That’s right, gang: Spider-Man’s most surprising team-up ever! $2.00 back when comics cost a quarter! This was a pretty big deal for its time, and it seems like this sort of crossover may never happen again now that Marvel & DC have been swallowed up by megacorporations far more interested in protecting IPs. From what I understand, the politics behind this thing were pretty crazy. Neither company wanted their guy or their company to come off badly. So they try to split everything down the middle. Both companies’ names on the cover. Editorials from both Stan Lee and DC Editorial Director Carmine Infantino (Long time Marvel artist who would just a year later be drawing for Marvel again, kinda funny). It’s written by Gerry Conway. He’d only recently left Marvel for DC, and was working on Superman, so he was well-suited to write it. It’s drawn by Spider-Man artist Ross Andru, but he’d been a longtime DC guy before that and drawn Superman, too. It’s inked by DC stalwart Dick Giordano, and rather infamously features art touch-ups on Superman by Neal Adams and revisions to the Marvel characters by John Romita, so both companies were putting their best face forward, as it were. At first glance, a comic by the longtime writer and current artist of Spider-Man would seem unfair to DC, but it’s actually somewhat balanced. I know all sorts of lore about this book, but I’ve never actually read it. It was another amazing eBay score this summer. This was published in the oversized Marvel Treasury Edition format, and is stapled weirdly, too, so these are gonna be some awkward photos. Hey, let’s check it out!
It begins with a prologue briefly letting you know all about Superman. He fights a giant robot that is of course being piloted by Lex Luthor…
…who escapes. Superman then heads to work as Clark Kent. At this time, he was a TV news guy working at Galaxy Communications. Lois Lane & Jimmy Olsen were there, too, as was sportscaster and notorious jerk Steve Lombard, who tries to trick Clark with the old “bucket of water on the door” gag, but Clark sees it coming and uses his super-breath to make it fall on Steve, instead. Their boss, Morgan Edge, exposits that they’re all going to New York for the World News Conference when Jimmy tells them all to turn on the TV to get some more exposition about the robot Superman fought.
Clark changes back to Superman and heads for where he last saw the robot. This leads him into the bay…
Luthor invites Superman inside his weird craft, there’s a little more exposition about how they knew each other when they were young in case you don’t know, and then Luthor springs his trap: a web of lasers so powerful they can actually hurt Superman.
Every single line Neal Adams retouched is so incredibly obvious, wow. Superman is temporarily blinded, and Luthor can see his number’s up, so he shoots the circuit he stole out of the ship so he can retrieve it after breaking out of jail, two steps ahead. Then Superman recovers and blasts a hole in the side of the ship, filling it with water and toting Luthor off to jail. With that done, Clark Kent shows up to board the plane to New York with his coworkers. Then there’s a one-page summary of Superman’s backstory just in case, and then we switch focus to Spider-Man in a 2nd prologue. He’s out doing his thing when he spots some goons robbing the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He sets up his camera and exposits about how JJJ will want photos, and then springs into action.
Their boss turns out to be Doctor Octopus, who we aaaaaall believe to be dead right now, so that’s awkward. He says after their last “unfortunate” encounter, he’s planning his schemes more finely, so he’s got a surprise…
Spidey and Ock have a quick version of their usual knockdown, drag out fights, but then the “flying octopus” whacks Spidey in the head with one of its tentacles, allowing Ock and his gang to escape. Spidey exposits that the cops think he’s a bad guy and then runs out of webbing and has to just run away. How embarrassing. Soon, Peter Parker arrives at The Daily Bugle, and JJJ is so excited about the promise of photos of Spidey & Ock fighting he’s even being nice. But that’s shortlived, because after telling his press guy to put the best photo on the cover of the “night owl” edition of the paper, JJJ is delivered a newspaper with a blurry photo of Spider-Man’s elbow on it. Turns out, Peter’s camera wasn’t set up correctly, and didn’t get any good pictures.
This is a weird presentation of JJJ. Peter lets us know his luck is always bad before his Spider Sense is set off by a passing blimp, forcing him to give MJ a weak excuse and rush into the Empire State Building, whose tourists are soon shocked by the appearance of Spider-Man. As he flips up onto the blimp, he falls right through it, because it was just a cover for the flying octopus. We learn Spidey got a tracer on Ock and that’s what brought him up here, and then the ship crashes. Spidey is able to knock out Ock, and he’s carted off by the cops. The next morning, Peter Parker joins his coworkers (And MJ) on the way to the World New Conference, and we’re all set up. But first, a page on Spidey’s origin, and then there’s a THIRD prologue, and it revealss Doc Ock and Lex Luthor sharing a prison cell.
In moments, Luthor has revealed a whole escape kit hidden under a layer of fake skin on his arm. He knocks out the guards watching the cell with a sonic burst, repowers Doc Ock’s tentacles, and whaddaya know, they’re free.
Now there’s a page on the two villains’ background, and then we find our way to The World New Conference, where all the players are arriving at once. We learn Ned & Betty Leeds are back from their Paris “working honeymoon” already, and that Clark Kent thinks New York is too dirty for him, and then Peter & JJJ have a big argument. Pete was planning to relax and spend time with MJ today, and JJJ is not hearing it. Peter seems to more or less quit The Bugle, storming off in a huff. He even forgot MJ.
Now we’ve spent a few pages with the Marvel cast, time to switch to the DC characters.
Why does the news media need an orbital lab? While they’re taking that in, Clark hears Morgan Edge talking about replacing him on the news. He goes over to talk about it, and is told he’s not well known enough nationally to cover the convention for Galaxy Communications, and will be replaced by someone more famous. Lois is appalled by this, but even moreso when Clark doesn’t put up a fight, and she storms off. Lois decides to climb up the scaffolding holding the satellite up to get some pictures of it, but in typical Lois Lane fashion, falls off, and is rescued by… Peter Parker, Ace Photographer. He was up there, too, and grabbed her as she fell.
But to everyone’s surprise, Superman silently zaps MJ & Lois with eyebeams that make them vanish, and then flies away. This is very disturbing for Peter Parker, and also for Clark Kent, who saw the whole thing. Whaaaat? Then this happens:
Hilarious. In no time, Spidey is on the scene, and comes face-to-face with Superman, who demands an explanation for what Spidey has done.
As the two foes circle each other, Superman’s doubt about Spidey’s involvement keeps growing, keeping pace with Spider-Man’s anger. And, unbeknownst to both of them, Luthor & Doc Ock hit Spidey with red sun radiation, granting him a real advantage over Superman, so when Superman flies over saying he thinks there’s been a mistake, well…
Spidey proceeds to just start wailing on Superman, largely because Supes is really trying to avoid a fight…
…but even Superman has his limits, and after another big hit from Spidey, he stops trying to be reasonable. He loses his cool and throws a punch that would take Spider-Man’s whole head off, but, being Superman, not only regrets it half way through, but manages to pull his punch at the last second, generating a shock wave…
Spidey is sent flying through an entire art museum and comes back madder than ever. But then the red sun radiation wears off.
Ouch! With Spidey finally unable to prolong the fight any longer, Superman is able to get him to talk it out, and they, of course, patch things up. Spidey declares they’ve been duped.
With the customary Marvel hero battle out of the way, it’s time to team-up.
Every prologue and chapter has begun with a huge double-page spread, and on an oversized Treasury Edition like this, they’re hard to take a picture of. But I had to try to get this one for Superman pulling Spider-Man around on web skis, because that is incredible. Superman’s tracked an energy residue from the fake Superman to this warehouse. Spidey volunteers to sneak in and check the place out. But he immediately finds himself in a fiendish anti-Spider-Man trap: a hallway with guns in the floor and electrified walls and ceiling. He barely manages to swing out into a 2nd trap, a dark room full of razorwire, but escapes that, too. Outside, Superman has grown tired of waiting, and just smashes through the front door. As it happens, he and Spidey make it into a big control room at the same time to find their foes hanging out and having fun.
MJ looks like she’s not having a friendly chat in there. Spidey goes to use one of their computer consoles to try to figure out what’s going on, but Superman’s X-Ray vision reveals the console is a trap, and he blows Spidey away from the explosion with his super breath just in time. Using his photographic memory and super speed, Superman simply rebuilds the entire computer from the ground up (Word???) and then Spider-Man uses it to discover the villains have gone to… Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Um… why? Anyway, if you’re worried it’s about to get uncomfortable, you are correct.
(Those insane skis again) But maybe slightly less uncomfortable than you thought? Maybe? Nu’chaka takes the superheroes to his dad, who wants a display of Superman’s powers in exchange for helping, so Supes juggles a bunch of his warriors. This makes him so happy the heroes are offered “their finest food,” a drink made of milk and cow blood. I am amazed to report that Wikipedia sez this is an actual ritual drink of the Maasai people! Not amazed that it’s real so much as amazed that Conway actually did any research. Very unusual in comics. Honestly, this is starting to feel like Conway had recently read about the Maasai and just wanted to put what he learned somewhere. Nu’chaka takes the gang to a place where one of their warriors recently disappeared. As Superman rips a fake stone door off the side of the mountain, Spidey senses they’ve found the missing warrior…
The guy is juiced up on red sun radiation like Spidey was earlier. Even his sword is dangerous to Superman, cutting his hair as he avoids an attack. Luckily, he analyzed the chemical composition of Spidey’s webbing with his super vision earlier (Word???) and figures he can use his heat vision to change its chemical makeup (Word??? Pre-Crisis Superman is crazy!) . As a result…
The heroes discover the mountain was secretly a missile silo, and it’s empty. Cut to Lex & Ock zooming up to the Injustice Gang’s orbital satellite headquarters! That’s… something. Luthor explains the Injustice Gang failed spectacularly because he wasn’t a member, so he stole their satellite. Also: He’s teleported Lois & MJ up here in advance, so the stage is set for a finale.
The way Doc Ock, usually presented as an evil genius mastermind himself, is relegated to the guy asking Lex what’s going on all the time is pretty strange. Conway wrote some truly insane Doc Ock stuff, I’m surprised. From there we briefly check in on Morgan Edge and J. Jonah Jameson comparing notes on running their businesses…
…and learn the news lab thing from earlier has launched in spite of the business this morning. As the satellite is set up, Luthor takes control of it, and somehow one of its “communication lasers” also doubles as a handy death ray, which he fires at the Earth below. Superman and Spider-Man finally make it to the Injustice satellite (Supers flying, Spidey in a space shuttle like Lex’s), but Superman sees the incredible damage the laser is doing to Earth and dives in to try to help.
The heroes wake up inside, where Lex helpfully explains his plan to blackmail the whole world with this laser, and then the heroes, who were naturally just pretending to be knocked out, leap into action…
Spidey’s webs aren’t working too well in zero gravity, giving Luthor a surprise advantage, while Ock uses the fact that Superman’s still a bit out of it to throw him into Spidey. Superman then talks about a martial arts technique he knows to use an opponent’s attack against them…
Ock’s glasses break, so he’s now fighting at a disadvantage, while Spider-Man leaps in and scores some hits against Luthor.
Luthor then reveals his real plan isn’t blackmail, but the literal destruction of “a planet which held my genius in contempt.” This proves a mistake, however.
Ock’s attack isn’t enough to stop the giant tidal wave headed for the US East Coast, but Superman is. Using his incredible speed, he breaks the sound barrier and creates a wall of sound to oppose the wall of water, and it works. Then, we wrap things up, like, super quick.
Weird thing to say in front of MJ, Spidey, that she’s your girl. In an epilogue, JJJ & Edge are comparing notes with Lois & MJ when Clark & Peter show up. Clark’s used an automatic video camera to get great footage for his network, while Peter’s done his usual thing and gotten some photos. Edge decides maybe Kent can anchor their national coverage after all, and JJJ even thinks about giving Peter a raise. Maybe. And so…
That was a wild one. You really gotta go all-out when you’re bringing the two biggest icons in superheroes together. It became pretty obvious that Superman outclasses Spider-Man at every turn, but Conway did his best to keep Spidey relevant as things got more intense. Not a very good showing for Lois & MJ, and that detour with the Maasai was really weird, but all told, I think they did a pretty good job on this. As it happens, the heroes would meet again in 1981, in the final Marvel Treasury Edition, to battle Dr. Doom and The Parasite (We’ll see that later). They also both appeared in the 1990s Marvel Vs. DC miniseries (Also on the docket), and I believe Spidey was a small part of the Justice League/Avengers crossover of the early 2000s (Got that, too, but it’s outside my current range), and that’s their whole team-up history.
And that’s it for this era. A very short block, I know, but we’ll make up for that with an extra-long chunk when we revisit it. Just a lot of things in this period that are kinda spoilery since I haven’t posted what comes before it yet, and this is the best solution I have. Next up: We jump from 1976 to 1978, and the debut of writer Marv Wolfman in ASM 182.