Here we go with more Marvel Team-Up. One of the 77. Chris Claremont with the words, the great Bob McLeod on the lines. McLeod is a great penciler and inker, and here he’s doing both. Crazy how long people work in comics. The first time I ever saw McLeod’s work was in comics published in 1992, I think. This is ‘79. That’s a long time. Anyway, it’s the Guardians of the Galaxy. No, not those Guardians of the Galaxy, the original recipe, superheroes from the 31st Century with basically nothing to do with the ones in the movies. So how will they team-up with Spider-Man? Let’s find out.
Moses Magnum! Last seen in Giant-Size #4. I’ve thought he has a great name for decades, I love that Spider-Man is just randomly mad at a building to start.
I just want to take back everything I’ve done in my life, go back to my youth, and dedicate myself to crafting a life where one day, I, too, can be a “renegade NASA scientist.” Incredible. On the run from NASA! Probably stole the deed to the Moon. Sadly, those guys are already gone in the next panel, and the journalism student who inexplicably goes by “Rap” Reynolds, has overheard their nefarious scheme: There’s a space station full of secrets in orbit around the Earth, and they plan to hijack it. Ol’ “Rap” is getting real high on himself when he hears movement and sees Martinex, the crystal guy from the Guardians!
Oh, wow, I didn’t know The Guardians spent time in “the present.” I really only know them from their early 90s comic series, though I know 4 of them have been around since the 60s. So, it turns out, the space station the DRC is planning to hijack is the Guardians’ homebase, Drydock. The DRC know about it because of stolen SHIELD files, because SHIELD is nothing but bumbling incompetents, I guess. We only hear about them when they’ve screwed up or being turned evil or whatever, jeez. Martinex meets up with fellow Guardians Nikki and Starhawk and tells them the bad news, including the detail that he might’ve been photographed. Nikki sets out to destroy any footage the kid might have, while the other 2 go to destroy any records DRC has of their base or tech. Starhawk is worried they’ll change the present so drastically that the Guardians’ future will cease to exist. Speaking of “Rap” Reynolds, he avoids a bunch of guards and then successfully rappels down the side of a skyscraper in broad daylight. This is pretty absurd. He does all that and then just gets grabbed by a guard on the sidewalk, who takes his stuff and threatens to kill him, and that’s when Spider-Man finally re-enters the picture.
Nikki, whose hair appears to be, you know, FIRE, instantly hails a cab. That’s New York, I guess! Of course, Spidey swings right after them, and when she gets out, he’s waiting for her.
Martinex runs in and stops them from fighting by showing Spidey his Avengers ID card. The Guardians have been made temporary Avengers while in this time, and Martinex quickly brings our hero up to speed. Meanwhile, turns out the blond goon from before is part of a supervillain duo from Hulk comics called Hammer & Anvil, who get crazy powers by being linked together by a gold tube called “The Synthecon,” and they work for the DRC now. These are some bargain basement lames, right here, my goodness. Anyway, Spider-Man is on the hunt for the wannabe reporter kid when he runs into them.
Oof. I am just not willing to pretend 2 goofballs strung together by a gold chain are a threat today. I can’t believe Claremont jobbed Spider-Man out to these losers. But there’s no time for that, because they have company.
It only gets worse as these two idiots hold their own in a fight against 4 actual superheroes for more than 2 pages before their inevitable defeat.
I wonder if this kid ever comes back. Turns out, nope! This was a weak one. Also, depending on when you ask, there’s at least two more Guardians from this team. Where are they? Did they come to the present or not? Ah, well. I’ll probably never know. But, hey, next issue has Black Panther in it! Hopefully it’s not as bad as this one.
This month’s letter column is full of interesting info. It explains that MTU 76 & 77 were supposed to be an Annual, and then the material that ran as 80 & 81 was actually going to be 76 & 77, but scheduling got weird and so 4 out of 6 consecutive issues were about Dr. Strange. They also shed a bit of light on the very vexing Cissy Ironwood, saying they decided to introduce MTU’s own love interest for Peter to avoid conflicts with the other titles, like when Peter & MJ were still together in MTU 79 even tho they shouldn’t be. Hey, remember how, last block, continuity was so tight that ASM 163, TAC 1, Captain America 203 AND MTU 52 all took place on the same day and it all made sense? And now, scant years later, they’ve so given up on trying to keep the 3 Spider-Man comics straight that they just dropped a random new girl into Peter’s life. Man. What a mess. Of course, this type of mess is what happens when your star writers are allowed to be their own editors, a status quo that caused Marvel no end of problems in the 70s, and which Jim Shooter put a stop to when he took the helm.