Back in issue 39, editorial said Marvel Team-Up would be going in a new direction under incoming writer Bill Mantlo, with longer storylines. And after that last 2-parter, here we really put that idea to the test with a highly unusual, very long saga. It’s, um… weird. I actually read the fourth part before I owned the rest. Throughout this bizarre acquisition of old Spidey comics, I’ve tried not to buy any parts of multi-part stories unless I can get all of them, but I messed up on this one, and as we’ll see, it was a bad place to come in at the end. Anyway, we get going with The Scarlet Witch walking down a spooky dungeon corridor toward a beckoning voice she doesn’t know.
Oooooo. She smashes through a door in the dungeon with her hex power, then flashes back to stealing the Avengers’ Quinjet to come here, some evil voice speaking for her like it did on the above page. She flew against her own will across the ocean to Dr. Doom’s currently abandoned castle, where she’s currently wandering around.
Doom was a good guess, but no. It’s way weirder than that. But for now, we check in with our friend, Spider-Man, swinging around New York, explicitly telling us this issue takes place after ASM 152 and MTU 40, when Wanda’s hex comes at him. He has no idea what it is and dodges it for awhile. He feels like it might be trying to tell him something.
“My legs! They’re gone!” is an extremely weird thing to say. Spidey is teleported to the bowels of Doom’s castle, finding himself standing over the unconscious Wanda as the guy who took out Scarlet Witch is ranting at Dr. Doom’s time platform. And you literally would never guess who it is.
Friends, Spider-Man is fighting infamous Salem Witchtrials killer Cotton Mather. Mm hm. From, like, real life. Although probably not much like it here. COTTON MATHER zaps Wanda with his CROSS, which forces her to start attacking Spider-Man against her own will. She blasts a hole in the floor instead of blasting a hole in Spider-Man, and then COTTON MATHER kicks him into said hole. Then he forces her to collapse the ceiling above Spider-Man, burying him alive.
Yeah, man, Cotton Mather is using Dr. Doom’s time platform to take The Scarlet Witch back to the Salem Witchtrials. This seems like a really, really weird idea for a comic book. Back in the present, Spidey spends a whole 2 pages fighting his way out of the rubble in a quasi-”Spider-Man Must Lift A Heavy Thing” riff, and once he’s finally free, he’s not about to let noted New England minister, author and pamphleteer Cotton Mather get away with this. Spidey quickly deduces this is a time machine and, because of the date 1692 on it, that that was Cotton Mather, slamming his fist into his palm like Robin figuring out a clue on the old Batman TV show, and takes the time platform back after them to save Wanda. Sure, why not? Back in 1692, he finds himself in Salem, with a crowd whipped into a frenzy to see Cotton Mather kill a witch. He gets up on a roof for a better view and…
And there you have it. Spider-Man, The Vision and Scarlet Witch Vs. The Salem Witchtrials. And it’s only gonna get weirder from here, there’s 3 more issues! This issue has a Spidey-starring Hostess ad in it that’s pretty funny, we should probably look at that.
Those ads get me every time. “For $50,000, that’s what!” A+. This issue also contains an ad I’ve seen before for a line of toys called Big Jim’s P.A.C.K. I’ve never heard of them before buying up a bunch of old comics, but I’m quite interested by the obvious Jack Kirby art in this ad.
Surprisingly diverse line-up of faux GI Joe’s for 1976, too. Also in this issue: A totally intact Marvel Value Stamp. Almost every comic I have from this period is unsullied. Maybe this promotion wasn’t too popular.