I’ve really enjoyed the column, but have to put out my surprise at the lack of love for Bill Mantlo’s run on MTU (38-51, 53-56). I have fond recollections of Mantlo’s extended storylines which you rarely got in the team up books. Issues 41-46 was a time traveling adventure with Scarlet Witch, Vision, Dr. Doom, Moondragon, Killraven, and Deathlok; 48-51 was basically a 4-part team-up with Iron Man (Dr. Strange gets one officially). Heck Mantlo even had a cross-over with Marvel Two-in-One! Plus solid Sal Buscema art on most of the run and John Byrne on the rest. And with the love for obscure W characters like Wundarr and White Rabbit, you’d think there’d be some leftover for Woodgod!

One is “Richie Rich and….” which was created in the dying days of Harvey and (I believe….) was used to dump inventory stories after they’d fired everyone.

The other is the post Cable Deadpool team-up. I really liked what I’d read of Cable and Deadpool, but back issues are, like, four bucks or something obscene at my local shop.

I will own them someday. I just don’t, yet.

Also, was Deadpool Functional Team Up when we were supposed to think Cable was dead any good? I sort of like Deadpool now.

I shoud have remembered Gaydos and Jason Burrows. I own a couple of the avatar one-shots, and the ALIAS omnibus has been on my futon for the better part of a year.

Edo Bosnar
To be fair, you should have called it Claremont’s MTU run, the same way you did with Brennert on B&B and Gruenwald/Macchio on MTIO.

I considered it.

Honestly, if you (and others) weren’t pushing the other Claremont stuff, I would have called this John Byrne’s run on Marvel Team-Up, and included the Warlock and Hulk issues he did with Mantlo – Half because I really liked his first three issues, half because there’s an X-men cameo (Byrne’s first time drawing the team) that makes # 53 the most historically issue outta the 150.

I’m vetoing “Claremont on MTU” ’cause of the Saturday Night Live issue – Which was a brilliant idea, but completely unfunny in execution. The best part was that Gilda Radner/Rosanne Rosannadanna was featured in the letter col. after the issue hit.

Phillip Ayers – Good point. He’s probably my favorite of the MTIO inkers. (Although I didn’t think any of ‘em were less than good.)

Also Dynamite entertainment is currently publishing Red Sonja, so I assume they own the rights – And that # 79 won’t be reprinted by Marvel. Amazon says there’s a softcover of the (2008) Spider-man/Red Sonja series, which DOES reprint Marvel Team-Up # 79.

Only quibble? “His fight correography is up there with anyone in the business.”

It’s choreography.

I could argue that Ultimate Marvel was ruined FROM THE START… but I won’t.

Oh man, I had forgotten about the Claremont/Byrne run… mainly because, uh, I had no idea who did it. You see, those came out around the time I discovered American comics, and since the Latin ones I read previously had NO credits (not even the ones who were translations of American comics) I paid NO attention to who wrote or drew them… took me a while to notice it was supposed to matter! But yeah, those were some great stories, and great looking too. The Red Sonja one was particularly clever (MJ as a reincarnation of Sonja? OH YEAH!)

In fact, I expected this to be #1. Who can top it?

I just wanted to agree with you that Voodoo Child is firggin’ awesome. It’s beyond awesome. I think it could easily make a list of top five graphic novels for art.

Here in the UK Ultimate Team-Up was the backup feature in the Ultimate Spider-Man book, but frustratingly the credits were never printed. I’d have to credit that with getting me interested in the Ultimate U., ’cause it took me a while to warm to Ultimate Spidey.

Is there a rights issue with #79 (Red Sonja) The original listing for the EMTU3 on Amazon UK ommited it from the line up but I’ve seen it collected in a HC edition somewherem but when the volume hit the contents didn’t get as far as 79.

Ethan – MTU #74 was written by Claremont, pencilled by Bob Hall and inked by Steve Severin. Mr. Hall has some behind the scenes insight on this issue at this page from Chronological Snobbery:
http://www.chronologicalsnobbery.com/2007/09/marvel-team-up-74.html