Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up annual #5
Cover Date: 1982
Title: "Serpent rising"
Credits:
Mark Gruenwald - Writer
Mark Gruenwald - Penciler
Jim Mooney - Inker
Tom DeFalco - Editor

Review/plot:
This issue has Mark Gruenwald on art, which is pretty rare. He's a fine artist drawing in the Marvel house style for the period.

The Serpent Crown being held at Project Pegasus begins possessing the staff there, including Quasar.

Quasar manages to get an alert out to the Thing before becoming completely possessed.

Spider-Man, Dr. Strange...

...and the Scarlet Witch also become aware of the Crown's activation...

...and show up at Project Pegasus to investigate as well.

The crown has the Project Pegasus staff use a multi-dimensional device to pull in hundreds of Serpent Crowns from alternate realities. Once they've gathered enough, they are all merged into one giant Crown.

Spider-Man uses the Cosmic Cube that Pegasus was also researching to repel the threat...

...but the effort exhausts the Cube's energies.

This was a pretty good story, but man, Gruenwald sure liked snakes.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - technically, this should prevent the idea of being able to pull in Serpent Crowns from alternate realities, since they're all destroyed in this issue.

Chronological Placement Considerations: It's pretty context free for all these characters; any gap in their individual plotlines will do.

References:

• The Thing gave the Serpent Crown to Project Pegasus in Marvel Two-In-One #67.
  
• Spider-Man was poisoned by snake men in Marvel Team-Up #111. Dr. Strange cured him of the initial poison, but it left a residual effect that makes Spider-Man sensitive to the actions of serpent gods.
  
  

• The Serpent Crown tried to possess the Scarlet Witch previously in Marvel Two-In-One #66 and before that in Avengers #147.
  
• There's a series of scenes from the Serpent Crown's history. No footnotes. The first page's worth are from Kull and Conan comics.
  
  

  Then it's flashbacks from the Tales of Atlantis back-ups that ran in Sub-Mariner #62 through Sub-Mariner #67.

  

  Then Paul Destine's use of the crown in Sub-Mariner #7.

  

  Then the Roxxon story from Captain America #181-182. Then the Avengers and Marvel Team-Up stories listed in bullet #1 above.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I loved this issue as a kid. even tho i knew none of the history and most characters were new to me, this was the first issue that pulled upon that shared universe concept we all love so much.

that and spider-man being the big hero by being the one to get the cube.

Ive also never liked Quasar from this issue since he spent most of it as a bad guy.

I also remember Spider-man webbing up three thieves who were all black. I only remember because I think it was the last time I saw a marvel street gang that wasn't a mix of ethnicities.

Ah, the grand old days when both Kull and Conan could be referenced by name in a mainstream Marvel comic. I know it was only a few years later when Marvel Saga started up and they couldn't (or chose not to) reference either by name but had both show up without their faces visible.

Also, regarding Gru's love of serpents, I wonder if he regretted taking the serpent crown offstage since it would have been the ultimate Holy Grail for his later Serpent Society and a throwback to their initial mission as the Serpent Squad. Then again, it may have even been a conscious choice by him since he deliberately designed the Society as a more all-purpose mercenary organization as opposed to the Squad, whose history was intrinsically linked to the Crown.