REVIEW: Marvel Team-Up Staring Spider-Man and the X-Men Vol 1 #150

Writer: Louise Simonson
Penciller: Greg LaRocque
Inker: Mike Esposito
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Review: Madman

When I was younger I was big into the Marvel Team-Up books. During the 90’s I remember gobbling up whatever volume it was and always was super excited to see the Team-Ups in my folder each month. I mean, back then I didn’t judge the comics I read on quality, I legitimately thought they were all awesome, especially if Spider-Man was involved.  I would’ve stood on a soapbox and professed with utmost convection that "Maximum Carnage" was the best arc to ever grace the pages of a comic book simply because of the quantity of heroes and villains crammed into every issue. Nowadays I know better, or at least I think I do. I am still a Marvel Zombie and tend to snatch up just about every gimmicky dumbass book they publish, at least for one issue. Within the last year I have passed on more Marvel books then have been purchased. The wheels have all but fallen off recently, with all the reboots, mega-events, and what-have-yous. I suppose in my stingier cynical middle-agedness I don’t care how many heroes they can fit between the covers.
 If the quality isn’t there I don’t see the point.   

Anywho, I still love the shit outta some early 80’s Team-Ups, Spider-Man or no. The writing is always Comics Code campy, and in some cases almost infuriatingly dumbed down, but that’s ok. It’s still entertaining as hell. The art is always hit or miss for me. That’s ok, too. Now I’m older and more knowledgeable in the ways of comicdom, so I understand how the industry worked back then. Contributors were being paid peanuts, overworked, and pressured to crank out the books as fast as possible. In my mind that somewhat justifies the works whereas I don’t allow today’s contributors the same courtesy.
No quarter is given…

All that aside this issue gets the honor of being blanketed in one of the ugliest and worse drawn covers I have ever witnessed. In fact, in my 30 years of collecting comics I can’t think of one that’s worse. Everything about it just flat out sucks. I couldn’t find anyone credited with this train wreck in the issue and bet whoever drew it is perfectly fine with that.
I know I wouldn’t want credit for it…
Whoever it was obviously doesn’t have a grasp on human anatomy and by the looks of it hadn’t bothered to actually investigate what the represented members of the X-Men actually looked like. I had no qualms about the interior artwork and thought it was very well done but am not sure if that’s because it was actually good or because the cover was so bad.
I mean, seriously, look at their faces. The facial expressions are all out of whack.
And why in the hell are the characters knee caps almost touching their feet? Also, everyone’s hands except Spidey’s are in awkward positions or in their pockets.
From the ground up this is just laughable in a stomach churning, anxiety inducing way.

Cover aside, I really dug this issue. I’m always down for a Juggernaut cameo, and he teams up in an interesting way with Black Tom to take on the aforementioned heroes, misplaced knees and all. The whole fiasco starts with Juggernaut trying to find a perfect birthday gift for his only friend, Black Tom. I love it. They could’ve left the X-Men out altogether, though. They just seemed to be page filler, but then it wouldn’t be a Team-Up now would it? 
Another interesting fact is this issue also happened to be the last issue of the first volume of Team-Up books. Too bad it had to go out with this crappy cover and not the farewell this institution of good-times deserved.