Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #52
Cover Date: Dec 76
Title: "Danger: Demon on a rampage!"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker

Review/plot:
Bill Mantlo's run on Marvel Team-Up is interrupted by this issue by Gerry Conway that promotes both his new Spectacular Spider-Man series and Jack Kirby's Captain America run.

Spider-Man is swinging around when he notices one of the monsters coming out of the dimension that Captain America was trapped in during Captain America #201-203.

Captain America, and the band of crazies he was stuck with, soon follow.

Spider-Man tries to tell Captain America about the monster, but Cap is preoccupied by the Falcon's madness...

...and Spider-Man winds up just swinging off.

And that's how it comes to be that the demon teams up with Batroc!

I don't like the depiction of Batroc in this issue. I like my Batroc to be a little more honorable, and less a thief for his own sake than someone who rents out his fighting ability as a mercenary. But in this story, he's out for himself.

I have no problem with him befriending a lost monster, though.

Together, they try to steal some trans-uranium from a SHIELD hovercraft.

Unfortunately, Captain America and Spider-Man show up to ruin their fun.

Batroc is defeated easily enough, but the monster starts glowing and runs away.

This seems to be due to the monster's incompatibility with our world, and not because of the trans-uranium. I hoped the alien being a threat to our world might translate into Batroc teaming up with our heroes, but no dice.

Instead, despite some concern that the creature is just lost and confused...

...Captain America and Spider-Man kill it by blowing up a boat.

Silly fun (as long as we accept that the monster really was a killer, as Spider-Man concludes, and not a confused innocent), and i of course love the integration with Kirby's Captain America as well as the tie-ins with Spider-Man's regular books (see the References below). But it would have been better as a 12 issue series detailing the hijinks of Batroc and his alien monster friend.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This continues from Captain America #203. But this story also takes place after Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #1, which takes place during Amazing Spider-Man #163. So it's wheels within wheels, or at least issues within issues, and i've left some space between Cap #203 and this story. Which is fine because interdimensional teleportation doesn't have to be instantaneous.

References:

• Captain America and the Falcon were trapped in another dimension in Captain America #201-203.
  
• Spider-Man says to himself that he's got enough problems with the Tarantula being back in town, with a footnote to Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man #1. There's also a reference to Spider-Man breaking his camera in that issue.
  
• Batroc has been looking for an opportunity to perform a great crime like stealing a shipment of trans-uranium from a SHIELD hovercraft while partnered with an interdimensional monster (and that is pretty awesome!) ever since he lost to Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere #20.
  
• Batroc complains that Captain America has been humiliating him since Tales of Suspense #75.
  
• At the end of this issue, Peter and Mary Jane pick up Aunt May at the hospital, where she's been since Amazing Spider-Man #160. Mary Jane is still mad at Peter, but is talking to him, same as in PPTSS #1.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A