Issue(s): Team America #6
Cover Date: Nov 82
Title: "Dead water!"
Credits:
Bill Mantlo - Writer
Alan Kupperberg - Penciler
Vincent Colletta - Inker
Linda Grant - Assistant Editor
Tom DeFalco - Editor

Review/plot:
We continue with the formulaic solo period. R.U. Reddy goes to visit his old girlfriend, who is investigating a chemical spill. The company responsible for the spill, Sweetwater Chemical, is run by a Herbert Gutman (hah hah, Gutman! He's fat!), and he's developed a living slime that he's trying to sell to the Village People of Crime.

Then Reddy gets knocked out and the Marauder saves the day.

You might say that living slimes can be fun, and that's certainly an amusing array of villains, but it's all handled as boringly as possible. The slime is barely featured, and only Gutman appears outside that one scene and it's all just a big nothingburger. And the scripting is awful.

I guess i should say that a deviation from the formula here is that the Marauder appears when there are no other members of Team America around besides Reddy.

What's much more of a curiosity is the format of my copy of this particular comic. It's the same dimensions as a regular comic. It's got a price on the front, and normal indicia. But it's very thin, because there are no ads, and the last two pages are printed on the glossy back cover. This is the last page of the story, on the outside back cover:

So this must explain why we're going through these agonizing solo stories. Each toy came with a comic featuring the character in a solo book. The one ad in the book is an ad for the Team America toys, and yes, "each with own comic book". (Good god, does it look like they rolled up the comics??! The heathens! Mine seems unmutilated.)

No word on whether the next line of toys might have included some villains, including Desert Action Woody Allen.

Here are some bonus features that were included in the regular version of the book to fill out the remaining pages. Don't try these at home:

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Pushed back in publication time to account for a sober Iron Man's appearance in Team America #9.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

And yet that Captain America bike still doesn't have Billy.

Love that the ad refers to the "Team America team." As if you might not get that they're a team just from the name Team America.

I had two of these toys as a kid. One of the normal team and one of the Maurauder (on his chopper), but I don't recall having any comics with them (which I'd have noticed)

Gutman is from a Bogart movie. Probably a choice of Kupperberg who recognized the name and casted the actor to resemble the character.

FNORD - I'm assuming you don't have the original issue of this comic. You're missing out on Honcho's Racing Hints for "Going Fast..How The Pros Do It" and Honcho's Racing Hints for "Jumps." I scanned them as a PDF picture file, if you're interested.
There's also a House Ad for MTIO #93,ASM #234, MTU #123, and Ghost Rider #74. It says "Magnificence", Thy Name Is Marvel. I've scanned that as well.

Yeah, i guess because i have the toy insert versions i don't have these very special additional features. I'm sure everyone would love to get some tips from the pros on going fast and doing totally sweet jumps, so it's probably something you could attach in the forum if you're willing.

FNORD - I have no idea how to include attachments on the forum. Any tips?

Sorry, Clyde. Turns out you can't add attachments. I thought other people had uploaded images but i see now they were just linking to external sources. Good news is i've found the extra pages and added them to this entry.