Collecting Marvel Team-Up #1-11.

In Marvel Team-Up #1, by Roy Thomas and Ross Andru, Spider-Man teams-up with the Human Torch against the Sandman. The Sandman shows up at a beach where Peter Parker is taking pictures. Peter has a date with Gwen Stacy, so he tries to dump the Sandman on the Fantastic Four. The Human Torch is the only one home, so the pair of them end up working together to fight the Sandman. Gerry Conway is the writer for #2, in which Spidey teams-up with the Human Torch again. The Sandman escaped at the end of the last issue, so this time he brings the Wizard and the Trapster along to fight the heroes. Spidey teams-up with the Human Torch yet again in #3, this time against Morbius the Living Vampire.

According to Gerry Conway's introduction to this collection, the original plan was for this series to be a buddy book with Spidey and the Human Torch in every issue, but it was decided that it would be too complicated to weave all the continuity between the three books (Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Marvel Team-Up) written by two different people (Stan Lee on Amazing Spider-Man and Fantastic Four and Gerry Conway on Marvel Team-Up). Oh, how times change.

Spidey finally gets a whole bunch of new partners to team-up with in #4, by Conway and Gil Kane. This time Spidey teams-up with the X-Men. Peter Parker is having nightmares about Morbius, so he heads to Professor Hans Jorgenson, an old colleague of Michael Morbius. Morbius decides to visit Jorgenson as well and ends up kidnapping him. Spidey arrives too late and ends up being accused of the kidnapping. Professor Xavier was also a colleague of Jorgenson, so when he sees news reports of the kidnapping, he sends the X-Men to find him. The X-Men's comic mostly consisted of reprints at this time, so it was nice to see them in an original adventure. Beast was the only X-Man that didn't take part as he had his own problems to deal with in his series (Amazing Adventures, when he first gained his furry ape appearance).

Spidey teams-up with the Vision in #5. Spidey encounters the Vision having a bit of a funny turn, so ends up taking him to a hospital to perform a bit of super-science. Spidey detects that the Vision has two sets of brain waves, one of which is coming from the Baxter Building. Spidey and the Vision investigate and find out that the Puppet Master has taken over the building while the Fantastic Four is away. The story continues in #6 as the Thing arrives home with his girlfriend Alicia Masters. The Thing takes the Puppet Master away to be interrogated and discovers that the villain might have a possible cure for Alicia's blindness, but it turns out to all be a trap and the Puppet Master is working with the Mad Thinker.

Spidey teams-up with Thor in #7, by Conway and Andru. A troll by the name of Kryllk the Cruel has acquired an artefact called the Dark Crystal (no, the other one) and plans to use it to destroy Asgard. Spidey teams-up with the Cat in #8, by Conway and Jim Mooney. The Cat (Tigra's old superhero identity before she turned into a cat-lady) arrives in New York on the heels of the Man-Killer. I was always more familiar with Greer Grant's Tigra persona, so it was a surprise to see her act like such a staunch feminist. Nowadays all Tigra wants is a big hug.

The colletion ends up with a three-part story in #9-11 by Conway, Len Wein, Andru and Mooney. Spidey teams-up with Iron Man in #9 when he finds out that the Avengers have been captured by Kang the Conqueror. The pair try to get into Avengers Mansion, but are picked up by Zarrko the Tomorrow Man. It is revealed that Zarrko has dropped time bombs on Earth in the 20th Century to aid in a war he is having with Kang. The heroes decide to head back to their own time to find help. Spidey teams-up with the Human Torch yet again in #10 as they search the globe for Zarrko's time bombs. Spidey teams-up with the Inhumans in #11 so they can reverse-engineer one of the time bombs to get to the time period where Kang and Zarrko are fighting each other and put an end to the whole mess.

This series would have made more sense if it was called Spider-Man Team-Up as he was the lead in most of the issues. The Human Torch was the lead in six of the issues, the Hulk was the lead in four and even Aunt May got to be the lead in one issue! The series ran from 1972 to 1985, where it was replaced by Web of Spider-Man.

The writing is pretty overblown, but I guess that was the style back then. besides, I have always had a soft spot for all that melodramatic narration. The art in the collection is fairly decent as well. The various artists in this series won't ever trouble my favourites artist lists, but they're fine enough. I believe that John Byrne pencilled some of the issues in the 80's, so there's a good reason for me to check out the later issues of this series. I'll just have to make do with the other guys for now.

My rating: 3 stars.