Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
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Marvel Team-Up #139
Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #139
Cover Date: Mar 84
Title: "Everybody loves somebody sometime!"
Credits:
Cary Burkett - Writer
Brian Postman - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker
Review/plot:
Here's a pretty straightforward story. Peter Parker is on assignment, photographing celebrity actress Julie Winston (who looks a lot like Cybil Shepard to me).
She's kidnapped by a Dreadnought.
Julie is dating ex-Howling Fury Dino Manelli. Nick Fury and Dum Dum get involved to help him get his girl back...
...but it turns out that Julie is actually working for the Maggia and the whole plot was a scam, and poor Dino's heart is broken.
The artwork is pretty amateurish, but it's a decent enough little story.
Quality Rating: C
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: See the Chronological Placement Considerations for Amazing Spider-Man #249-251. This issue takes place during Amazing #251. Spider-Man is using his Spider-Tracker Receiver this issue.
References:
- Nick Fury mentions that he's had Dreadnought run-ins before. No footnotes, but the first was in Strange Tales #154, and there was one more recently in Iron Man #129. Fury mentions that Hydra sold the Dreadnought plans to the Maggia.
- Events from Amazing Spider-Man #249-250 are referenced.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
Cary Burkett primarily wrote for DC, usually on Superman and Warlord.
You call that amateurish?
Pull out some 90s Marvel and read them. I've been going through Darkhawk lately and the Starlin Infinity stories, and yea. There is art in the second 25 issues of Darkhawk especially that makes this stuff look like Jack Kirby.
This looks like fairly generic stuff that at least seems familiar with the house style and how a comic should be drawn. After Shooter that became a real rarity, so you ought to appreciate these comics - if this timeline project ever gets to the 90s, you may look back at this issue with fondness.
One thing i've definitely learned to appreciate as i've worked on this project is the way even "average" or "bad" artists from the 80s and earlier typically had a great sense of storytelling flow, layouts, and basic competence that essentially gets thrown out in the 90s and really doesn't come back.
I still think Postman's art looks pretty stiff here, with people's arms and legs seemingly frozen with paralysis, but i get what you're saying.
This was my second issue of MTU, at the beginning of my monthly collecting! I was little enough to not mind the DeFalco corniness (the Sandman's gone straight, how cool!); it seemed a style to bring home the sentiment, when you are still at the beginning of your reading life.
This one's even better written. And it's a way to get a Spider-Man comic every month, too, AND meet a new hero! Dino's predicament felt plenty grown-up to me, and the Dreadnought was neat. But Marvel wasn't doing much with the Howlers in those years, and even Nick Fury was still miles away from the popularity that's come his way.
Brian Postman got a couple of Spider-Woman issues, but I don't recall seeing him much after this. I care a lot about the value of storytelling in art; it's that thing that the new reader needs and loves, without necessarily visibly noticing it.
The cover to this issue looks like a callback to a Steranko splash page in Strange Tales #154 of the Dreadnought crashing his way through the Heli-Carrier, tweaked to account for Spidey, of course.
