President Ronald Reagan was in the White House. The USSR was just trying to figure out Daylight Savings Time. Rick James’s new album Street Songs was playing on the radio and we had just watched the last episode of the TV comedy, Soap. Meanwhile, I had just picked up the newest copy of Marvel’s premier team up book (issue #106) Sporting a Frank Miller cover and featuring the team of Spider-Man and Captain America. This would be the good captain’s 3rd full appearance. The story was being handled by “Talented” Tom DeFalco with Art duties by “Howling” Herb Trimpe with an ink assist by “Magnificent” Mike Esposito.
The players gave a classic Spider-Man story with just a taste of Captain America. Cap himself doesn’t show up until page 16 and actually just adds a shield to the final battle after admitting that at this point he really isn’t needed to defeat the Scorpion. While entertaining, the first signs of a new Marvel have begun appearing in Marvel Team Up. The main problem with those of us comic readers in the early to mid-seventies was that I believe we actually knew what a special time and plae we were experiencing. We were coming off a 6-issue storyline starting with the Scarlet Witch and ending on Deathlok. We had also got to see a few experimental issues not featuring Spider-Man. The covers were jaw-dropping (Issue #44), the writers were household names like Conway, Wein, and Mantlo. And with artists like Gil Kane, Jim Mooney, and Sal Buscema what wasn’t there to love. But there were new creative teams waiting in the wings. And perhaps it was because we were becoming older that it just didn’t feel the same. Truth be told, I was more excited by the final page blurb advertising next issue’s Spider-Man/She-Hulk team up than I was when I finally got that issue in my hands. After spending the 1960’s and 1970’s reading comics, I knew I wasn’t going to stop but the 1980’s were going to show us all the different directions comics could take. Unfortunately, not all of them were going to appeal to me. The 1981 version of Me gives this a 7 out of 10 Grahams.
