Issue(s): Marvel Team-Up #19, Marvel Team-Up #20
Cover Date: Mar-Apr 74
Title: "The coming of ... Stegron, the dinosaur man!" / "Dinosaurs on Broadway!"
Credits:
Len Wein - Writer
Gil Kane / Sal Buscema - Penciler
Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia, & Sal Trapani / Mike Esposito & Frank Giacoia - Inker

Review/plot:
The opening page of issue #19 promises the "villain-event of the year", but it's just Stegron. It's amazing how un-original he is. His origin is exactly the same as the Lizard's, to the point where Vincent Stegron (yes, that's his name) was a protegee of Doc Connors, and he used the process that turned Connors into the Lizard on himself, except he used dinosaur cells instead of lizard cells. Same origin, same powers, ssssssame manner of ssssssspeaking, etc.

But whatever, who doesn't love Gil Kane dinosaurs?

I've always wondered what Marvel would do if it turns out that theories that dinosaurs actually had feathers turns out to be true. I realize the answer today is probably "nothing" but with a more old school regime it would have lead to some interesting retcons.

Obviously since Stegron could only get his dino-cells in the Savage Land, Ka-Zar is issue #19's co-star.

He's left behind and replaced by the Black Panther when Stegron launches an ark full of dinosaurs and heads to New York in issue #20 (Kane is also replaced by Sal Buscema).

In what looks to me to be a scene that deliberately parallels Gwen Stacy's death in a way that shows the Black Panther as superior to Spider-Man, BP catches Spidey as he falls from Stegron's ship. The Panther says "If my catch is not absolutely perfect, I will surely break my quarry's neck".

The two heroes meet at Curt Connors lab. Since it was Connors' process that created Stegron, Connors is charged with creating a cure. Spidey and the Panther go after Stegron, who is leading a dinosaur rampage through the city.

Spidey and BP manage to rescue MJ from being crushed in the stampede. They web up all the dinos and drown Stegron in the Hudson river.

This issue is part of the loose "They" story that ran through a few issues of Marvel Team-Up, and then a few other places before resolving years later in Hulk #238-243. Issue #19 has Stegron explicitly referencing "They".

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 4 - first Stegron. Additionally, this issue is used in both Marvels: Eye of the Camera and Code of Honor as an example of the crazy stuff that happens to regular New Yorkers. Part of the "They" saga that concludes in Hulk #243.

Chronological Placement Considerations: MCP places this before Jungle Action #6 and between Amazing Spider-Man #131-132. Black Panther says "It felt good battling alongside the Avengers once more, but until the trouble in my homeland is settled I cannot long remain away from it".

References:

• Spider-Man first visited the Savage Land in Amazing Spider-Man #103-104.
  
• The Lizard was seen in "countless issues of the web-slinger's own mag". I was able to count 15. The first time was Amazing Spider-Man #6 and the last time as the Lizard was Amazing Spider-Man #102, but he's also appeared as Doc Connors since then.
  
• Spider-Man got a lift to the Savage Land from SHIELD because Spider-Man helped them with the Grey Gargoyle in Marvel Team-Up #13. Frankly, since Vincent Stegron was working for SHIELD, you'd think they'd help him for free and maybe send in a little back-up as well, but i think the idea was to see if Spider-Man could help Stegron as a favor to Connors without alerting the authorities. It didn't work out that way.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I kinda like Stegron; unlike Connors, who accidentally became the Lizard, Stegron is a dude who just really, really wanted to be a dinosaur man. How many of us achieve our dreams so completely?

Stegron looks like Gil Kane took his design of Tomar Re from the Green Lantern Corps and tweaked it to look more villainous.

"How many of us achieve our dreams so completely?"

This hadn't occurred to me before, but it's a really good point. Curt Connors is a man who wanted to invent something that would regrow his arm, and instead he invented something that turned him into an evil lizard. You would wonder why Spidey ever goes to Connors for science help after that. But Peter himself is no better, he tried to invent a cure for his powers, but instead invented something that made him grow 4 extra arms, which doesn't seem the sort of thing you could invent by accident. It's literally the opposite of what he was actually trying to do.

Meanwhile, you've got Reed Richards unable to build a spacecraft that shields passengers from cosmic rays, despite the fact that even a layman like Ben Grimm knows that's what's required, and Doom's maths are bad that his inventions blow up and permanently scar his face. The Beast, X-Men's science expert, accidentally permanently mutates himself into a non-human form. And I wouldn't trust Hank Pym to fix my boiler in case he unintentionally turned it into an indestructible super-intelligent robot that wants to wipe out the human race.

Meanwhile, Stegron. Wants results: gets results. Vote STEGRON for SCIENTIST SUPREME.

Sorry, I meant SSSSCIENTIST SSSUPREME.

By the time I was reading books drawn by Gil Kane he had a Marty Feldman-like articulation of the eyes he drew that really threw my appetite off. It didn’t seem to be as pronounced in his earlier work? Did it?

Stegron got an action figure back in the nineties.

https://www.figurerealm.com/actionfigure?action=actionfigure&id=9819

Man was the reveal of "they" a total let down to me!
After years of wondering who "they" were, "they" turn out to be 2 unknowns (to me) and a daff old Roman, who I didn't even rate when he wasn't old.
This was maybe the first time I felt Marvel let me down in the sense that the cool/awesome story/history factor hinted at, no promised!, in those ubiqitous footnotes, didn't pan out at all. "They" totally didn't live up to that 'promise'. "They" were wack.