Key Issues - Marvel Team-Up Vol 1 (1972)

Marvel Team-Up #1
Cover by Frank Giacoia, Gil Kane, & Sam Rosen

Marvel Team-Up #93
Cover by Al Milgrom
& Don Perlin

I decided to put together this list of key issues for the first volume of Marvel Team Up while I was trying to make sure I had all of the first appearances for the New Mutants. I thought New Mutants Vol 1 and Marvel Graphic Novel #4 covered everyone. However, the first appearance of Xi'an Coy Manh is right here in issue 100 of Marvel Team Up so head out to your local comic shop and start digging through back issues.

Marvel Team-Up #1 - Though not named in the issue, this is the 1st appearance of Misty Knight. Her other "1st appearance" will occur 3 years later in Marvel Premiere #21.

Marvel Team-Up #8 - 1st appearance of Katrina van Horn (Man-Killer aka Amazon).

Marvel Team-Up #12 - 1st appearance of the villain Moondark.

Marvel Team-Up #15 - 1st appearance of The Orb.

Marvel Team-Up #16 - 1st appearance of the Basilisk.

Marvel Team-Up #19 - 1st appearance of Stegron.

Marvel Team-Up #21 - 1st appearance of Melinda Morrison.

Marvel Team-Up #23 - 1st full appearance of Equinox.

Marvel Team-Up #95
Cover by Bob McLeod
& Frank Miller

Marvel Team-Up #48 - 1st appearance of the Wraith (Brian Dewolff). 1st appearance of Jean Dewolff.

Marvel Team-Up #53 - John Byrne's first artwork of the X-Men.

Marvel Team-Up #55 - 1st appearance of the Gardener (Ord Zynoz). 

Marvel Team-Up #65 - 1st appearance of Arcade and Miss Locke. 1st appearance of Captain Britain and Courtney Ross in an American comic.

Marvel Team-Up #66 - 1st appearance of Murderworld.

Marvel Team-Up #68 - 1st appearance of D'spayre.
Marvel Team-Up #74 - Spider-Man teams up with the cast of Saturday Night Live to fight the Silver Samurai.
Marvel Team-Up #81 - Death of Satana until she returns in Hellstorm #10.

Marvel Team-Up #87 - 1st appearance of Hellrazor.

Marvel Team-Up #89 - 1st appearance of Cutthroat.
Marvel Team-Up #91 - 1st appearance of Gorilla Girl.

Marvel Team-Up #92 - 1st appearance of Mr. Fear (Alan Fagan).
Marvel Team-Up #93 - 1st appearance of Dansen Macabre.

Marvel Team-Up #95 - 1st Bobbi Morse as Mockingbird.

Marvel Team-Up #141
Cover by Art Adams
& Mike Mignola

Marvel Team-Up #100 - 1st appearance of Karma (Xi'an Coy Manh). 1st appearance of Nguyen Ngoc Coy.

Marvel Team-Up #110 - 1st appearance of the villain Magma (Jonathan Darque).

Marvel Team-Up #117 - 1st appearance of Professor Power.
Marvel Team-Up #120 - 1st appearance of Dominic Fortune (Jerry Fortunov).

Marvel Team-Up #121 - 1st appearance of Frog-Man.

Marvel Team-Up #131 - 1st appearance of the White Rabbit.
Marvel Team-Up #138 - 1st appearance of Oswald Silkworth (the Arranger).

Marvel Team-Up #141 - Along with Amazing Spider-Man #252 and Spectacular Spider-Man #90, this is also the first appearance of Spider-Man's black symbiote costume from Secret Wars.

Marvel Team-Up #146 - 1st appearance of the Black Abbott.

Doctor Strange - 1st Appearances

If you haven't seen Doctor Strange yet, do yourself a favor and get to the movie theater.  The movie is awesome. Benedict Cumberbatch is perfectly cast and the visual effects are incredible. Like Ant-Man, it's a well paced origin story that leaves you wanting a sequel and unlike Civil War, you can see it without having any knowledge of the previous Marvel movies.

In case I haven't convinced you, here's the trailer followed by a list of the 1st comic book appearances of the characters in the film.

Issue	1st Appearance Of
Dr. Strange: The Oath #1	Dr. Nicodemus West
Strange Tales #110	Dr. Stephen Strange, Wong, The Ancient One
Strange Tales #111	Baron Mordo
Strange Tales #126	Dormammu
Strange Tales #130	Kaecilius
Strange Tales #169	Daniel Drumm
Night Nurse #1	Christine Palmer
Runaways #1	Tina Minoru

I Didn't Plan on Buying The Avengers #1 But I Had To And Now I'm Glad I Did

As you may have figured out, I'm primarily an X-Men guy. On the DC side I read Batman and Wonder Woman, but most of the Marvel titles on my pull list are X-Men related. I don't think I've bought an Avengers book since Remender was writing Uncanny Avengers. Having said that, I always get hooked by great cover art. So today as I was picking up my books from Twilite Zone Comics, I see this book out of the corner of my eye and it starts screaming, "Buy me!"

The reasons are pretty clear just from the cover.

1. It's obviously an Alex Ross cover and it doesn't get much better.  If Alex Ross wanted to make millions, he should turn his art into wallpaper so that comic book nerds could paste it all over their houses.

2. Mark Waid is writing it. His Fantastic Four run is considered one of the best ever and his writing on Daredevil won him both an Eisner and a Harvey. Need I say more?

3. Mike del Mundo art. I can't explain how much I love this guy's artwork. His cover art for the 2013 X-Men Legacy series is mind boggling (it also won him an Eisner).  If I had a spare wall for artwork (my wife only allows me to decorate my office), I'd frame every cover of that series and put it in a grid from floor to ceiling.

4. Spider-Man: okay. Captain America: it's Avengers, right. Wasp: sure. Thor: fine. Vision: that's cool. HOLY SHIT! Is that Hercules back in the Avengers!?  I couldn't be more happy.  Hercules needs this. He can be such a great character.  Dan Abnett just gave us six wonderful issues making him more than just a drunken oaf with big muscles. I hope Waid makes him a contributor instead of just the muscle.

If those weren't enough reasons, after reading it I can tell you that this initial issue has a great hook involving Kang the Conqueror. Waid does a great job of mixing the formation of the new team (though we still don't know how Civil War II ends) and the introduction of the story thread for the first arc. The pacing is perfect. Maybe that's Waid's script or del Mundo's layouts but it works seamlessly.

Mike del Mundo's artwork is amazing as usual. Based on this book, I'm not sure anyone else should be allowed to draw and color someone changing size unless they've taken lessons from del Mundo.

See what I mean?  Here's another.

The only unfortunate is that this issue was $4.99 though it is oversized. 34 pages I think. I'm assuming the price is because of the #1. At $3.99 for future issues, this series just got added to my pull list.

Key Issues for the Mercs from Deadpool & the Mercs for Money

Deadpool & The Mercs For Money #5
Cover by Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire

Caveat to this entire post: I started writing this entry several months ago when Deadpool & the Mercs for Money was just a limited series.  I had no idea it would turn into an ongoing title with a switch in the cast. Though the new team is interesting, it has a different dynamic than Deadpool's original choices.  They definitely feel less like D-listers.  I'm also aware that Solo, Foolkiller, and Slapstick are getting solo series. Something tells me these won't be around very long.

     Deadpool is everywhere right now.  His movie just came to Blu-ray/DVD/Digital after a nice run in theaters grossing over $700 million.  He's currently starring or co-starring in at least three ongoing series and at any given time there is at least one limited series featuring Wade Wilson.  If you are a Daredevil or Power Man and Iron Fist completist with OCD, Deadpool's popularity might really be pissing you off because in order to get Daredevil issue #7.1 or Power Man and Iron Fist issue #4.1 you'll need to buy Deadpool #13 with a price tag of $9.99.  Deadpool may piss you off simply because you'll be standing in line behind at least 20 to 30 people cosplaying him at the next con that you attend.

     I, however, love Deadpool.  Is he overexposed?  Definitely.  Is Marvel trying to cash in on the movie's popularity? For sure.  Do the comics suffer for it?  Absolutely not.  Fortunately, the folks writing Deadpool currently all have the same take on him, deeply flawed but likable unwilling hero. Joe Kelly handled Deadpool in the earliest days of the character by defining him and creating much more than a Deathstroke ripoff.  Gerry Duggan has grown and refined all of the traits and flaws that fans love in addition to creating a rich supporting cast.  Finally, Cullen Bunn has given us almost every brilliant limited series starring Deadpool in the past four years.

Slapstick #1
Cover by James Fry and
 Terry Austin

     Currently in both Deadpool by Duggan and Deadpool & the Mercs for Money by Bunn, Deadpool has on his payroll a team of mercenaries from around the Marvel Universe.  I was familiar with some of these characters from past Deadpool stories, but for several of them I knew next to nothing.  I love the "Mercs".  Maybe because I can empathize with their lot in life.  They're not the most popular characters, but they've likely done quite a bit of the grunt work to get things done in the Universe that no one will ever know about.  Their boss is eccentric and doesn't always make sense, but the pay is really good so they put up with it.  They may have aspired to do something else in life, but now they have a wife, some kids, and a mortgage.  This is the story of the C students that know they'll never be Avengers and don't have time to debate the morality of profiling future criminals based on predictions of the future.  I wanted to give a little recognition to these poor guys who will never get a list of their own so I did some research on them and came up with this list of key issues for the character's that make up Deadpool's Mercs For Money:

Agent Scott Adsit

Deadpool Vol 3 #1 (2013) - 1st appearance of Agent Scott Adsit.

Foolkiller (Greg Salinger)

Sub-Mariner #19
Cover by Marie Severin,
Johnny Craig, and
Artie Simek

Omega the Unknown #9 - 1st appearance of Greg Salinger.

Defenders #74 - 75 - Battles the Defenders.

Amazing Spider-Man #225 - Thrown into a mental institution after Spider-Man stops him from killing "fools" at Empire State University.
Foolkiller #1 - 10 - Greg helps the new Foolkiller (Kurt Gerhardt) after being committed to an institution.

Masacre

Deadpool Vol 4 #3.1 - 1st appearance of Masacre.

Slapstick

Slapstick #1 - 1st appearance of Slapstick.

Solo

Web of Spider-Man #19 - 1st appearance of Solo.

St. George #2
Cover by John Muth

Stingray

Tales to Astonish #95 - 1st appearance of Walter Newell.

Sub-Mariner #19 - 1st appearance as Stingray.
Avengers #262 - Sort of joins the Avengers.  There doesn't appear to be an issue where he actually joins.  Just this one where he lets the Avengers move into his Hydro-base. Afterwards, he's kind of just around trying to please Captain America.

Terror

St. George #2 (Epic Comics) - 1st appearance as Shreck on Earth-88194.
Daredevil #305 - 1st appearance as Terror in 616 universe.