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Post by Ozymandias on Mar 21, 2015 17:29:43 GMT -5
I still love MTU, perhaps wrongly, but it hit me where I lived when I was just a kid and it's now in my DNA. I accept that my argument is imperfect and I apologize for frustrating you. Let's agree to disagree and try to find more common ground.  The concept was wrong, but that doesn't mean you can't still pull a good story off. In fact, there's an issue of MTU in my Top 100. No need for apologizing, only when someone insults me, do I expect an apology, that's not the case here (compare with this post). And even when an apology is in order, I ask for it in private. Forums are for the exchange of ideas, personal grievances are best resolved, among the individuals involved. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Mar 31, 2015 22:37:58 GMT -5
Perhaps a partial answer is that so much of what makes Spider-Man great during this period is his milieu, the stresses that plague Peter Parker, and his supporting cast. Lifted out of this rich environment, the character loses certain qualities that are integral to him. Some Silver-Age enthusiasts have cited Marvel Team-Up as the point where Spider-Man "jumps the rails" and sacrifices a good bit of what makes him unique in order to fully integrate into the MU. I strongly disagree […] Far from diminishing the character, I felt MTU enhanced and expanded Spider-Man's prestige within the greater cosmology. I've bolded the parts of your posts, I have trouble reconciling. I can see, how some may consider "Spider-Man's prestige" being augmented, by his interaction with other characters in the MU, but that would also hold true, for all of his other guest appearances. The thing is, they also took Spider-Man out of his "environment", "diminishing the character". SHOCKINGLY I am going to defend Marvel Team-Up.
I don't think it diminished the character at all - In fact, I think it added a lot to Spider-man, and you got to see sides of Spider-man that would never have been apparent in his own series.
Note: Spider-man. Not Peter Parker.
Spider-man is a social construct. Spider-man alone is Peter Parker, but Spider-man with anyone else - enemy, ally, bystander, what-have-you, adopts a completely different mode of speaking and even perception of the world. Team Up gave us a sense of how Spider-man reacted to a huge variety of situations. Not Peter Parker, like the John Jameson runaway space shuttle in ASM # 1 where Spider-man was alone, but Spider-man! Marvel Team-Up gave Spider-man (not Peter) a lot of screen-time, which he never really had before, and that both broadened and deepened the character.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 31, 2015 23:56:05 GMT -5
I loved Marvel Team-Up for a while in the 1970s, and I think Reptisaurus's comments are very perceptive.
I never thought of it that way, but it makes so much sense.
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 1, 2015 2:04:14 GMT -5
I loved Marvel Team-Up for a while in the 1970s, and I think Reptisaurus's comments are very perceptive. I never thought of it that way, but it makes so much sense. What's new to his argument, compared to the one, Phil was making? It's basically the same, but shielded behind the old concept of "less is more", which I never bought in the first place. |
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Apr 1, 2015 7:33:15 GMT -5
I have not read as many Spidey Silver age cross overs but I am always on the lookout for these types of appearances. I do own DD #17 which is the ish he appears in for the first time with DD (I believe) and it is not that bad.
However, even going into the Bronze Age, I have X-Men #123 and Spidey is in it briefly but then just disappears halfway through the story. It was like they didn't know what to do with him so they just had him swing off and do his own thing rather than help the X-Men.
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 1, 2015 8:20:57 GMT -5
I do own DD #17 which is the ish he appears in for the first time with DD (I believe) and it is not that bad. First Spidey-DD team-up, was in Amazing Spider-Man #16, then Daredevil #16-17. In these early guest appearances, Lee showed Peter's environment to the reader, even in a foreign book, because it was an essential part of the character, whereas in MTU it was barely recognizable (when mentioned at all). |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Apr 1, 2015 18:30:21 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up is really not a Peter Parker book, or a relationship drama book. So if you're major interest is Pete as a character, this will not be the book for you.
It's a book about Spider-man, and (in a greater sense)a book about world-building a fictional universe. So it's appeal is pretty different from the regular Spider-man series.
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Post by Ozymandias on Apr 2, 2015 1:57:00 GMT -5
It's a book about Spider-man, and (in a greater sense)a book about world-building a fictional universe. Spider-man was also present in other comics (most notably ASM). Even if he wasn't the sole focus of those, you could see him in action. World-building was there in the MU from the very beginning. The only new thing MTU offered, was a permanent scenario, for other characters to be paraded, in front of Spider-man fans. It was just a marketing tool. I fail to recognize any artistic improvement, brought forth, by the basic concept behind this series. |
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Post by kongat44 on Jun 14, 2015 23:32:15 GMT -5
Not to discuss Marvel Team Up, but to answer the question of the thread, "Why was every Silver Age Spider-Man guest appearance so bad?". Well that FF #73 along with Amazing Spider-Man #59 were my introduction to Marvel, so I have no complaints about them. It wasn't till I read the complete Ditko run in the 80's that I even have a thought on this topic, while many fine artists worked on those guest starring stories, and one guy supposedly wrote them all, the answer lies in the fact that Steve Ditko did not make any of those issues. The same thing happened in Amazing Spider-Man #8 which has two stories, one by Lee/Ditko, and the other by Lee/Kirby, and Spidey just isn't himself in that Kirby story, the art is fine by itself, but the essence of Spider-Man is just not there, and neither is Peter Parker as it was in most of those cases. So I think that is the reason right there, we only get half the character, just the guy in the suit, and even at that, it is not the same guy in the suit, so actually it's two reasons. The Lee Ditko stories just knew something about that character that was not pulled off by the other artists, no matter how skilled. I did however, when I was much younger enjoyed many of those cross overs, Spidey was in them after all.
This is of coarse not fact, just my opinion.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Jun 15, 2015 0:37:35 GMT -5
It's a book about Spider-man, and (in a greater sense)a book about world-building a fictional universe. Spider-man was also present in other comics (most notably ASM). Even if he wasn't the sole focus of those, you could see him in action. World-building was there in the MU from the very beginning. The only new thing MTU offered, was a permanent scenario, for other characters to be paraded, in front of Spider-man fans. It was just a marketing tool. I fail to recognize any artistic improvement, brought forth, by the basic concept behind this series. It was a marketing tool, but also a way for lesser known characters to get exposure. If a Spider-Man fan was compelled to check out Moon Knight or Man-Thing, or whoever, I think that's a good thing. I also thing it was a good bang for your buck if you were a Spider-Man fan who wanted a sampling of the greater Marvel Universe, or a casual fan who wanted one title, staring the biggest character, that gave a sampling of the rest of the line. MTU, Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents were always some of the funniest comics of the Bronze Age and often featured a lot of top talent (Byrne, Aparo, Garcia-Lopez). I've always been a fan of those titles. |
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Post by Ozymandias on Jun 15, 2015 8:56:40 GMT -5
I also think it was a good bang for your buck if you were a Spider-Man fan who wanted a sampling of the greater Marvel Universe, or a casual fan who wanted one title, staring the biggest character, that gave a sampling of the rest of the line. For fans with that particular interest, it might've been a good purchase. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying that the concept wasn't novel, or even unique. It was a question of applying a formula, which was seen occasionally in other titles, on a regular basis. Furthermore, this formula almost invariably meant, that Peter played a symbolic role. |
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