Marvel Team-Up in the 1980s
Chris Claremont continued writing Marvel Team-Up at the start of the 1980s with a regular rotation of artists. Issue #89, featuring a Spider-Man and Nightcrawler team-up, introduced Cutthroat a character who would later become a major foe of Captain America later on in the decade. The 2nd Team-Up annual was the final story that Claremont wrote for the book ending the near pointless relationship between Peter and Cissy Ironwood. The following issue Steven Grant took over as writer. In is first outing he tried to tie up some loose ends from the Ulysses Bloodstone plotlines from the Rampaging Hulk magazine. This was followed by a rematch between Spider-Man and Moondark which guest starred Ghost Rider. Issue #92 had the wall-crawler and Hawkeye face the new Mister Fear. Issues #92-93 featured Spider-Man going to Los Angeles were he teamed up with Werewolf by Night and the Shroud against the Committee and the super-powered stripped Dansen Macabre. This was followed by a spy thriller story guest starring Mockingbird.
To change things up, Alan Kupperberg wrote and drew Marvel Team-Up #96, which reunited Spider-Man with Howard the Duck. It attempted to emulate the biting satire of Steve Gerber’s work on Howard the Duck but fell flat. Grant returned with the following issue the first of a few issues this decade where Spider-Man wasn’t in the title. In this instance it was the Hulk and Spider-Woman battling a bland one-off villain. The 1980 annual was a total free-for-all written by Roger Stern. It was jammed packed with characters featuring the Hulk, Power Man, Iron Fist, and Machine Man against Nightshade. It started a trend with the annuals having more than one guest star. Issue #98 was written by Marv Wolfman and Roger Stern and featured Spider-Man and the Black Widow battling the Owl, while Tom DeFalco wrote t he following issue featuring Spider-Man and Machine Man battling Baron Brimstone and Sandman.
Issue #100 was a milestone issue which saw the return of Chris Claremont and had art by Frank Miller and a back-up story with art by John Byrne. The first story introdcued the character Karma who would later go on to be a member of the New Mutants while the back-up story featured Storm teaming up with the Black Panther and delved a little further into their past history together.
The series then got J.M. DeMatteis wrote te next issue, per DeMatteis style, the stories got slightly more depressing. Issue #101 was actually an epilogue to a long running Defenders story (also written by DeMatteis) about Nighthawk’s ex-girlfriend trying to kill him because he was responsible for confining her to a wheelchair after a drunk driving accident. It was included a back-up story were Nighthawk redeems himself as a hero by saving a little girl from a burning building or some such thing written by Mike Barr, probably because they needed a more up lifting writer. Barr went on to write tissue #102 which featured Spider-Man and Doc Samson taking on the Rhino. David Michelinie came on to write issue #103 which featured Spider-Man and Ant-Man fighting the Taskmaster. Followed by a Roger McKenzie yarn about the Hulk and Ka-Zar fighting MODOK in issue #104. Mike Barr was back with issue #105 saw the Hulk team-up with Power Man and Iron Fist fighting some redneck racists in the southern United States. Tom DeFalco came back to write a story were the Scorpion goes after J. Jonah Jameson (again) and is stopped by Spider-Man and Captain America, followed by a team-up with She-Hulk against Man-Killer in issue #107.
The 1981 annual was written by Frank Miller and some horrendous artwork by Herb Trimpe. This story Spider-Man, Daredevil, Power Man, Iron Fist, and Moon Knight fighting Purple Man. David Michelinie and Tom DeFalco then did a two part story together, the first part (by Michelinie) featured Spider-Man and the Paladin, while the following (by DeFalco) featured Dazzler. In both stories, Spider-Man and his respective guest stars battled Thermo, a heat themed villain. David Michelinie also wrote issue #110 which featured Spider-Man and Iron Man going up against a new villain named Magma.
Marvel Team-Up #111-112 saw J.M. DeMatteis back on writing duties for the title for a two part story where Spider-Man fights the Serpent Men, the first part involves the Defenders while the second part features Spider-Man 20,000 years into the past and meets Kull. These stories are unique in that it ties in a lot of mythology from Robert E. Howard’s barbarian epics. At the time, Marvel had the licenses to Conan, Kull, and Red Sonja and the comics they produced under this license were tied to the history of the Marvel Universe. Issue #112 is particularly interesting because it has never been reprinted since Marvel lost the license to Kull. Since then the license passed to Dark Horse Comics in 2006 and later IDW publishing in 2017. It seems very unlikely that Marvel will get the rights back unless they work with IDW. Which, if anyone at Marvel and IDW is reading this, you guys need to work together to reprint Kull, Rom the Spaceknight, and Micronauts. It makes the most logical sense since (a) Marvel and IDW has had a long working history (particularly when it comes to reprinting Marvel’s old Transformers comics) and (b) IDW is currently licensed to publish kid friendly comic books based on Marvel characters. You guys pretty much have a potential deal nailed, stop playing with my emotions like this, but I digress.…
Mark Greunwald wrote issue #113 which guest starred Quasar and featured the return of Lightmaster. J.M. DeMatties then went on a longer stint as regular writer. First he did a Falcon team-up with his old foe Stone-Face in issue #114. Issue #115-116 featured a two-part story featuring Thor and Valkyrie against aliens. Issue #117-118 was another two parter that guest starred Wolverine and Professor X. It introduced the villain Professor Power. Issue #119, in typical depressing DeMatties fashion featured a story about the Gargoyle coming to terms with the fragility of the elderly. If that wasn’t depressing enough, he next did a Dominic Fortune yarn about the 30s swashbuckler fighting with the irrelevancy brought on by his elderly age. Trying to take a more cheerful t one with his next issue, J.M. had Spider-Man and the Human Torch fight Speed Demon in a story that was pure slapstick… It' is somehow more dismal and depressing than the most nihilistic story DeMatties could come up with. It’s about as funny as finding a dead baby in an abandoned cooler. His next story, a Man-Thing team-up against Ian Fate. If you guessed that Fate was a villain from his Defenders run you would be correct as by this point it seemed like DeMatties was using his title as a dumping ground for Defenders plots. We got a reprieve from DeMatties with Annual #5, which was a mega team-up with the Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Quasar and the Thing. It was written by Mark Greunwald and while it’s not dark and depressing it still goes back to a Greunwald trope of involving the Serpent Crown and the demon Set. While DeMatteis brought back Professor Power in issue #124.
Issues #125 and 126 tried to cram two stories per issue. The first in this experiment had a DeMatties story featuring Spider-Man and Tigra and a Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch team-up by Jo Duffy. The next issue had a Son of Satan/Power Man story by J.M. and a Jim Shooter story featuring Spider-Man and the Hulk.
Still J.M. DeMatties isn’t totally bleak. Issue #127 was a Christmas issue which had the Watcher (of all characters) team-up with Spider-Man, helping the wall-crawler reunite Betty Chekov with her father Arthur, one of the Aunt May’s rooming home for the elderly. Issue #128 featured Spider-Man and Captain America go up against Vermin, a character created by DeMatties and obsessed with shoe-horning this character into every depressing story he writes… That’s less obvious here and more obvious during DeMatties run of Spectacular Spider-Man in the 90s, but that’s a headache for another time. There’s nothing really much I can say about the rest of DeMatties run from here. It’s all very mediocre stuff that either goes overkill with depression or tries humor that always falls flat. You could give him credit for using this title to create White Rabbit in MTU #131, however every writer who “tries” to be funny usually jams White Rabbit into a story to the point where the only funny joke is that talented writers lower themselves to the level of using White Rabbit for stupid gags. In the middle of all this sub-par work is annual #6 written by Bill Mantlo. Mantlo penned a story that featured the New Mutants and Cloak and Dagger and involved the scourge of DRUGS. While it was totally a product of the JUST SAY NO 80s, the story had larger repercussions in the pages of the New Mutants title. Which is a lot less you can say about all of J.M. DeMatties output while writing the title. Mantlo went on to take over writing duties starting with issue #134 and 135 which revealed that Marcy Kane, Peter’s long time classmate and rival, was actually an alien. It’s far out story for sure but a breath of fresh air compared to what was being written before. The following issue had Kitty Pryde help Spider-Man with the Morlocks.
By this point, writers were changing hands on almost as frequently as the artists on the title and very few stories had long standing implications on the Marvel Universe proper. There were a few notable issues that did come out near the end of Marvel Team-Up’s run. Issue #137, for example, came out during “Assistant Editor’s Month” a tradition were assistant editors took over full editorial duties at Marvel for the month while the editors were busy at San Diego Comic Con. This usually led to wacky plot ideas being greenlit. In the case of Marvel Team-Up #137 which featured a story where Aunt May becomes a Herald of Galactus. However, despite the cover proclaiming that this story was not a dream, or a hoax, the story turned out to be a dream. Issue #138 also introduced the Kingpin’s long running right-hand-man, the Arranger. While issue #141 interrupted an on-going plot line to showcase Spider-Man’s new black and white costume he got during Secret Wars. Issues #146-148 was the final attempt at doing a multi-part story which featured Spider-Man and a handful of changing guest stars battling a foe named Black Abbot. However this couldn’t save Marvel Team-Up as issue #150 was the final issue, guest starring the ever popular X-Men.
Marvel Team-Up was cancelled to make way for a new Spider-Man spin-off series, Web of Spider-Man. After 150 issues, Marvel Team-Up still had a legacy and the title had some revivals, unfortunately none had the same longevity as the original series. In late 1995 Marvel published Spider-Man Team-Up, which was cancelled after 7 issues and replaced with a second volume of Marvel Team-Up that ran for 11 issues. The next volume, published between 2005 and 2006 ran for 29 issues. As of this writing the last revival of Marvel Team-Up was published in 2019. It started off as Ms. Marvel Team-Up trying to capitalize on the popularity of the relatively new heroine. It was relaunched as the 4th volume of Marvel Team-Up the following issue and the title was canned after five issues.
