One of the 77. Batroc is way too close to The Tarantula’s turf for comfort, here. From the left? On a yellow background? Come on, Batroc! If you’re thinking “Now that Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito are doing Spectacular, who’s doing Team-Up?” well, obviously, the answer is Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito. And Gerry Conway wrote this one, too. Busy month for those guys. Spider-Man is swinging on his merry way when Off-Brand Abomination from the cover just appears out of a portal on the streets of New York.
So this is sort of implying it takes place directly after the events of TAC 1, which in turn took place between pages of ASM 163. Complicated.
This is all taking place during the events of Jack Kirby’s 3rd run on Captain America which is typically 70s Kirby in that it is gonzo. Other dimensions, cults, brainwash, you name it.
This is a very strange choice, to just drop into the middle of Kirby’s story for a second and then drop out. We cut to Batroc the Leaper being a jerk to his butler until a rumble down on the street alerts him to the monster from earlier thundering past. Batroc is a cartoon French mercenary who fights Captain America. This is a very Cap-centric issue. Batroc heads down to try to :make the monster his slave,” and just starts talking to it, which is surprisingly effective. But we cut away to…
So this is definitely still the same day Spidey fought Tarantula, and now he’s about to fight Batroc. So much kicking in a single 24 hours! Also, transuranium! Not being a science person, I didn’t know that’s a real term til now. Comics are educational! Things go south as Batroc has his new pet monster chuck a car through the SHIELD flying saucer.
Spider-Man, not a real football fan. Truly a hero after my own heart. Spidey tussles with Batroc while Cap tries to subdue the big monster, eventually putting them back to back like on the cover. Spidey complains he’s had a long day and wants to wrap this up, and Cap says to hold like that until both enemies lunge at the same time, allowing the heroes to duck and make them crash into each other like a cartoon. The collision puts Batroc down, but his buddy gets up, starts glowing, and runs off.
For Heaven’s sake, Fred. The monster finds its way onto a ferryboat, and the heroes arrive to try to stop it. Cap says they have to blow it up before it can pollute the city with its radiation. While he goes to sabotage the engine of the ferry to that aim, Spidey wrestles with the situation internally while wrestling with the monster externally. He’s not comfortable killing it, worrying it probably doesn’t even understand what’s going on. Correctly, even. As Cap works in the engine room, thinking to himself that the monster could be “a walking World War III,” Spidey keeps it busy upstairs.
This is the most in-continuity issue of Team-Up I’ve ever seen. Very tight coordination from the Spider-Office. I guess it helps that Conway did 2 of the 3 Spider-Titles this month, but there’s the Cap stuff, too. I don’t know what the Marvel Method necessarily looked like by this point. I know pretty much every writer after Stan took more and more responsibility for actually writing a story, but also still left a lot of the pacing and plotting up to the artist, to varying degrees. So you almost wonder if Conway spent the last several pages working so hard to justify blowing up the creature because that wasn’t his idea. Could be, maybe not. We’ll never know.