COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH! | 13th Dimension, Comics, Creators, Culture

Mar25

COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: 1976’s Superman vs. Spider-Man VS. 1981’s Superman and Spider-Man

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Mar 25, 2026

COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: 1976’s Superman vs. Spider-Man VS. 1981’s Superman and Spider-Man

Fred Van Lente’s back just in time for Superman/Spider-Man #1! By FRED VAN LENTE Welcome Back, Panel Pugilists! Fearless Leader Dan requested a very special COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH from Yours Truly to commemorate the latest team-up between the Man of Steel and your Friendly Neighborhood Wall-Crawler! Today, I’ll be pitting 1976’s first-ever DC/Marvel superhero crossover, Superman vs Spider-Man, against its 1981 sequel, the slightly less confrontational Superman and Spider-Man. For the first time, I’m pitting single issues against one another, as opposed to longer runs of two titles, so I thought I’d change up the formula a little bit. Rather than break each issue down individually, I’ll be looking at them side by side, comparing and contrasting mid-story en route to declaring a final winner. Along the way, I’ll be talking about how both reflect on the art of comics storytelling, a subject near and dear to my heart, and one I teach in an online course over at Domestika (shameless plug alert). Even though both of these comics came out when I was a kid, I have never read them before writing this column, likely because as a child I had an arguably irrational antipathy toward Superman. Will that affect my judgment? Of course not. I operate under the strict Code of Ethics of the North American Comic Book Death Match Association, of which I am founding chairman and sole member. Are you ready to rumble? Even if you are not, we are doing it anyway! RING THAT BELL! — Prologue: First Principles Billed as “The Battle of the Century!” the 1976 comic reunites one of the greatest Amazing Spider-Man creative teams of all time in writer Gerry Conway and artist Ross Andru, so we see how seriously the Big Two took this inaugural collaboration. Conway makes sure both heroes are extensively introduced for the uninitiated, as if his audience is composed of equal halves DC fans who wouldn’t touch a Marvel comic if it cured cancer, and Marvel Zombies who turn their noses up at the Distinguished Competition like it had just crawled out of a sewer. I still run into people like to this from time to time (mostly in the latter category — Marvel diehards who sneer at DC) and I find them anthropologically fascinating. Only in comics is whoever publishes a comic an...

Oct11

COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: Brave and the Bold vs. Marvel Team-Up, 1976-1980

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Oct 11, 2025

COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: Brave and the Bold vs. Marvel Team-Up, 1976-1980

Fred Van Lente’s back with another not-at-all facetious clash of the titans… By FRED VAN LENTE Hey gang, welcome to Part Two of a slugfest between the premier Big Two team-up books, The Brave and the Bold and Marvel Team-Up. A commenter in Part One complained that I was pitting mostly average issues of MTU versus superlative issues of B&B, and if I went out and sought better examples of the former, the latter wouldn’t have run the table last time. While I appreciate the urge for fairness, due to strict COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH regulations (regulations which I, as Commissioner and sole member of the North American Comic Book Death Match Association, totally made up) I can only pit issues against each other that came out in the same month (thanks to pub data provided by the fine folks at Mike’s Amazing World of Comics), so if I pick one comic that might be interesting or amusing to discuss, I’m forced to pick that month’s counterpart from the opposing title, regardless of its relative quality. I’d also argue that having read more than 100 issues of Marvel Team-Up at this point, there are only “average” issues of Marvel Team-Up! Sorry/not sorry. Bob Haney and Jim Aparo had something special going on in their B&B run, while across Midtown at Marvel nobody else yet clicked. (Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema are terrific creators, but their Team-Ups never reached the heights of their, well, incredible run on Hulk.) But now that we’ve reached ’76 in our re-read, something interesting is happening, as John Byrne joins MTU as main series penciller and Chris Claremont as main series writer not long thereafter. Will that alter the outcome of this round at all? Let’s find out—ring that bell!! — NOVEMBER 1976 The Brave and the Bold #132: “Batman—Dragon Slayer??” Richard Dragon, DC’s Chuck Norris ripoff answer to Marvel’s Bruce Lee ripoff Shang-Chi, is visiting a friend’s Gotham City dojo when he gets challenged to a kung fu duel in the park, which, for Dragon, I assume is just a regular Tuesday. Batman, who seems to think Gotham’s real name is Bat City, doesn’t like people who aren’t him fighting on his turf; he and Dragon battle to a standstill, and he grudgingly agrees to figure out who put a killer on Dragon’s tail....

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