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Post by brutalis on Jan 26, 2017 8:48:34 GMT -5
Once upon a time the Big Two had their superstars team-up for monthly fun and games meant to enthrall and entertain us with tales of two heroes and/or villains coming together for a cuppa coffee or the elusive quick lunch break or to fight among themselves over the last doughnut. Other times it was lack of sales and they chose to combine two series into one. Whatever the case may be, these romps were meant to help draw attention to older characters and/or maintain copyrights on names but to us they were a way to finding new favorites or reminding of old favorites. What are your remembrances of the those glorious team-ups of the past?
Brave and the Bold teaming up Batman combining stunning Aparo art and insane Haney-verse logics was my 1st step into the teaming up world. These were always fun and interesting stories which never failed to draw me into purchasing them. Marvel Team-Up with Spidey was normally hit or miss for me but Marvel Two-In-One with Mama Grimm's favorite son Benjamin allowed me to get in on the ground floor from the very beginning and captured the pure essence of the Thing's begrudgingly grumpy yet always heroic self as he met and fought along the Marvel Universe's best and lowest.
When DC Comics Presents came along with Superman and the DCU hero's at first it made no sense as to why Superman of all people would need help from other hero's but with good stories and splendid art the series quickly pulled me in and i was buying it without fail. Marvel's Super-Villain Team-Up had the utterly brilliant combining of Doom and Namor but what should have been a great series seemed to lose itself and lost my interest yet the World's Finest made sense that Bats and Supes friendship and worlds would cross over and meet.
Hawkman and Atom becoming a tag team while seemingly odd actually seemed to work for these two and their friendship and teaming became genuine and really believable. Then Marvel joined up their stalwart 70's exploitation guys and the phenomenal and everlasting friends Powerman and Ironfist were the newest and seemingly longest lasting tag team around.
All of these provided new exposure to these hero's and allowed them to show off what made them great and special and even helped revive interest in them or others. So now: TAG, you are it! You may choose 3 of your liking and tell us of your favorites...
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 26, 2017 9:07:52 GMT -5
The best one was Bb. The worst was Marvel two in one.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2017 9:09:49 GMT -5
Brave and the Bold: in the 70s I was a huge Batman fan and to see him team up every month with other heroes was a treat. The stories were fun and Jim Aparo's art was superb. Some Brave and Bold favorites are #149 (Teen Titans), and the later 80s issues where he teams up with Huntress, the Earth-2 Robin, and an Earth 2 story featuring him and Catwoman. Others I enjoyed were when he teamed up with LSH, Firestorm, and Zatanna.
I enjoyed DC Comics Presents as well. I think the first one I can remember reading is a team up with him and Wonder Woman. They are hit by Cupid's arrows and fall for each other, much to Steve and Lois's dismay.
World's Finest: the ultimate buddies team up! Superman and Batman, plus when the book was dollar sized you read adventures of your other favorites. I still have my copy of #250 to this day and it is still a fun read!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2017 9:26:08 GMT -5
My Top Three
The Brave and the Bold - It has more variety
Marvel Team Up - It's surprises me when they teamed up certain heroes together
DC Comics Presents - A classic that never failed
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Post by dbutler69 on Jan 26, 2017 10:31:03 GMT -5
They're all great, because I love team-up books, but I have to go with Marvel Two-in-One. First, the Thing is a great character, and second, there were some great stories during that run, such as Project Pegasus, the Serpent Crown Affair, plus great individual issues such as #5 with the Guardian of the Galaxy, #86 with the Sandman, #50 with the Thing from 1961, Annual #7 with the Champion. Sure, there was the occasional stinker, and this title seemed to be a place to finish off stories from cancelled titles, but the good far outweighed the bad for me.
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Post by MDG on Jan 26, 2017 10:56:53 GMT -5
Brave and Bold, because even as it changed--from oddball team-ups, to Batman team-ups by Adams and Cardy, to the long Haney/Aparo run--stories were always pretty good, and sometimes exceptional.
DC Comics Presents, even though it could be very uneven.
Atom & Hawkman, even though it was like a boss trying not to fire two longtime employees who just weren't cuttin' it.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jan 26, 2017 12:31:48 GMT -5
I'd vote for Marvel Team-Up, specifically the near-forgotten Claremont/Byrne run which was excellant.
Second choice was Mark Grunewald's tenure on Marvel Two-In-One where he crafted an ongoing story arc involving innumerable heroes.
Dc Comics Presents was bland although Starlin's run was exceptional.
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Post by brutalis on Jan 26, 2017 13:14:11 GMT -5
Before anyone mentions it: i didn't include Secret Society of Super-Villains from DC as i have never seen or read an issue of it. It came and went before i had ever heard of it and for some reason i never picked up any issues. I know of it and have seen bits here and there on the internet is all, so i have no real connection to it which is why i left it off the list. Feel free to include as other  |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2017 14:36:16 GMT -5
If you have Power Man and Iron Fist, why not Captain America and the Falcon as a team-up book?
-M
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Post by brutalis on Jan 26, 2017 15:41:55 GMT -5
If you have Power Man and Iron Fist, why not Captain America and the Falcon as a team-up book? -M I had thought about Cap/Falc and Daredevil/Black Widow but totally blanked out on them when creating the list last night. Can edit choices and add if enough folks wish? Could also include Giant-Man/Wasp and/or Green Arrow/Speedy, Batman/Robin, Flash/Kid Flash and other such but i was really focusing on individual team-up comic series or hero's who had their own comic book series but where combined after diminishing sales. |
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Post by String on Jan 26, 2017 17:05:03 GMT -5
Marvel Team-Up - first came across it during Claremont & Bryne's short run. The wide variety of heroes teamed up with Spidey was always eye-catching and entertaining.
DC Comics Presents - because I liked Superman better than Batman
World's Finest - but the pair together is a hard combo to beat. The Super-Sons saga is still an all-time favorite.
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Post by Phil Maurice on Jan 26, 2017 20:10:51 GMT -5
Tough choice! I had to go with Marvel Team-Up for purely personal reasons. It was my first comic book subscription, earned by selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door in 1978, when I was 10. I caught the latter half of the Byrne/Claremont run, and it also introduced me to SNL, Jean DeWolff, and Wonder Man.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 26, 2017 22:14:45 GMT -5
Marvel Two-In-One was always great fun, for me, with Marvel Team-Up a close second. I love Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents; but, the two Marvel books had some more entertaining stories, for me. It also helped that they did some longer storylines, where other characters were weaved in, which made for some livelier tales. Project Pegasus was awesome and MTU had a good one where Black Widow had amnesia and Spider-man is trying to help her, while Viper and Silver Samurai hijack the SHIELD Helicarrier. Nick Fury and Shang Chi factored into the story, which built to a climax, where Viper was going to fly the carrier right into a joint session of Congress, when President Carter is speaking; well before 9/11 or Tom Clancy stole the idea.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2017 22:40:22 GMT -5
1. Brave & the Bold. Batman. Bob Haney. Jim Aparo. DC's heroes. Great title. Long term creative team.
2. Marvel Team Up. Spider-Man. Marvel's heroes. Marvel's answer to B & B.
3. World's Finest. Superman. Batman. Together. Awesome title & concept.
4. DC Comics Presents. Superman. Goofy title. Great series.
5. Marvel Two in One. The Thing. Even goofier title but a great series.
These were some of my favorite titles. To me they were no brainers. A book starring one of my favorites teaming up with another hero. Brilliant! I got to know & enjoy so many different heroes from DC & Marvel thru these titles. Many that I may have never read. This concept was better than a solo book or a team title. It mixed those two concepts in a way that I really miss.
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Post by comicsandwho on Jan 27, 2017 1:30:54 GMT -5
1. DC Comics Presents: Along with the 'classic' JLA, DCCP was tied for my favorite comic when I was a kid. I lived for the first week of the month when they went on sale, and although I read a lot of other comics, they always felt like something to pass the time until my favorites were available. I pretty much learned to read on 1978 DC comics, including DCCP's first few issues, from those 'Whitman Comic Paks'. After a bit of an interruption, I caught up with DCCP # 17, (with Firestorm), and was hooked from there. The first dozen issues or so were, for the most part, very strong, with Martin Paasko turning in some memorable stories in the earliest days. It's true that, within a year of expanding to a monthly schedule, the quality of stories ebbed and flowed, but there were some excellent tales. I personally thought the title peaked around 1982-84, when there was more of an effort to pair Superman with heroes he'd never met, including off-the-wall choices like the Atomic Knights, the Demon, Arion, and...Clark Kent. The last six months or so were disappointing, since everyone knew the revamping of Superman in 1986 would end DCCP a few months shy of its 100th issue. In fact, that final issue (# 97), wasn't technically a team-up, but an attempt by Steve Englehart to write a 'real' final story for the Silver/Bronze Age Superman, writing off the Phantom Zone, and various memebers of Superman's 'Rogue's Gallery'. Not every issue was a winner, but DCCP gets the top spot for being a huge part of my childhood.
2. The Brave and the Bold: Moreso for Jim Aparo's iconic Bat-art than for Bob Haney's gimmicky and hamfisted writing. I did like Haney emphasizing Batman's toughness(in the era when Len Wein and Gerry Conway were making him a bit more susceptible to losing fights in his own magazine). After Haney departed in late 1979, then-editor Paul Levitz tightened continuity with "Batman" and "Detective Comics", and began to feature more heroes beyond the 'clique' that Haney relied on too frequently. Alan Brennert contributed the Earth-2 Robin team-up mentioned above. and a nostalgic tale that allowed the Hawk and the Dove to retire gracefully. My favorite issue may have been #187, when a writer I'd never heard of, Charlie Boatner, incorporated nearly every robot supporting character in the history of the Metal Men into a story that revealed 'Whatever Happened to What'sername?' For the final (200th) issue, Dave Gibbons did a beautiful job drawing in 'Golden Age' and 'modern' style for an unusual Earth-1/Earth-2 story, in which the two Batmen don't actually meet.
3. World's Finest Comics 'Dollar Comic' era (1977-82). One of my earliest memories of WFC was the Neal Adams cover in which Superman is attacked by Batman, transformed into a human version of a 'Kryptonian were-bat'. WFC was at its best as an anthology title, which provided a spotlight for Justice Leaguers and others who didn't have their own book. Green arrow(sometimes with Black Canary) and 'Shazam'(following the cancellation of that title) were the other mainstays, while such heroes as the Creeper, Earth-2 Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Black Lightning also had notable runs. DC restored WFC to normal size with #283 in the summeer of 1982(with the cancellation of 'sister title' Superman Family, that left G.I. Combat as the last remaining 'oversize' format title).
3. World's Finest: The 'Dollar Comic' Years(1977-82): W
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