Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #110
Cover Date: Oct 81
Title: "Magma force!"
Credits:
David Michelinie - Script
Herb Trimpe - Plot
Herb Trimpe - Breakdowns
Mike Esposito - Finishes
Tom DeFalco - Editor

Review/plot:
A rare story where Herb Trimpe gets the plotting credit. This one seems to be designed to allow him to draw all sort of high tech machinery and vehicles.

It introduces a pretty uninspired villain called Magma (not the New Mutant)...

...who will nonetheless have a few additional appearances. Scripter David Michelinie in particular seems to have taken a liking to him.

This Magma is former a former engineer that ran a coal mining company. His wife was killed when she swerved off a cliff to avoid environmental protestors, and so he became a super-villain that wants to bury New York in a volcanic uprising.

He also takes credit for Mount St. Helens.

Magma's attack begins while Peter Parker is taking pictures at a Stark Industries press conference...

...so Spider-Man and Iron Man investigate. Spider-Man stays behind in Magma's underground base to disable Magma's volcano-making machine...

...while Iron Man fights Magma in New York.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first Magma (Jonathan Darque)

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Iron Man #150-151 and Amazing Spider-Man #221-222.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Michelinie really does seem to have a thing for generic armored villains, even outside of Iron Man stories. That's one aspect of his run on Amazing Spider-Man that got really tiring for me.

This is perhaps petty, but the lettering or at least the way the text/letters were rendered in the late Marvel Team Up run always bugged me. I'm not sure why--it didn't seem very dynamic and it also seemed to make already overly wordy, uninspired scripts seem that more dismal.