Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #142, Marvel Team-Up #143
Cover Date: Jun-Jul 84
Title: "Foiled!" / "Shifts and planes"
Credits:
David Michelinie - Writer
Greg LaRocque - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker

Review/plot:
I know David Michelinie can be a good writer. I've read good stories by him before and after these issues. So i don't know what happened here. I know these Team-Up issues didn't always get the same level of attention as other books (the exception, of course is the Claremont/Byrne issues), but we're basically introducing the two newest Avengers to the larger Marvel audience here, so you'd think a little more effort would be made to ensure that their characterizations were correct and that they were in a good plot.

The plot is very basic, and not really enough for two issues. In the first, a crazy scientist tries to steal some objects to complete a machine that he's working on. He's come to believe that the world is overpopulated and he's going to solve that in the simplest way possible - by shunting a large percentage of the population into other random dimensions. Both Spidey and Captain Marvel are very flat in these issues. And look at this clunky dialogue. It's like something you'd read in a Marvel coloring book.

But none of this is too surprising for MTU. And the plot is ridiculous, very "DC" to me, but again, it's Marvel Team-Up, so i'll live with it, right?

Then, at the end of #142, Captain Marvel winds up stuck in her energy form. And at the beginning of #143, she's blubbering like a baby (this opening splash page was drawn and inked by an uncredited Bill Sienkiewicz, according to the lettercol in issue #148).

Ugh. CM is supposed to be a strong woman. And this isn't the first time her powers have gone haywire. So the idea that she'd immediately start tearing up is just wrong.

Then Starfox and Spider-Man discover that the machine that the crazy scientist created didn't get destroyed; it just got shunted to another dimension. And that machine could solve Captain Marvel's problem. So they travel to the other dimension, and it's this stupid Mad Max barbarian world where the men tribe hate the women tribe.

And Starfox gets hit on by the ladies.

I know he's Eros and he's a flirt, but this is done very badly. He's nothing like the character is Roger Stern's Avengers.

I thought the scientists goons look a lot like Secret Empire goons due to their color schemes. But it's just a coincidence.

But what is Captain Marvel doing in the background, there? Punching people with her Light Fists?

One of the McGuffins that the crazy scientist needs to steal is made by Roxxon. It's "technafoil, a miracle conducting material that when used with advanced generators, could power the entire city of New York -- for what it costs today to merely light the Rockerfeller Christmas Tree". Roxxon is normally the stand-in for Evil Corporations, so it's nice to see that they actually serve a legitimate purpose as well.

One thing i will say about this comic. It definitely does have Jarvis getting terrorized by an extra-dimensional monster.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Avengers #245-246. Captain Marvel is "taking advantage of some rare time off" to visit a museum and Starfox has a date with the Rockettes. Issue #246 has a number of the Avengers attending a party, so we can assume there is a lull in their activity between #245 and #246. The MCP places Spider-Man here between Amazing Spider-Man #254-255.

References:

• Spider-Man is still tired from fighting in Secret Wars.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

can Captain Marvel "tear up" if she's stuck in pure energy form...? I'm overthinking comics again.

Can she have all the hundreds of perfectly recreated light hairs needed to form that afro? Can she smile? Crying is no stranger. If you think about it, she has a very strange power set.