Most Improbable Team-Ups?

[Red Oak Kid]

The Legion of Monsters ish of Marvel Premiere over at Guess the Classic Cover thread got me to thinking.

What in your opinion was the most ridiculous or impossible team-up of comic book characters? This could be a team like the Defenders or just two characters like Batman and Kamandi in Brave and the Bold.

Did you ever see a team-up cover with one of your favorite characters that made you mad? I think when I saw Conan in a issue of Marvel Team-up it made me mad.(I'm pretty sure of this, but the GCD is down at the moment)

What character would be the hardest to put in a team? I would think that the Silver Surfer was an unlikely team member but the Defenders proved me wrong. I'm also not sure the Thor of his own comic is the same Thor in Avengers.

Do the Legion of Monsters have a clubhouse?

[Paradox]

What If?, probably.

Conan was never in MTU, although Red Sonja was (and it wasn't half bad).

[MWGallaher]

I remember Giant-Size Spider-Man kind of specialized in the improbable "team-ups" (which tended not to be team-ups in the conventional sense):
Spider-man and Dracula: I recall their stories being parallel, taking place on a cruise ship, with Peter bumping into Drac only once.
Spider-man and Doc Savage: I think this was one where they fought the same menace in different eras...or maybe that was the Marvel Two-In-One? Anyway, it's hard to team up modern characters with characters operating in the 1930s.
Spider-man and the Punisher: Punisher was a Spider-man villain at the time. That sort of thing wasn't done often (but when it was, the readers responded: the B&B with Batman and the Joker was a huge sales hit that led to the Joker getting his own title).
Spider-man and Man-Thing: How do you "team up" with a mindless beast?

[brundlefly]

Punisher/Archie. :D

[Roquefort Raider]

Did you ever see a team-up cover with one of your favorite characters that made you mad? I think when I saw Conan in a issue of Marvel Team-up it made me mad.(I'm pretty sure of this, but the GCD is down at the moment)


Paradox is right: Spidey teamed up with Red Sonja and with Kull, but not with Conan himself. Conan did team up with Thor in an issue of What if?, and that was surprisingly good! (It helps when the writer apparently knows both characters well).

One team-up (or encounter) I never much cared for was Dracula vs Silver Surfer. That should be a case of "what happens in panel two?" but Drac actually mopped the floor with the cosmically-powered Surfer. Sheesh! Next time Galactus comes calling, send in the vampire!

[dan bailey]

Me/my first wife.

Oh ... comic book characters.

Never mind.

[TVComicsFan]

Superman and Bugs Bunny (but I must confess that I did enjoy it).

[rwe1138]

Spider-Man/Not Ready For Primetime Players of SNL

[benday-dot]

Okay ROK... a fascinating one for me would be, as creations of the same mysterious mind:

Mr. A and Spider-Man or perhaps Rorschach and Doctor Strange.

I don't think Spidey would be down with all that A is A business. And Doc Strange is just nebulous as hell, compared to Rorschach's no-nonsense plain speaking universe.

One I think would be a natural...

The Thing and Concrete. That would be very cool.

[Red Oak Kid]

OK, here it is, the MOST IMPROBABLE TEAM UP EVER, IN THE HISTORY OF EVER:

http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=38399&zoom=4

[Kirk G]

Bugs Bunny and Superman...

[Chris Nowlin]

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o1/CocaC0la99/MarvelTeam-Up137.jpg

[Chris Nowlin]

And who could forget:

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o1/CocaC0la99/Daydreamers1.jpg

Featuring Leech & Artie, Franklin Richards, Howard the Duck, Man-Thing, and some Rigelian chick named Tana Nile.

Makes one wonder how many odd team-ups can be blamed on Mr. Dematteis. His Defenders line-up was somewhat eclectic. His Marvel Team-Up teamed Spidey with King Kull, Dominic Fortune etc. And he formed the ultimate team of reformed supervillains in his Spectacular Spider-Man when Kangaroo teamed with Gibbon, Grizzly and the Spot!

[berk]

Paradox is right: Spidey teamed up with Red Sonja and with Kull, but not with Conan himself. Conan did team up with Thor in an issue of What if?, and that was surprisingly good! (It helps when the writer apparently knows both characters well).

One team-up (or encounter) I never much cared for was Dracula vs Silver Surfer. That should be a case of "what happens in panel two?" but Drac actually mopped the floor with the cosmically-powered Surfer. Sheesh! Next time Galactus comes calling, send in the vampire!I think Wolfman saw the problem with that himself because later on he used an original character (Janus, was it?) to play the sort of role the Surfer filled in the issue you remember.

When did Kull team-up with Spiderman? I remember the Red Sonja one - and agree, it was pretty good, much better handled than I would have expected. Nice job by Byrne on the artwork, I recall.

[Chris Nowlin]

When did Kull team-up with Spiderman? I remember the Red Sonja one - and agree, it was pretty good, much better handled than I would have expected. Nice job by Byrne on the artwork, I recall.

Marvel Team-Up #112.


And I think the Spider-Man/Red Sonja issue is one of the best issues of Team-Up, if not the best.

[berk]

Marvel Team-Up #112.


And I think the Spider-Man/Red Sonja issue is one of the best issues of Team-Up, if not the best.
And how was the Kull one? A look at GCD tells me Herb Trimpe and Mike Esposito did the artwork. I like Trimpe's style but don't remember ever seeing him inked by Esposito, so not sure how that would have worked.

[Paradox]

I have it. I remember absolutely nothing about it. That should tell you something.

[Perry Holley]

Spider-man and Doc Savage: I think this was one where they fought the same menace in different eras...or maybe that was the Marvel Two-In-One? Anyway, it's hard to team up modern characters with characters operating in the 1930s.Pretty certain that was indeed Giant-Size Marvel Team-Up (I have that issue, but it's in storage at the moment).

The Thing traveled back in time to meet Doc Savage in the pages of Marvel-Two-In-One.

[Slam_Bradley]

Pretty certain that was indeed Giant-Size Marvel Team-Up (I have that issue, but it's in storage at the moment).

The Thing traveled back in time to meet Doc Savage in the pages of Marvel-Two-In-One.


It was actually Giant-Size Spider-Man # 3.

[Reptisaurus!]

It was actually Giant-Size Spider-Man # 3.

Right. Giant-Size Spider-man was basically "Marvel Team-up Quarterly."

And Doc Savage did show up in Marvel Two-In-One 21.

And Team-Up 112 was crappy all round, one of the worst issues of the whole series... Except for the inking.

Converersely, Mindless Beast or not, the two Spidey/Man-Thing issues of team-up are some of my favorites.

[Perry Holley]

It was actually Giant-Size Spider-Man # 3.Ah, my bad. That's what I get from going from memory.

[prince hal]

First of all, the worst title for a team-up comic: "Super-Team Family."

What the bejeezus does that mean? It sounds like it's about a group like the Fantastic Four: a team of super-beings who are related. It was created in the mold of Batman Family and Superman Family, but, boy, when that was the best they could come up with, why didn't they drop the family gimmick and just invent a better name?

Odd teamup from DC Comics Presents: Superman and the Unknown Soldier.

From B&B 92: Batman and the "Bat Squad." Three forgettable, cliched characters presented as if they were going to become a regular part of Batman's cast. Are they the only one-appearance characters from that era never to reappear in a DC book?

I think someone may have mentioned Batman and Scalphunter in B&B.

Batman and Flash appeared together a few times in B&B, but only once (I'll let you guess the decade) did they both show up at "The Disco of Death."

Why Batman was co-featured with The Rose and the Thorn in B&B isn't all that odd. B&B was always used to promote new characters (witness Batman and I, Vampire...an odd sounding team-up, grammatically speaking), but why did Rose get a two-issue saga?

Remember when the JLA-JSA team-ups were not enough anymore annd everybody from the Quality characters to the Legion was showing up? One summer, the heroes teamed up with (or fought...who the heck can remember now?) a team of DC's "historical characters: the Black Pirate, Enemy Ace, Jonah Hex, the Viking Prince, and Miss Liberty.

Speaking of the VP, he teamed up with Sgt. Rock a couple of times.

Which reminds me that hawkeye teamed up with the Two-Gun Kid in one of those Kang epics in the Avengers.

And I just saw yesterday that DC is bringing back The War that Time Forgot. Seems Dinosaur Island is now a Valhalla of sorts, where the likes of Tomahawk, Enemy Ace, Firehair, the Viking Prince and I think maybe Johnny Cloud, among others, get to team up and fight big monsters. Shades of "Guns of the Dragon."

And the June cover preview seems to how Luthor in his old gray prison garb!

If you check out the May cover preview

(http://www.dccomics.com/comics/cm_popup.php?i=9292)...

you'll see Neal Adams' worst drawing of Hans von Hammer ever.

[JKCarrier]

First of all, the worst title for a team-up comic: "Super-Team Family."

Typical corporate thinking. The other "Family" books were selling well, so they assumed that "Family" was a magic word that would guarantee a hit. See also: Gorilla covers, and books with "Weird" in the title. Come to think of it, I'm surprised they never came out with a book called "Weird Gorilla Family". :D

Why Batman was co-featured with The Rose and the Thorn in B&B isn't all that odd. B&B was always used to promote new characters

Except that Rose/Thorn wasn't a new character at the time... the B&B story came out a good 8 years after her original appearances in LOIS LANE. I always wondered if it was an old unused script or something. Or maybe they were testing the waters for a revival?

[Red Oak Kid]

I think it was LR who mentioned one time that in an issue of B&B, Batman teamed up with the House of Mystery.

[MWGallaher]

Except that Rose/Thorn wasn't a new character at the time... the B&B story came out a good 8 years after her original appearances in LOIS LANE. I always wondered if it was an old unused script or something. Or maybe they were testing the waters for a revival?

As I recall, those issues were written by Rose & Thorn creator Bob Kanigher, when B&B was winding down. Kanigher wasn't doing much superhero work by then, and I always assumed they just let him do whatever he wanted as long as it allowed them to tread water and get B&B to issue 200 for the double-size finale.

[prince hal]

As I recall, those issues were written by Rose & Thorn creator Bob Kanigher, when B&B was winding down. Kanigher wasn't doing much superhero work by then, and I always assumed they just let him do whatever he wanted as long as it allowed them to tread water and get B&B to issue 200 for the double-size finale.

You're probably right, MW, and JK, too. There were some weird issues in that last year or so of B&B. Superboy? Karate Kid? Hadn't his comic gone kaput years before? were they revving him up again? Can't remember.

[Reptisaurus!]

I think it was LR who mentioned one time that in an issue of B&B, Batman teamed up with the House of Mystery.

As did Superman in DC Comics Presents.

I think the Rose and Thorn Brave and Bold Two Parter was a year or two away from the book's cancellation. And it was written by Kanigher.

[Roquefort Raider]

And how was the Kull one? A look at GCD tells me Herb Trimpe and Mike Esposito did the artwork. I like Trimpe's style but don't remember ever seeing him inked by Esposito, so not sure how that would have worked.

Pretty generic stuff. Spidey turns up in Valusia thanks to some magic stuff related to a spider cult, he and helps Kull defeat it. Kull and Brule were written in character, but didn't do much more than the usual hacking and slashing.

As I recall, the cover was inked by one of the Severin siblings, so that part at least harked back to the original series.

[berk]

Pretty generic stuff. Spidey turns up in Valusia thanks to some magic stuff related to a spider cult, he and helps Kull defeat it. Kull and Brule were written in character, but didn't do much more than the usual hacking and slashing.

As I recall, the cover was inked by one of the Severin siblings, so that part at least harked back to the original series.Sounds like about what you'd expect; which makes the Red Sonja one all the more commendable, since it took an idea that should have been equally prone to failure and somehow made it work.

[Rob Allen]

Not exactly a team-up, but I found it jarring to see Marvel house ads, calendars, etc., with Conan and Dracula alongside Spidey, Cap, Thor, the Thing and the Hulk. Just seemed like they shouldn't be in the same picture.

[MDG]

Not exactly a team-up, but I found it jarring to see Marvel house ads, calendars, etc., with Conan and Dracula alongside Spidey, Cap, Thor, the Thing and the Hulk. Just seemed like they shouldn't be in the same picture.
Charlton had an ad in a NY ComicCon program that showed Countess Von Bludd and 3 or four other fairly hot-looking women from their mystery anthologies. Then next to them Olive Oyl and Pebbles Flintstone. That looked more than a little odd.

[Scott Shaw!]

Sometime during the 1970s, Hanna-Barbera authorized an Oddball children's book wherein Jonny Quest teamed up with Judy Jetson.

Aloha,

Scott!

[berk]

Not exactly a team-up, but I found it jarring to see Marvel house ads, calendars, etc., with Conan and Dracula alongside Spidey, Cap, Thor, the Thing and the Hulk. Just seemed like they shouldn't be in the same picture.Your instinctive reaction was spot in, IMO. One of the reasons the RedSonja/Spiderman thing worked was that it should not have worked. Spiderman, as written, was as much or more powerful than most of the wizards/demons/etc that Conan/RedSonja/Kull would usually try to avoid. Dracula's ability to make or control storms would mean nothing to the god of storms; and so on. It's a very basic problem with superhero comics, a tangled knot of contradictions amongst what they say, what they think they're saying, and the materials they use to make those statements.

[Kirk G]

I dunno, I always thought the pairing of Danny Rand and Luke Cage to be an odd one.
I mean, WHY?
What on earth did Iron Fist have to do with Power man?

It's just something that we all accept now as Marvel History, but never made sense to me. Did I miss some critical explanation? Where is it? In what issue is it made clear?

[JKCarrier]

I mean, WHY?
What on earth did Iron Fist have to do with Power man?

I dunno, is it any stranger than Captain America taking on the Falcon as his partner, or Daredevil hooking up with Black Widow? Or for that matter, Superman hanging out with Batman in all those World's Finest stories... given their relative power levels, THAT might qualify as the most improbable team-up of all! :D

[Perry Holley]

I dunno, I always thought the pairing of Danny Rand and Luke Cage to be an odd one.
I mean, WHY?
What on earth did Iron Fist have to do with Power man?

It's just something that we all accept now as Marvel History, but never made sense to me. Did I miss some critical explanation? Where is it? In what issue is it made clear?Both were superhero extrapolations of 70's film fads (blaxplotation and martial arts films). If you look at them not as characters from different niches, but as characters that are both fad knock-offs, then their pairing makes a lot more sense.

The fact that they were paired together never surprised me... what did surprise me was that the pairing worked as well as it did for so long. But then, as it turns out, the two had great chemistry/interaction with each other.

[Red Oak Kid]

RE: Iron Fist/Power Man, Daredevil/Black Widow etc. This is just my opinion, but I don't think a great deal of thought was given to whether or not these characters meshed with each other. I always thought is was just a case of Marvel having marginal characters who were "good" but not quite good enough to carry their own book, at that particular point in time. Marvel wanted to keep these characters on the stands and hope one or all of them would be a break-out character. They had tried out Widow in Amazing Adventures and just wanted to keep putting her out there with the hope of her catching on with a wider audience. They probably wanted her to be able to carry her own book.

As for the Falcon, I assume, that Marvel was trying to make Cap appeal to a wider, "urban" audience by having a black character for him to contrast with. Maybe they thought Cap was too WASPish and needed someone to counter balance his image. In other words, make Cap more hip, and with it, dude.

[Gothos]

Though Iron Fist and Power Man were conceived separately I think they blended well because they both shared that vibe from the 70s exploitation films. It fit in a thematic way, as some reminiscences by black authors talk about how empowering it was to go to the kung-fu flicks and see "people of color" kicking ass, sometimes (though not always) on white opponents. A number of blaxploitation films, particularly the ones starring Jim Kelly, crossbred the blaxploitation/kung fu elements.

My worst team-up choice: Spidey and the Frankenstein Monster. The relative restraint of the Spidey/Dracula crossover-- in which the author tacitly acknowledged that the leads didn't belong in the same cosmos by having them not meet-- was tossed out the window in the S/FM tale.

I have the dim memory that maybe Gerry Conway wrote them both, but he definitely did the awful teamup with "Frankie."

Of course, Conway wasn't responsible for bringing the Frankenstein Monster into current times. That was a huge mistake. Dracula can adapt to allmost any time and clime, but the Monster belongs back in a pre-industrial time. Only time he worked in a contemporary setting was that nutzoid Grant Morrison take on the character.