Bring This Series Back: ‘Marvel Team-Up’

The comics industry has had hundreds of titles that have come and gone. Some were classics, and others have been forgotten. A lot of them deserve a second (or third, or fourth…) chance. So we want to look at some of these series that we think deserve it.

Back in the early 1970s, most of the notable heroes in comics only had one series (Batman and Superman being basically the only exceptions). In 1972, Marvel spun off Spider-Man — their biggest hero — into a second series. It wasn’t Spectacular or a Web of though, it was Marvel Team-Up.

Now, by its very nature, this isn’t going to be your usual Spider-Man title. It only has so much room in each issue to interact with his world and supporting cast before getting to the crisis at hand. But Marvel Team-Up still did a great job at it. 

This was a series that showed how Peter Parker was important to the Marvel Universe while still focusing on his personal corner of the universe. The first year of the series coincided with the infamous Night that Gwen Stacy Died, and a surprising amount of the story focused on Peter struggling with Gwen’s death while balancing his heroic responsibility. Yes, he could struggle with the fact that Gwen is gone while helping Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. stop AIM and the Grey Gargoyle. 

Some of it was big and widescreen. An early arc featured Spidey teaming up with Iron Man, the Human Torch and the Inhumans to stop Kang and Zarko the Tomorrow Man from destroying their present. A notable story featured Peter teaming with Red Sonja in Mary Jane’s body as Kulan Gath transformed the entire world into the Hyborean age once again.

Some of it was a bit smaller scale. As well known as Captain Britain’s American debut is, it was just as much a story of two new roommates trying not to kill each other as it was about two heroes trying to stop Arcade. Brian and Peter even stayed roommates for a while, becoming a major plot point for their later interactions.

Some of it was absolutely bonkers. Though they played it straight, the Red Sonja story was weird. Perhaps the most out there and well known issue of the series featured Spidey teaming up with the original cast of Saturday Night Live to fight the Silver Samurai.

It was a series with highs and lows, and often bonkers cartwheels to put plots in motion. Not all of it was good. But it was always entertaining.

Now, do I think it could return exactly as it was? Unfortunately no, the modern market just does not work for anthology titles for whatever reason. But the long-running Avenging Spider-Man showed that the model could work with more modern storytelling style. It even works for other franchises- the first three years of X-Men volume 3 did the same, featuring a new team-up every story but a strong throughline of plot and modern storytelling style.

So how about it Marvel? Give us the team-up once again?