Almost picked this myself but in the end decided to drop it because of the debut of Marvel's blustery, buffoonish version of Hercules. Wonder if that was down to Stan or to Jack, or were they equally to blame in this case?

The only version of Hercules Marvel ever had was the bragging ass.

I must be missing the point. That's his personality from the get go. It has been consistent and it's what got him a beatdown in the Under Siege Avengers storyline. 

2. Sandman 19 (DC, September, 1990)
"A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess

I tried to avoid using this, as I did so last year, but “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” one of my favorite stories in 57 years of reading comics, is not just an excellent adaptation, but an outstanding example of the traditional team-up story, albeit with a few wrinkles.

We all know that Gaiman and Vess illustrate a truly fantastic (in the original sense of the word) story set in the realms of our world and of Faerie and that they imaginatively, yet realistically, tell the story of one of the last ventures of the denizens of Faerie into our world.

They also vividly reveal the unique challenges of the life of an actor and/or playwright -- for that matter, of any artist’s life -- then and now.

And they skillfully interweave the conceit that the "real" faeries are the prototypes of Shakespeare's with the faeries’ own running commentary on the characters who play them.

What made me select this story once more was that it also plays with the idea of a team-up. The two featured characters don’t fight when they first meet, don’t reluctantly unite to fight a common foe, don’t happen upon each other while investigating what seem to be unrelated cases, and don’t have a common bond that has brought them together time and again.

No, here the team is based on a symbiotic relationship. Shakespeare is earthbound, uncertain of his talents, driven by an ambition whose implications he doesn’t quite understand. Morpheus is ethereal, all-powerful, yet fearful of someday disappearing if people should ever stop dreaming.

Back in “Men of Good Fortune” (Sandman 13), the Sandman heard Shakespeare utter his wish to be as good a writer as Christopher Marlowe. “ I would give anything to have your gifts. Or more than anything to give men dreams, that would live on long after I am dead.” Music to the ears of Morpheus. And thus, the teammates are brought together by a mutual need not just for survival, but for eternal life.

The Sandman and Shakespeare form a symbiotic team. Each has what the other needs and will flourish when they exchange gifts. But each suffers as well. Teams survive because individuals sacrifice for each other, but those individuals pay a price. Shakespeare, for writing two plays about magic and the power of dreams, will gain what he always wanted and Morpheus will have his two plays that will live forever as testament to the power of dreaming.




However, the Sandman, who can inspire and enlighten others, can not dream himself; he can only experience vicariously the feeling of creation that Will does.

As for Will, his imagination unlocked and running free, his fame as a writer ensured, he will one day realize the truth of what the Sandman says to Titania, “The price of getting what you want is getting what you once wanted.” And the loss of his son to his ambition, presaged here, is the greatest price of many he’ll pay.



This is a team-up that had to happen for all of us who revel in its accomplishments, not just Shakespeare’s plays and poems, but the achievements of all of the artists he represents. Shakespeare and the Sandman suffer that the rest of us can experience and understand life more completely.