Deathgarden

MARVEL TEAM-UP — Issue no. 71, April 1978

Book: Marvel Team-Up

Issue No.: 71

Published: April 25, 1978

Title: “Deathgarden”

Cover Price: 35¢

Since I started reading the Marvel books of 1978, I’ve been disappointed that the Falcon (AKA Sam Wilson) has been basically MIA from Captain America and the Falcon. But I finally got a Captain America and the Falcon story in this issue of Marvel Team-Up. Unfortunately, Cap is unconscious most of this issue. Spider-Man is here to take up Cap’s slack, of course, because Marvel Team-Up is Spidey’s team-up book.

Why is Captain America unconscious most of the issue? He’s been poisoned by some mysterious (and extra toxic) flower. Most of the story involves the Falcon’s desperate search for the antidote. Which leads to a run-in with Spider-Man early in the story that leads to a brief hero-on-hero fight because of a misunderstanding and because it’s not a Bronze Age Marvel book if the good guys don’t occasionally punch each other.

After Spider-Man and the Falcon agree to work together to save Captain America’s life, they go after the bad guy. The bad guy is Plantman. Who is Plantman? Imagine if the DC character Poison Ivy was a dude, was a huge dork, and had an army of generic costumed goons at his disposal. That’s pretty much Plantman. You won’t be surprised to learn that he and his goons are no match for Spidey and Falcon.

As goofy as Plantman is, this story is not without its charms. Spidey sneaks into Plantman’s compound by disguising himself as a henchman. Which means Spidey is wearing his Spidey costume underneath a henchman costume. Nick Fury of SHIELD (oh yeah, this story also features Nick Fury of SHIELD) busts Spidey’s chops at the end of the story, telling him “Even you public menaces can occasionally help out us good guys.” (Spider-Man is a hero, but newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson is always making him out to be a public menace.) Spidey digs back as he exits — “After all, I’ve got a public to menace. S’long, Fury. See ya in the funny papers.”

And the writer, Bill Kunkel, slips a “damn” past the Comics Code Authority.

My first assumption was that this is a fill-in issue, since it has a different creative team than the last couple of issues. But I peeked ahead, and it looks like a shifting set of creators will the norm for the next few issues. Which is a shame, because the two previous Chris Claremont/John Byrne issues were top-notch. But this creative team change is happening around the time Claremont and Byrne’s X-Men book is going from bi-monthly to monthly, so it makes sense they left Team-Up to spend more time on X-Men.

Next time — The Fantastic Four reunite! At least temporarily!