Marvel Team-Up #20 - Marvel Comics

MARVEL TEAM-UP No. 20, April 1974

Rammed with all the “monsters -- mayhem -- and mile-high murder” it’s cover illustration proudly promised, there couldn’t have been many Marvelites in April 1974 who were disappointed with Len Wein’s narrative for Issue Twenty of “Marvel Team-Up”. In fact, considering that this nineteen-page periodical’s plot contains a cataclysmic conclusion to Vincent Stegron’s spurious claim of ownership towards Manhattan Island “in the name of the Holy Dinossssaur Empire”, the lightning fast athleticism of the Black Panther, and an exhilaratingly dangerous appearance by a decidedly reckless Mary Jane Watson, it is incredible that the American author managed to cram into his script as much pulse-pounding excitement as he did.

For starters, Spider-Man’s punch-laden battle with the Dinosaur Man above New York City sets this publication’s prompt-paced tone perfectly, as Peter Parker’s alter-ego smacks his mutated foe about the head with a series of well-placed wallops. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this early confrontation ultimately doesn’t end well for Web-head, but the fact the costumed crimefighter is ultimately defeated by Stegron because the villain can “rend your puny webbing assunder -- and ussse my tail -- to strike” provides an important plot point, as it results in this tale’s lead protagonists having to brew a batch of unstable stronger webbing before they can face the geneticist in a final showdown.

In addition, rather than take the easy route of simply depicting a lengthy sequence involving the “accursssed Jack-in-the-Box” T’Challa and Spidey fighting a horde of dinosaurs, the Shazam Award-winner instead elects to weave a secondary yarn throughout the action, involving Mary Jane Watson desperately searching for Parker after discovering the Daily Bugle photographer “hasn’t been at his apartment since yesterday”. This pursuit of her friend quite logically takes the “redhead” to the over-sized lizards’ stampede threatening Broadway and places the heroine directly in the path of a toppling brontosaurus; “No--! She’s standing right where that blasted dinosaur is gonna land --”

Sal Buscema’s pencils are also fully able to imbue this comic with all the exhilarating dynamism Wein’s script requires, especially when it comes to Stegron’s truly vicious swipes with his spiked tail. Whether it be the Black Panther’s superhuman suppleness as he acrobatically swings beneath a Quin-Jet in order to catch a falling Spider-Man, numerous dinosaurs rampaging through Central Park or Watson’s anguished horror when she realises her headstrong wilfulness has placed her in deadly danger, the Brooklyn-born artist brings each and every sequence to sense-shattering life.

Writer: Len Wein, Artist: Sal Buscema, and Inkers: Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito