Marvel series from this time.

The enemies are drawn from a mix of each characters' solo titles, other Marvel universe books and some new creations. Old Power Man foes who reappear include Stiletto and Discus, plus some new incarnations of foes such as Senor Suerte. Coming from Iron Fist's side are Princess Azir, caught up in intrigues related to her home country of Halwan, Sabretooth, now allied with the Constrictor from the Incredible Hulk and many other titles, the Golden Tigers under the leadership of a new Chaka, and then a variety of longstanding foes in the return to K'un-Lun storyline. And the two jointly contribute Bushmaster, who seeks a cure for his condition only to turn to metal and crumble away in a chilling sequence. Meanwhile from other titles we see Boss Morgan, Nightshade, the mobster Bull, all from Captain America and the Falcon or the earlier Tales of Suspense stories, the Living Monolith from the pages of X-Men, complete with much of the team as well, or Maggia boss Caesar Cicero and his henchman Man Mountain Marko, both from Amazing Spider-Man. New foes include the Incinerator, a bank robber in a flame suit, Senor Suerte, the vengeance seeking younger brother of Power Man's old foe, El Aguila, a vigilante who later allies with the Heroes for Hire, Colonel Eschat, a mercenary wiping out his old colleagues, Supremo, a would be military dictator of a Latin American country who actually hires the heroes to locate the existing regime's money supply via the drugs trade, and Montenegro, a mountain climbing crime boss pursuing a piece of technology hidden on a coin.

The final couple of issues feature probably the most obvious Iron Fist storyline not yet done - a return to the lost civilisation of K'un-Lun with a number of old foes returning. Rather than waiting ten years in real time, he and Power Man get there when transported in battle with the wizard Master Khan, who is also the deity of K'un-Lun. In the mystical city Iron Fist discovers and relearns a number of key points about his life and family, clarifying for certainty that his father was originally from outside the city but found his way there, and that Miranda was his half-sister. In conflict with variously the plant race the H'ylthri, the mysterious Ninja, Iron Fist's uncle Nu-An and Master Khan, Iron Fist proves himself worthy of his legacy, and Power Man as a worthy ally. But it also leads to Iron Fist standing up to all the strange customs and practices of K'un-Lun and taking the opportunity to return to the outside world. It's a journey of self-discovery that reinforces the character and the partnership, boding well for the future.

On paper this is a series that shouldn't work. Taking two heroes who had been created to jump on the bandwagon of passing fads and sticking them together should have resulted in a mess that either got demerged or cancelled within a handful of issues. But instead something happens to make it work. The two characters with their very different resources and background prove to be a highly effective odd couple, with the partnership being one of true equals and both heroes getting their fair share of focus. The differences between the two make for some fun asides and occasional disagreements but don't prove insurmountable and so the pairing is fully dynamic, helped by a gradual build-up before the two formalise their partnership. Add in a strong supporting cast that makes use of the best of both books and the series is rapidly firing on all pistons. But what's also a surprise is just how gritty and dark the series is, with some quite brutal deaths and dark psychological moments. It is a much more gritty and down to earth series than many of its contemporaries and a surprisingly strong read even today.

A few Essential previews

In the interests of completism, there are a few issues of the various Spider-Man titles that haven’t yet been reached in their own title’s Essential volumes but have been reprinted in other Essentials. A quick run through them, with all the headline stars of Marvel Team-Up listed:

First, there’s the handful of issues included in various other Spider volumes that we’ve already covered:

• Marvel Team-Up #97 (Hulk and Spider-Woman) – Essential Spider-Woman volume 2
• Amazing Spider-Man #268 – Essential Web of Spider-Man volume 1
• Amazing Spider-Man #293 – Essential Web of Spider-Man volume 2
• Spectacular Spider-Man #132 – Essential Web of Spider-Man volume 2
• Amazing Spider-Man #294 – Essential Web of Spider-Man volume 2
• Spectacular Spider-Man #131 – Essential Web of Spider-Man volume 2

What this list shows above all else is that Essential Web is somewhat ahead of the other titles and running into the era when crossovers between the Spider-Man titles were common. It probably should be paused until the others can catch up.

However there are also seven other issues that have been reprinted in other Essential volumes but not the series’ own and we turn now to them:

Marvel Team-Up #80, featuring Spider-Man and Dr. Strange and Clea, & #81, featuring Spider-Man and Satana, by Chris Claremont and Mike Vosburg, reprinted in Essential Marvel Horror volume 1

This two-part story sees Dr. Strange turned into a werewolf to capture his soul as a result of a previous adventure, and it takes Spider-Man, Clea and Satana (the devil’s daughter) to free him. As might be expected this is full of the magic and weirdness associated with Dr. Strange, but Spider-Man gets drawn in for personal reasons when Peter and Cissy Ironwood are attacked by the werewolf in Central Park, hospitalising Cissy, and then he finds himself compelled to stay to restrain Dr. Strange’s physical form whilst Satana performs her magic. At the end Satana dies, giving her life to save Dr. Strange and Spider-Man and resolving the conflict between her human and demonic sides. With four billed characters and a few supporting cast members this is quite a packed story but ultimately it feels like the resolution to Satana’s story more than anything else, presumably due to previous titles featuring her being cancelled. She’s not a character I’m familiar with so I don’t know if she’s been brought back to life since. As a general Team-Up story this isn’t bad, but it isn’t worth getting Essential Marvel Horror just for the sake of this one.

The story is also this blog’s first encounter with Cissy Ironwood, bar a one page feature in Amazing annual #16, and in fact is her first actual appearance following a mention in Team-Up #79. (Her surname is spelt “Ironwode” here but “Ironwood” in other appearances.) Cissy is by far the most obscure of all of Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s girlfriends as she only appeared in the pages of Team-Up and was hardly ever mentioned in the other titles. There’s not much to learn about her from her brief appearance in these two issues bar that her name is short for Priscilla and from the conversation at the start it appears to be an early date. However note that the story came out the same months as Amazing #191-192 and thus in the middle of Peter and Betty Brant’s affair. With Mary Jane having also remained on the scene somewhat for some months after rejecting Peter’s proposal we either have our hero playing the field all at once or poor communication between the various Spider-writers (or a lot of head scratching for fans to work out a chronological order that reduces the number of women at any one time).

Marvel Team-Up #101, featuring Spider-Man and Nighthawk, by J.M. DeMatteis and Jerry Bingham, and a solo Nighthawk back-up feature by Mike W. Barr and Steve Ditko, reprinted in Essential Defenders volume 5

I’ll take the back-up feature first. At just five pages it feels like emergency padding. Regular Marvel comics increased from seventeen pages of story to twenty-two in this period, but I’m not sure if this is the first issue affected or not. The story is a simple tale of Nighthawk overcoming doubts about himself as he saves a crippled girl from a collapsing wall, and nothing really to remember. However the art is by Steve Ditko, who had recently returned to Marvel but refused to draw his most famous creations, instead working on more obscure heroes and features. Sadly this and other back-up features in various Spider-Man annuals are about the nearest to a second Ditko run the character and series will ever see.

The lead story is focused on Nighthawk facing his past as he gets attacked by a robot resembling his university girlfriend who died in a drunken car crash and then lured to a reunion at the old university. Spider-Man gets caught up in events at the former and then tags along because he recognises Nighthawk’s guilt over his actions. Once at the university it transpires the girl survived but Nighthawk’s family paid her off and suppressed that fact, and she’s seeking revenge. Spider-Man saves the day when he appeals to her true feelings for Nighthawk, buried by anger and bitterness, and both start to bury her past. Once again Spider-Man is given a slight reason for intruding into a rather personal affair, but his saving the day justifies his presence.

Marvel Team-Up #111, featuring Spider-Man and Devil-Slayer, by J.M. DeMatteis and Herb Trimpe, reprinted in Essential Defenders volume 5

Spider-Man gets caught up in a plot by the Cult of the Serpent Men, one of the ancient races that inhabited Earth, to recover their race from the realm of limbo. With the rest of the Defenders captured, Devil-Slayer recruits Spider-Man to first recover an artefact from the temple of the Spider-People, the remains of another ancient race, and then to use it to defeat the Serpent Race and free the other Defenders. However it’s all a set-up to trick Spider-Man, the only human that the temple’s magic recognises as similar to the Spider-People, into obtaining the artefact for the Serpent Men. Spidey sees through the deception, frees the real Defenders and destroys the artefact, with the remaining Serpent Men banished to Limbo. At the end Dr. Strange discovers Spider-Man was bitten by one of the Serpent Men, with grave consequences... (which aren’t followed up in Essential Defenders). This is a somewhat convoluted story with deceptions all over, and it’s a pity Spider-Man didn’t get a chance to team up with the real Devil-Slayer, another obscure Defenders member. It’s hard to tell if the impersonation was accurate and the character really is a hard edged jerk, or if that was just the impostor. Otherwise this is a confused run around that throws Spidey into some grand mythology of the Marvel Universe but doesn’t take the opportunity to expand on his role in it, such as exploring just how far he resembles the Spider-People and how their survivors regard him.

Marvel Team-Up #116, featuring Spider-Man and Valkyrie, by J.M. DeMatteis and Herb Trimpe, reprinted in Essential Defenders volume 5

This is the follow-up to the previous issue (not reprinted in Essential Defenders) where two rival aliens fought over a weapon that ultimately destroyed them both, with Spider-Man and Thor mixed up. Now the two aliens’ spirits have fused into one and want revenge, so the entity possesses Valkyrie’s sword and in turn the Valkyrie herself, then seeks out Spider-Man to attack him. At the end Thor shows up and, amidst pondering the recent revelation that he and Valkyrie were once lovers but then had their memories wiped by Odin, he helps destroy the sword and banish the entity into a space warp. Once again it’s an unusual team-up because of Valkyrie’s possession and none of the protagonists really knowing just what’s going on.

There’s a nice scene where Spider-Man comments on these situations:

*Sheesh* If I had a dime for every time somebody has tricked another super-type into trying to clobber me – I’d be one rich web-slinger!
But these kinda phony set-ups always end the same way!
We stop beating each other over the head long enough to compare notes, and then we track down the goon responsible for the dirty works!

It’s good to see him occasionally acknowledge the formulaic nature of many stories.

Marvel Team-Up #119, featuring Spider-Man and Gargoyle, by J.M. DeMatteis and Kerry Gammill, reprinted in Essential Defenders volume 6

This isn’t really a team-up so much as a comparison between heroes. Following Spider-Man’s recent appearance in Defenders, he and the Gargoyle head to New York where they prevent a gang mugging an old woman. The heroes then go their separate ways, with the Gargoyle befriending the woman and helping her and her daughter come to terms with her life and impending death. Meanwhile Peter learns that Nathan has left Aunt May after hearing of another friend’s death, and goes to a theatre in a slum where in better days he performed in his youth. Unfortunately the gang from earlier evaded arrest and now confront him. Spidey slowly picks them off one by one when Aunt May appears and berates the remaining. When the gang, but not May or Nathan, see Spider-Man they flee again. Later Spidey and the Gargoyle bump into each other and reflect on their experiences. A caption on the opening page said this would be a different team-up from normal and it certainly is. There’s limited action and instead a strong focus in characters and situations, focusing on how they face up to mortality. All in all it’s a nice little character piece that also takes May and Nathan that little further forward as they prepare to leave the rest home and open a boarding house (yes sometimes there were developments in Team-Up – not many but they did happen).

It’s actually surprising that these last four issues wound up in Essential Defenders as apart from Nighthawk’s story they don’t appear to add much to the characters. I can’t help suspecting the primary aim was to pad the volumes out (they also include an issue of Captain America and an Avengers annual) in order to allow volume 6 to end at the point when the Defenders are transformed into the New Defenders (which was quite a radical change, introducing a more formalised team structure rather than the “non-team” grouping that had previously existed).

Amazing Spider-Man #274, by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz, reprinted in Essential Ghost Rider volume 4

This was the final Spider-Man crossover with Secret Wars II and comes at a point when the all-powerful Beyonder is preparing to wipe out all of existence. The demon Mephisto seeks to stop this (as wiping destroys the souls he covets) and agrees a challenge with the Beyonder – each would have a champion in a duel and if Mephisto’s champion wins then the Beyonder will wait for twenty-four hours. The Beyonder’s champion is Zarathos, the spirit of vengeance previously bonded to the first Ghost Rider (hence the story’s appearance in that volume), whilst Mephisto’s is Spider-Man – precisely because he is an ordinary human. Zarathos has to get Spider-Man to renounce his responsibility in some way, with the test selected to be to prevent an assassination attempt on the Kingpin. Zarathos torments Spider-Man by appearing to him both in his own form and disguised as the likes of Norman Osborn, Peter’s parents, Captain George Stacy, Gwen Stacy and finally Uncle Ben, each reminding Spider-Man of his past failures and trying to weaken him. It’s a story set on two entirely different levels, with Spider-Man never aware of the wider significance of his turmoil. Instead he just keeps on trying in the face of tremendous odds, no matter what Zarathos throws at him, to the amazement of Mephisto. It’s a twist on the classic tale of a hero facing temptation in the form of a demon, but Spidey remains true to his inner core values, no matter what it costs him and no matter how odious the person he has to save, eventually knocking Zarathos aside and then preventing a gunman shooting down the Kingpin. This is a triumph of the will and a reaffirmation of just what makes Spider-Man tick. The wider context of the battle to save existence for at least another twenty-four hours is far less interesting in this context. What matters is that Spider-Man has proved himself without even realising he was being tested. This is one of my all-time favourite Spider-Man stories.

Overall these issues are a mixed bag. The ones from Team-Up are relatively representative of the series as a whole – some intense, personal tales with small, focused casts and some world saving ones with huge numbers. But they’re not such important stories that one can’t wait for the next volumes of Essential Marvel Team-Up to reach them. The Amazing issue is more intense, though as it’s some thirty-six issues later than the end of the most recent volume and part of the first massive Marvel crossover it may be best to also wait for it to be reached in the normal course of events.

Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man volume 4

Next up is Essential Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man volume 4, containing Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #75-96 and Annual #4. As bonus material we get Spider-Man’s entry from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. This one’s from the Deluxe Edition, as shown by the length and a villains’ list from about 1987 that doesn’t yet include Venom.

The writing is pretty solid with Bill Mantlo writing the first two-thirds and also the main story in the annual, and Al Milgrom writing the last third. A back-up story in the annual is by Bob DeNatale. Most of the issues are drawn by Milgrom, apart from fill-ins by Ron Frenz (his first ever Spider-Man work), Greg LaRocque and Dave Simons, and a special issue drawn by a mix of Milgrom and cartoonist Fred Hembeck. The annual stories are drawn by Kerry Gammill & Sal Buscema and Ron Randall.

There’s a strong degree of consistency throughout the volume. Unfortunately the flow is at times slightly distorted by attempts to tie in explicitly to individual issues of Amazing which gives the impression that Spider-Man has abandoned a situation only to return to it. It’s most prominent with issue #87 where Spider-Man reflects upon having lost his spider-sense in an Amazing issue, despite having used it in Spectacular #86 which led directly into this one, and with issue #96 where instead of going straight after the Answer who’s captured Dagger, Spider-Man detours into events in Amazing where he ditches his black alien costume and resumes wearing the red & blue one. I presume there was a Marvel policy at the time to keep the placing of events clear, but when a character has multiple titles it gets messy with multi-part stories. And of course there’s a major exception to this in the era with the whole of Secret Wars taking place in the gap between Spectacular #89 & 90, written by the-then editor-in-chief, so such a strict chronological approach isn’t always necessary. When Spidey returns from the Secret Wars he comes with a new black costume that responds to his thoughts, can change its appearance into civilian clothes and flows on and off at will. The saga of the costume is primarily focused upon in the contemporary Amazing issues (not yet reached in the Essentials but I’ll rant about that elsewhere), and when this volume is read in isolation the developments with the costume can come as a surprise at times.

However whilst the costume may be developed elsewhere there’s a very important aspect of Spider-Man’s life developed across this volume as it charts the growth of his relationship with the Black Cat. Having once again survived a seeming death, Felicia Hardy returns for good and sides with Spider-Man in the conflict between the Owl and Doctor Octopus. This shows the clear chemistry between the two and the Cat’s bravery, but she comes to grief when she gets cornered and badly shot and stabbed, leading to a prolonged stay in hospital. But in pain comes joy as both she and Spider-Man come to realise their true feelings for each other. Spider-Man saves her again from Doctor Octopus and then after she is released from hospital the two start swinging across town together and jointly facing menaces such as the Hobgoblin. Unfortunately the two take some time to adapt to each other’s style and there are moments when Spidey is over concerned about the Cat. However he decides to share more of his life with her. This leads into what could have been a crucial issue which is unfortunately played all wrong by wider events.

Assistant Editors’ Month was one of the earliest company wide events at Marvel. The premise was that as all the regular editors were away at the San Diego Comic Convention, and in their absence their assistants were in charge for a month and were doing things a bit differently from the norm. Some books had little more than a one or two page story featuring the assistant editor in question (e.g. New Defenders), others went further and put the characters into some quite bizarre situations (e.g. Avengers which saw the team appear on David Letterman’s late night chat show, or Alpha Flight which saw two all white characters having a fight in a snow-storm represented by just blank panels and dialogue/captions). Crack Comics: Assistant Editors’ Month is a section and Assistant Editors’ Month Online is a whole blog both devoted to his event. Each looks at individual books from the month, giving a flavour of what was going on. The premise sounds good and it did lead to some quite fun titles – an especially hilarious one was Marvel Team-Up #137. Unfortunately the crude nature of company wide events is such that they often intrude upon the regular flow of a title and can cause unfortunate consequences. This is certainly true of issue #86 in which cartoonist Fred Hembeck draws the main story in his own unique style, alongside some pages set at the Marvel offices in which regular penciller Al Milgrom learns this from Assistant Editor Bob DeNatale. Even without the art the story is played for more laughs than usual, featuring the Fly discovering that his insect nature is taking him over, to the point where he’s stealing garbage to eat, and sees a fight in the Daily Bugle offices. On its own this would be fine, but the issue sees Spider-Man starting to share the secrets of his alter-ego with the Cat, climaxing in his decision to take her home and reveal his identity. The tone of the script and the artwork is all wrong for such an event – indeed in the comic itself Hembeck’s art is prematurely ended by the return of editor Danny Fingeroth who quickly arranges more regular Milgrom art for the last two pages – and it would have been better to defer that a month. Unfortunately another company-wide event created a hard point that prevented such a pushback, as issue #89 ends with Spider-Man disappearing off to appear in Secret Wars.

Once Assistant Editors’ Month is over normal service is resumed as Spider-Man takes the Cat home to his flat and reveals his identity. And then we get a twist on a problem for many superhero relationships where the other-half is aware of both sides of the hero’s life – Felicia can’t stand his life as Peter Parker, finding it mundane and boring and preferring him to be Spider-Man all the time. This side makes a lot of sense as Felicia is a thrill seeker who doesn’t care much for her life out of the costume. But it can get silly such as when she almost freaks out at Spider-Man taking the mask off, preferring him with the mask on. It’s one thing for a person to wish their other half focused exclusively on one side of their lives, but to be so repulsed by the other side strains credulity. It also leads to problems as Felicia is frequently careless in searching for Spider-Man, turning up at his flat or the Bugle or even Aunt May’s home searching for Peter without appreciating just how important keeping the secret is to Peter. Despite this the two continue as partners but a further fight, this time with Mr Hyde and the Cobra, leaves Felicia realising she is severely weak in battle without any powers. This leads to her searching all over the city for a super-power and foolishly accepting help from a shadowy form who turns out to be the Kingpin. The Cat winds up with enhanced agility, and the bad luck powers that a real black cat is supposed to bring. The latter is a curious probability based power that causes those attacking her to suffer exceptional bad luck – floors give way, weapons break apart or slip out of hands, people trip and so forth. However she doesn’t seem to realise that the Kingpin has ulterior plans as the powers slowly start to affect Spider-Man as well. Despite this, once Spider-Man returns from the Secret Wars the two continue their teaming together, with a back-up story in the annual even showing the two aiming for a quiet evening in together, albeit with complications caused by a visit from one of the Cat’s ex partners in crime. By the final issue in this volume Spider-Man has discovered where the powers came from but not yet their full extent and there are signs of tensions that could potentially crack the relationship wide open. But up to now the relationship has developed with general credibility, other than Felicia’s reaction to the unmasking, and the two do work well as a team. It’s a bold development for the series but it pulls it off well.

One significant development happens outside these pages but impacts on the series nonetheless. Up to now Spectacular had found a particular niche by focusing upon Peter’s life in graduate school, providing a separate supporting cast to spread the load of multiple titles. But during the time of these issues that life comes to a close when he decides that, due to all the conflicting pressures in his life and the high cost of the Cat’s medical bills, he must take a leave of absence from graduate school and drops out. However curiously this development is shown in the pages of Amazing rather than Spectacular, and the epilogue to his graduate school days comes in Marvel Team-Up. Really all these should have been shown in the series where they were the main focus, and it’s not as if there wasn’t room for them as issues #80 and #84, both one part stories with no long term developments, could easily have been dropped to make room. (Or for that matter #85 which sees the Hobgoblin gaining super-strength, a development that belonged in Amazing so the complaint runs both ways.) Given the heavy focus upon the Black Cat at this stage the loss of the graduate school doesn’t immediately cause problems as the series still has a distinct focus from Amazing. But it leaves the series one Black Cat away from the risks of over-exposure and creative burnout that can come when a character has too many titles without each offering something distinctly different.

As part of this we get some developments with the more traditional supporting cast, particularly towards the end of the volume with Flash Thompson who is repeatedly disappearing for activities he won’t share with Sha Shan, and then coming back bruised. When Sha Shan turns to Peter for help, Flash assumes they’re having an affair, setting things up for a potential confrontation. Now although Sha Shan had been fully returned to Flash’s life in the early issues of Spectacular the storyline really belongs in Amazing, both because of Flash’s traditional status but also because of the ongoing mystery of the Hobgoblin’s identity. It’s another sign of the barriers that kept the titles distinct starting to break down and it’s questionable whether this was a wise move. Another sign of this comes with issue #80 which tells a story of Jonah Jameson setting out to prove he still has his journalistic skills as he exposes corruption on the docks, with some unwanted help from Spider-Man. Again this story really belonged in Amazing. So too should have the main annual story, which sees Aunt May receiving letters from her first suitor, a Depression era criminal who has now been released and each finds their minds wandering back to their youth whilst Ben and Peter between them save May from making a mistake.

However we do get some good developments amongst the villains. Most prominent throughout the run is the Kingpin, who more than ever before is now a permanent presence in the series, sitting up I his office block directing the crime below him. When the 1990s animated series made so much use of the Kingpin in this way many were surprised, but here is where that all began. The Kingpin is given quite a lot of good material, whether facing down the Punisher, negotiating information with Jonah, arranging for the Black Cat to obtain super powers or seeking a cure for his wife’s condition. The character is treated with dignity and respect, reinforcing his sense of menace but also showing his understanding of his role in the wider city, such as when he willingly helps Spider-Man to locate Doctor Octopus and the Owl, lest the city be otherwise destroyed. The Kingpin also seeks to develop new henchmen and assassins, but the revival of Silvermane proves messy due to Dagger having absorbed his life-force, resulting in the Maggia leader’s cyborg body going on a rampage in search of her. The one new villain introduced here, the Answer, only lasts a few issues before he too is absorbed. The Answer is an interesting character, a super-smart intellectual who always seeks to work out “the answer” to each and every problem he encounters. He makes for a foe who is very difficult to defeat and ultimately only falls when he inadvertently sacrifices himself to revive Dagger so she can stop Silvermane.

We get several other villains in the course of the story, including the aforementioned Hobgoblin, Fly, Mr Hyde and Cobra, plus a brief appearance by the Rose and also some others normally associated with other series such as the Blob from the X-Men, and the Gladiator, more normally a Daredevil foe. In the latter case Spider-Man does find himself wondering if he should get involved or not, but eventually does get involved. Another Daredevil foe who shows up is the Owl, but he’s very much playing second fiddle to his rival, Doctor Octopus who gets some of his best ever material here.

The rivalry between Spidey and Doc Ock reaches its fiercest here. Ock is even more of a nasty, vicious toad of a man, seeking to blow up New York with a neutron bomb as a means to demonstrate his genius. This truly is a warped individual driven by a determination to make a name for himself and it’s little surprise that Spider-Man is so enraged that he tears off Doc Ock’s tentacles. The Black Cat then shatters the controls but finds that Doc Ock can still control his detached tentacles as they grab and hold her, then his men shoot her repeatedly. Each crawls away to recover, but a return showdown looms, with Doc Ock refusing sedation for the operation to reattach his tentacles and then showing up in the Cat’s hospital room to tell Spider-Man that in one day’s time they will fight for the last time. This leads to a dramatic climax as Peter goes through what could be his final day of life, spending some time with friends, negotiating much more firmly with Jonah over the price of photos then ever before and answering back about his absences and seeming lax attitude to his studies. We then get a tremendous battle in which Spidey beats Doc Ock not just physically but also emotionally, especially when he humiliates his foe by saving him. This is one of the best Doctor Octopus stories the Spider-Man books have yet done, finally getting a clear grasp on the character and working with his warped objectives for once.

Conflict of a different kind comes in encounters with multiple vigilantes. A strong two-parters sees the return of both Cloak and Dagger and also the Punisher. Whilst Cloak and Dagger are much the same as before, punishing just those who push drugs (whilst curing the addicts) and going all the way up to the Kingpin, the Punisher is even worse than usual, shooting any infraction of the law whatsoever. In a rampage he shoots a man for throwing away a newspaper and missing the bin, and then when a taxi driver panics and flees through a red light he too gets shot. The Punisher also goes after the Kingpin, but makes the mistake of taking the Kingpin’s wife Vanessa hostage, and is beaten up by her husband. As a gesture of contempt the Punisher is left alive and taken to court where he’s confined to a mental institution, leaving Peter wondering if he too will one day succumb to the same fate of extreme madness.

Whilst this volume contains its fair share of action, the real focus is on ongoing character development, building up not only Spider-Man and the Black Cat but also many of their foes. If there’s any weakness, it stems from wider Marvel policies such as the one that mistakenly forced too rigid a chronology upon Spider-Man’s multiple titles and also tried to develop subplots in more than one book at a time, or the interference by line wide events like Assistant Editors’ Month. But whilst there are signs that the distinctiveness of the multiple titles could break down in future, it hasn’t happened at this stage and instead we get an extremely solid run where successive issues build on their predecessors to give a solid and rounded whole.

Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 3

Now we come now to the third volume of Essential Marvel Team-Up, containing issues #52-73 & #75, plus Annual #1. Note that issue #74 is omitted due to the guest-stars being the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players from Saturday Night Live, and Marvel presumably no longer has the rights to publish them. As bonus material we get Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for the Black Widow, Captain Britain, Havok, the Living Monolith, the Silver Samurai and the Stranger, plus a gallery of covers from Marvel Tales #193-199, #201-207, #235-236, #255 & #262-263, all of which reprinted stories contained in this volume (some with new covers, some with the originals) plus Giant-Size Spider-Man #1, presumably because the cover states “...in the tradition of our smash-hit Marvel Team-Up mag!” The entries and covers are interesting to see but I suspect they’re only here because the volume was initially prepared to include issue #74 and by the time it was discovered unavailable the page count had already been committed to, requiring filler material.

This run includes the last few issues of Bill Mantlo’s run on the book, though he returns even here for a fill-in, and then the bulk of the volume is written by Chris Claremont. Whereas Mantlo, Gerry Conway and Len Wein have all had notable runs on other Spider-Man titles this is Claremont’s only significant work with Spider-Man. In addition we get a few fill-in issues by both familiar hands like Mantlo and Conway, and new writers Gary Friedrich (his only credit on a core Spider-Man title) and Bill Kunkel (one of only two credits, the other’s a later issue of Team-Up), plus Ralph Macchio scripting one of Claremont’s plots, clocking up a rare writers’ credit (though in the late 1990s he edited the core titles) and the annual is plotted by Claremont and his then-wife Bonnie Wilford, and scripted by Mantlo. The art is mainly by Sal Buscema and John Byrne, the latter doing his very first work on the character, with three fill-in issues by Dave Wenzel, Jim Mooney and Kerry Gammill.

Here’s the by now familiar run down of the stars of each issue.

52. Spider-Man and Captain America
Annual 1. Spider-Man and the X-Men
53. Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk (and Woodgod)
54. Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk (and Woodgod)
55. Spider-Man and Warlock
56. Spider-Man and Daredevil
57. Spider-Man and the Black Widow
58. Spider-Man and Ghost Rider
59. Spider-Man and Yellowjacket and the Wasp
60. Spider-Man and the Wasp
61. Spider-Man and the Human Torch
62. Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel
63. Spider-Man and Iron Fist
64. Spider-Man and the Daughters of the Dragon
65. Spider-Man and Captain Britain
66. Spider-Man and Captain Britain
67. Spider-Man and Tigra
68. Spider-Man and the Man-Thing
69. Spider-Man and Havok
70. Spider-Man and Thor
71. Spider-Man and Falcon
72. Spider-Man and Iron Man
73. Spider-Man and Daredevil
75. Spider-Man and Power Man

Note also that unlike the previous Essential volumes there are no issues without Spider-Man. Giant-Size Spider-Man was long over and, as I discussed in my review of Essential Spider-Man 8, this was a period when earlier restraints on using the character were being eased, with a third regular series launched plus new stories in the annuals, crossovers with other titles and so forth (and also a live-action TV series). Spider-Man was becoming ever more a phenomenon, but with that could come the risk of over-exposure and stilted development due to separate writers. However at this stage there doesn’t seem to be much impact on Team-Up, perhaps because the general format left it mostly immune.

However there are several multiple part stories, including a mini-epic as Spider-Man is transported first to the Nevada desert, then to New Mexico and finally to the Moon in a succession of tales as he joins with the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk, the mysterious Woodgod and finally Adam Warlock. Woodgod is almost the only one of the characters in this run whom I didn’t recognise, either from the earlier Team-Up issues or from being big name Marvel stars (or usually both). The only other ones are the Daughters of the Dragon (apparently their appearance here was the first time they were billed under that title; more normally they are part of Iron Fist’s supporting cast). Woodgod is especially confusing as I don’t really understand what “Scream” is or know his origin to get the various references to it. Also a little confusing is the team-up with Captain America which is an epilogue to a storyline in his own title that saw Cap and the Falcon battle monsters in another dimension, and now return home. It’s at once both a fill-in issue and an intrusion from another title (and curiously the author, Gerry Conway, wasn’t writing Captain America at the time – it was Jack Kirby’s last run on the series).

The other multi-parters demonstrate another formulaic feature whereby the banner guest star in the first issue is usually incapacitated for the bulk of the second issue, sometimes with their fate as a driving element of the plot either to motivate characters to save them (as with Havok or Iron First) or to motivate other characters to act out of revenge (as with Yellowjacket’s seeming death spurring on the Wasp). A notable exception is the two-parter with Captain Britain. Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe had created the character for Marvel UK the previous year and with this story they unleashed him onto the American stage. I assume Marvel UK didn’t have much Stateside distribution back then as the first part is an extended scene setter that devotes no less than four of the seventeen pages available to telling his origin. Unfortunately the actual threat in the story just doesn’t seem an appropriate vehicle for introducing such a character as we get a second part in which Spidey and Captain Britain fight their way through new villain Arcade’s giant fun house.

The Captain Britain two-parter also brings up one of the bigger clichés of comics that is a bugbear of mine whereby heroes and their alternative identities both show up in strange cities and countries without everyone deducing their alter egos. True on this occasion Spider-Man does rapidly realise that Captain Britain is Peter Parker’s temporary roommate Brian Braddock, but others don’t, despite the fact that the Maggia have Braddock on their long list of fifty suspects and hire Arcade to kill him just in case, who instead goes for the real thing. Just to add to the risk, Brian/Captain Britain’s girlfriend Courtney Ross has been captured and brought to the United States without the connection leaping out to her or others. Now it’s true this is a limitation of the medium as readers want to see the familiar heroes in action in their usual costumes, which probably rules out the otherwise obvious solution of having an “away” identity with a different costume and different emphasis on the powers to limit the risk, but within the narrative it’s never really properly addressed one way or another.

There are, however, occasional exceptions such as Spider-Man and the X-Men’s adventure in Nevada in the Annual, where at the end Professor X uses his powers to block the memories of the civilians and thus preserve everyone’s identities. It does, however, see a little clanger where Spider-Man talks too freely in front of the X-Men about his problems explaining his sudden absences to Mary Jane Watson. Okay Professor X himself is a powerful telepath and probably already knows Spider-Man’s identity (and just about everything else) by default, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s shared the information with the other X-Men and I would expect Spidey to be more careful than to give his girlfriend’s name away. However what slips on the one part is made up in another as we get what I think is the first ever explicit confirmation that Daredevil is able to identity Spider-Man out of costume by recognising his heartbeat, even if on this occasion he has to rush out before discovering Spidey’s civilian name. It’s a point that later writers would return to.

Another point I found familiar in a different sense was the large number of times Spider-Man explicitly remembers the death of Gwen Stacy once Chris Claremont takes over the writing. Readers of Claremont’s later X-Men work (and/or John Byrne’s latter day criticisms of Claremont – see for instance Byrne Robotics : FAQ : What’s the story behind the return of Jean Grey?) will be aware that after Jean Grey/Phoenix was killed off she was repeatedly referenced and remembered by the characters, to the point where it went beyond natural grief. In general up to now the Spider-Man comics had avoided excessive references to Gwen, other than when the story specifically called for it (for instance the Clone Saga or the various returns of the Green Goblin) so the sudden increase in casual references really stand out as an exceptional turn. Chris Claremont is probably the Team-Up writer with the longest run who has never worked regularly on the other Spider-Man titles and so one can only but speculate as to what he might have done had he had the chance to write one of them, especially given how successful the X-Men became on his watch. Would he have turned in an equally memorable run? Or would it have been another example of an-otherwise comics legend coming unstuck and turning in a run that everybody just couldn’t wait to finish? Or would it have been somewhere in between, perhaps limited by the strains of multiple titles, multiple authors and not always sympathetic editors? We’ll probably never know.

However we have had the opportunity of seeing both Sal Buscema and John Byrne draw Spider-Man many more times over the years and can compare their work. Buscema may have been limited here by being a fill-in king with all the problems that rush jobs can bring but it’s certainly competent and more than holds its own. John Byrne’s contributions are all in the regular assignment category and we’re looking at work very early in his career, before he became a bankable name on first the X-Men and then the Fantastic Four. Here he contributes both a dynamism and a quick handling on the rotating guest-stars and this makes the action stand out.

Overall this third volume of Marvel Team-Up shows a title that by this stage had settled down into a stable format. As ever it wasn’t the place for major advancements in Spider-Man’s life, though some of the guest stars do have their own developments such as Adam Warlock reversing the curse of his body having grown so much due to the universe expanding at different rates that he dwarfed the Earth, or the Man-Thing being restored to freedom after the events at the end of his first series. We also get a few further developments of other characters, such as Jean DeWolff, who is at this stage probably the nearest thing the series has to a specific supporting cast. But, as ever, the purpose of Marvel Team-Up was to showcase Spider-Man with other heroes and take him to places he would or could never go to in his regular titles. Indeed considering the many intense events in those books during this period (the issues here are parallel to Amazing #163-186 and Spectacular #1-24) Team-Up offers a welcome respite, a chance to enjoy a different style of adventure and a tour round very diverse parts of the Marvel Universe. It meets those aims extremely well.