Fred Van Lente’s back with another completely serious battle royale…
By FRED VAN LENTE
At the conclusion of my epic series of columns pitting Secret Wars against Crisis on Infinite Earths, you, Beloved Readers, told me you wanted to see me next lock in a cage the two classic team-up books — The Brave and the Bold and Marvel Team-Up — and see which one walks out.
This suggestion was near and dear to my heart, for, as a kid, I loved team-up books, particularly Marvel Team-Up. I liked the DC Blue Ribbon Digests and other comics that let me experience as many different heroes simultaneously as possible. I was an efficient child.
In fact, 10-year-old me loved MTU so much I wrote Marvel a letter with an incredibly dopey question about this cover that editor Tom DeFalco gamely printed and commented on; a fan later found it and scanned it and sent it to me:
(Weird that they’d print people’s full addresses back then. My parents still live in that house, so don’t pester them! No paparazzi, please.)
My own spinner rack years came after writer Bob Haney and artist Jim Aparo’s legendary B&B run, and it’s been a joy to make up for lost time reading it for this COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH column. When discussing this piece on a recent live episode of John Siuntres’s fantastic podcast Word Balloon, where I was promoting my new sci-fi epic The Future Is (in stores now!) a viewer commented that his stories take place not in the DCU, but in the “Haneyverse,” a term that was new to me (but not to 13th Dimension readers) that I’ve promptly appropriated.
Can Marvel Team-Up, a perfunctory cash-grab to capitalize on Marvel’s most popular character that they didn’t let join any super-teams (until 2005), even hope to touch the mad genius of the Haneyverse? Let’s find out together, shall we, in a dual reread fueled by sale-date data from Mike’s Amazing World of Comics?
Superhero team-up books of the 1970s… FIGHT!
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Brave and the Bold #100: Batman and 4 Famous Co-Stars, “The Warrior in a Wheel-Chair”
When international drug smugglers want to move a huge heroin shipment into Gotham, they wisely decide to first take out the one man responsible for all of law enforcement in the city. A sniper waits across the street from police headquarters for Batman to waltz out the front door in broad daylight, which, in the Haneyverse, I assume he does 14 times a day.
The assassin’s bullet doesn’t kill Bats, but it does lodge in his heart, forcing him into a wheelchair to direct his sting via proxies. He just hangs out in full costume on the balcony of Bruce Wayne’s penthouse (just where you want to be when a sniper is after you), ranting how he’s akin to a nearby spider capturing flies (see below).
His web is spun by Hal, Ollie and Dinah, the gang from the still-ongoing O’Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow series, tailed secretly by Robin, who is uncharacteristically “ew, girls, gross” over Black Canary’s inclusion. Joke’s on Dick, because Bats needs Dinah to infiltrate a feminist rally that reads like a parody of GL/GA’s (often, in this columnist’s humble opinion, deeply cringeworthy) Ripped-From-the-Headlines storylines. The Dark Knight suspected the French speakeress of sneaking drugs into the country, but no, she’s just importing a book titled Why Men?
All the other leads on the shipment turn out to be phony too. Batman undergoes surgery to remove the bullet (again—I can’t emphasize this enough—IN FULL COSTUME. They don’t even make him take off his utility belt.) But he realizes the surgeon is actually the head of the drug cartel in disguise. Even El Chapo wasn’t brazen enough to try and pull this off. And the mysterious drug shipment was hidden inside the medical equipment he’d brought to cut open Bats. It’s always in the last place you look, isn’t it?
As the first step of a journey through the Haneyverse I thought this was pretty bizarre, but boy, I’d seen nothing yet!
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Marvel Team-Up #1: Spider-Man and the Human Torch, “Have Yourself a Sandman Little Christmas”
Wait, is Batman’s constant ranting about spiders in B&B #100 a dig at this title, premiering the same month? Or a back-handed welcome to the team-up neighborhood? I have no idea. The Big Two are weird.
On Christmas Eve, the Sandman slithers ashore on Coney Island’s beach, ruining the annual Polar Bear Club’s swim (which actually takes place on New Year’s Day, yes, I am going to nickpick these comics to death). Observing photog Peter Parker decides to recruit Johnny Storm, who has had more recent experience fighting Frightful Four alumnus Sandy than him. Torch reluctantly agrees to help run down the granular goon, even though he’s Scrooging it up, having been recently dumped by his girlfriend, Crystal. (Many of us have described our exes as “Inhuman,” but in Johnny’s case it’s literal.)
Our bickering heroes track Sandy to New Jersey, where he thrashes them handily. However, they realize he could have killed them but in a spasm of Christmas cheer instead puts them in an easily escapable deathtrap. Turns out he just wants to visit his sick mother; likewise, the duo decides to let him get away so everyone gets that warm and treacly holiday feeling.
I am fascinated that writers have long had the impulse to humanize Flint Marko into an Everyman sort of super-villain. Roy Thomas and Ross Andru give him a sick old mother here, Javier Pulido and I would give him a daughter a few decades later. Torch and Spidey are both so obnoxious in this story it’s hard to not make Sandman sympathetic by comparison. Not an auspicious beginning for this title.
WINNER: HANEYVERSE
***
The Brave and the Bold #108, Batman and Sgt. Rock, “The Night Batman Sold His Soul!”
When Batman selling his soul to Adolf Hitler is just the set-up to your story, you know you’ve punched a one-way ticket to the Haneyverse, Friend.
To be fair, Batman doesn’t know who the mysterious limping old man who fishes him out of a well so he can rescue a sickly kidnapped kid (being trapped in the well was the inspiration for said soul-selling), but elderly Sgt. Rock tries to shoot Bats’ savior on the streets of Gotham, convinced that it’s Hitler, alive and well since the war. For his part, Mysterious Old Guy tells Bats he has inadvertently enlisted in evil’s army by selling him his eternal spirit, so now the Dark Knight wants to track him down, too. Rock and Bats decamp for Bavaria, where they hook up with Bulldozer and members of “The New Easy Company” to root out a secret Nazi base, but Old Hitler escapes. This one may be too bananas even for my tastes.
Incidentally, I was surprised to find that Sgt. Rock guest-stars in B&B a lot in the Haneyverse. Because I am anal, I went through and counted all the characters who guested in the series until 1980, and Green Arrow led all other heroes with eight appearances (or 8.51% of the time), followed by, of all people, Metamorpho and the Metal Men at six apiece (6.38%). Rock was third with five appearances, tied with Wonder Woman, the Flash, and, weirdly, Wildcat.
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Marvel Team-Up #12: Spider-Man and the Werewolf, “Wolf at Bay”
Can I just say what Marvel Team-Up really has going for it are these amazing Gil Kane covers? Each one from this run is a banger.
I remember this issue fondly from when I was kid, when it was bundled with three of its MTU comrades in The Astonishing Spider-Man Treasury Edition. That giant-size comic sports an amazing X-Men vs. Morbius fight pencilled by Kane. Also, a Ross Andru panel from the Ghost Rider team-up when the Orb takes his, uh, orb off and reveals how gnarly his face is scared me so much as a kid I actually cut out a piece of black construction paper to tape over that panel so I could read the rest of the treasury at will without being terrified.
This story, by Len Wein, Andru and Don Perlin, is just pure fun: Spider-Man, grieving Gwen Stacy, is sent to San Francisco by J. Jonah Jameson to take pictures of the newly resettled Daredevil. But he runs afoul of an evil stage magician who has hyp-mo-tized Jack Russell into killing him because the dumb ol’ narcissist thinks Spidey is there to ruin his evil plans — whatever those may be, because Moondark gets knocked off the Golden Gate Bridge with minimal monologuing.
Hmmm… as a comics reader, do I reward the flawed execution of demented inspiration or the cozy pleasures of dependable competence? I think we all know the answer, folks.
WINNER: HANEYVERSE
***
The Brave and the Bold #112: Batman and Mister Miracle, “The Impossible Escape”
Technically this is only a team-up in the last few pages, as Batman and Mr. Miracle are both independently breaking into the same ancient Egyptian tomb said to hold the secrets to immortality. Batman is, in typically convoluted Haneyverse fashion, trying to exonerate the Gotham Art Museum from dealing in stolen antiquities. Mister Miracle has been challenged to do so as “the greatest escape of all time” by a mysterious blonde archeologist. Of course Blondie betrays Scott Free as soon as he penetrates the tomb, where he discovers that the dead pharaoh’s helmet has taken over Batman’s personality and made him take off his Bat-Costume for the first time in Haney’s run (I think) and dress up like said pharaoh. Together the two heroes figure out how to escape from the tomb in a rocketship, leaving them wondering who’s behind all of this. But we know:
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Marvel Team-Up #20: Spider-Man and the Black Panther, “Dinosaurs on Broadway!”
Stegron the Dinosaur Man, the Savage Land’s second most famous dinosaur man (next to the star of one of the most well-travelled comics memes ever), unleashes a bunch of dinos on Central Park to eat muggers and terrorize joggers, apparently to cow humanity into turning Earth back to its scaly former masters in this tale from Len Wein and Sal Buscema.
As acts of prehistoric terrorism go, Stegron’s seems especially misguided, as it greatly overestimates humanity’s interest in the welfare of everyday New Yorkers (we are very much in the Ford to New York: “Drop Dead” Era), even if Spidey and T’Challa weren’t around to thwart it. Mary Jane nearly gets flattened by a brontosaurus before Stegron gets kicked into the Hudson River, and, of course, drowns, because, we are told, dinosaurs are too heavy to swim. Is that how buoyancy works?
WINNER: HANEYVERSE
***
The Brave and the Bold #118: Batman and Wildcat co-starring the Joker, “May the Best Man Die!”
The Joker has infected everyone in a prison with a deadly virus to kill one guy who might rat on him while the con is boxing Wildcat (tied with Sgt. Rock for 5.32% of contemporaneous B&B appearances) in an exhibition match. Docs rush an adorable pooch with the antidote inside of him to the slammer, but in a car chase that Christopher Nolan clearly ripped off for The Dark Knight, except with Harvey Dent instead of Spot, Joker dog-naps the scamp.
Because he’s coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs, the Clown Prince of Crime makes Batman and Wildcat box each other with spiked Roman gloves to the death or else he’ll have one of his men shoot the dog. The dog spends the entire match with a gun pointed to his head, of course. This makes zero sense, because the Joker has no reason to let the heroes get the cure under any circumstances, but: Haneyverse.
When the dog bites Joker on the hand, he has his guy toss Spot in the river. Batman tricks Joker into thinking the pooch has lethal fever germs, not antibodies, so Joker dives into the drink to save Spot so he can be cured, but then remembers he can’t swim, and sinks like a Dinosaur Man. Spot saves the Joker, everyone gets antibodies, and the reader is treated to a bonkers Haneyverse classic of the “What was Bob smoking?” variety.
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Marvel Team Up #32: The Human Torch and the Son of Satan, “All the Fires in Hell…!”
Gerry Conway, Sal Buscema, and Vince Colletta serve up this tale of Johnny Storm recruiting Daimon Hellstrom, St. Louis’s foremost exorcist, to free his college pal Wyatt Wingfoot from a severe case of demon possession that not only makes him extremely strangle-prone, it also makes him (shudder) rhyme. (“Wyatt Wingfoot is my pawn, and Johnny is his victim; Johnny dies before the dawn, and Wyatt soon will join him…”)
Soon, the entire reservation is after Daimon and Johnny’s blood; the Son of Satan loses his cool and Daddy’s side takes over, leading to the throwdown promised on that awesome Kane cover. Once Hellstrom recovers, he gets Torch to bathe the reservation in light, banishing the demon.
This is a really fun comic, but B&B has the Joker threatening to shoot a dog. For, like, four pages.
WINNER: HANEYVERSE
***
The Brave & the Bold #129: Batman and Green Arrow, “The Claws of the Emperor Eagle”
The Brave & the Bold #130: Batman and 4 Famous Co-Stars, “Death at Rainbow’s End”
A rare two-parter for this title lets us revel in double the Haneyverse insanity. Oliver Queen, as is his wont, has lost his fortune again, and has acquired, over Batman’s vociferous objections, the legendary, cursed object known as the Emperor Eagle, which the city-state of Pathanistan forged for Alexander the Great as he marched to conquer them. Alexander died as soon as he accepted it, as has every person who ever possessed it since. Batman mentions that the last person who owned it was Adolf Hitler, who saved him from a well just three years ago, but this fact goes ungratefully unmentioned.
The airliner Ollie is taking to pick up his acquisition is hijacked by the Joker and Two-Face, who demand it flies to Pathanistan. They turn Ollie over to the crazy generalissimo, who puts him on trial for buying the country’s stolen artifact. The Joker is his defense attorney, so this goes about as well as you might aspect, despite Batman’s intervention.
To give Ollie “a sporting chance,” the General forces him into the weird ritual on the cover, where his riders try to spear a ring with a lance; whoever succeeds gets the right to skewer Queen with it. I know that sounds completely reasonable, but Batman has conveniently brought the Atom with him, who shrinks down small enough to not be seen as he moves the ring out of the lance’s path, saving Queen.
In the second part, Joker and Two-Face steal the Eagle and tie Batman to a solar panel to be burned to death. Green Arrow and Atom rescue him, though both the Mighty Mite and Bats are increasingly disturbed at how uncharacteristically obsessed Ollie has gotten with reclaiming the artifact, and its riches, for himself, even to the point where he double-crosses native allies who are helping him track it down. Still, the generalissimo steals it back, only to be struck by lightning. Both Eagle and general fall into a bottomless ravine, thereby fulfilling the curse. Ollie has to apologize for his sudden greed and all the heroes have a freeze-frame laugh over the stupidity of Joker and Two-Face, who of course have stolen a replica decoy.
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Marvel Team-Up #49: Spider-Man and Iron Man, “Madness Is All in the Mind!”
Marvel Team-Up #50: Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, “The Mystery of the Wraith!”
Incredible Hulk MVPs Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema have taken over this title for a while now, and have introduced on-going storylines, with mixed results. The Wraith arc is noteworthy for introducing NYPD Captain Jean DeWolff, a Lauren Becall type who models herself after a 1920s flapper, a fun idea for a character that I’m surprised nobody’s done anything with in the movies, but I guess Spidey doesn’t have as much of a need for a police liaison as Batman does. Ultimately, of course, Jean DeWolff suffers the fate of most female characters comics companies don’t know what to do with: She gets killed off, in a storyline that admittedly put the late, great Peter David on the map.
The Wraith himself is a hooded psycho who can do mind control and sends RC planes to bomb a Stark Industries plant, necessitating Iron Man’s invention. Captain DeWolff is trying to catch this nut too. Her efforts are constantly stymied by her chauvinist father, a retired police commissioner who makes James Gordon, a man who’s ceded all law enforcement control in his city over to a man dressed like a bat, look like a model of mental health. The elder DeWolff hates Jean for taking the police captaincy job he wanted his son, Brian, to take, were Brian not shot on the beat.
When evidence surfaces that the dead Brian is the Wraith, Spidey decides to call in Dr. Strange to track down the spectral villain. As it turns out, the Wraith operates in a giant vault under his own crypt (he and Denny Colt must have the same interior decorator). As it turns out, Brian got brain-dead from the bullet, not killed, and Dad’s Frankenstein-esque attempts to revive him caused their minds to be merged so that Dad can manipulate Brian and his weird powers to go on a rampage to kill anybody he doesn’t like across the city—including his own daughter. What a dick!
This story is a rambling, bonkers mess worthy of the Haneyverse, but it does read like a pale imitation of the real thing.
WINNER: HANEYVERSE
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YIKES! Never in the storied history of COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH! has there ever been such a one-sided pasting of one title by another. If this was a college baseball game, we could have stopped it early under the mercy rule.
We’ll see if the next installment of my dual re-read provides any surprises. After all, if Marvel Team-Up ever had a blue-ribbon creative team, it’d be two guys by the name of Claremont and Byrne. Can the Uncanny X-Men’s MVPs even up the score? Tune in next time and see, Fight Fans!
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MORE
— The Complete COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH Index. Click here.
— COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH: Secret Wars #1 vs. Crisis on Infinite Earths #1. Click here.
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Comics writer/playwright/bon vivant Fred Van Lente is a funny guy. Sign up for updates on his upcoming projects and check out the trailer for his comics-writing course at his web site, fredvanlente.com.
July 5, 2025
Wow! Unless I overlooked something, we appear to have a Haneyverse blowout. (And I have ALL those B&B issues and they are great!).
Makes sense as this is the very era when Haney’s storytelling was “hitting it outta the park.” Thanks, Fred! I fully concur with your judgment here.
July 5, 2025
Agree with the analysis wholeheartedly.
As maligned as Bob Haney is by more “sophisticated” readers, I can’t imagine a more appropriate writer for the original audience for these books. Throw in Peak Aparo between 74–75 and it’s a no-brainer…
July 5, 2025
Haney’s stories were wild, but they were exactly the kind of high concept ideas that appealed to DC’s middle school aged target audience and, unlike the modern “paced for trade” books of today, they were one and done, meaning even if you found it outlandish, it was over at the end of the story, not a year long multi-issue arc. Add in Jim Aparo’s “top of his game” art and it’s no wonder B&B was for a long time the bestselling Batman book of the era.
July 5, 2025
Haneyverse is a winner for the Aparo art alone.
July 5, 2025
I don’t know, I love the B&B title, and the Haney/Aparo team was awesome, but a lot of those MTU issues were pretty darned good. There are some MTU issues that are better than B&B issues, so I don’t know that this should really be a shutout.
July 5, 2025
Marvel Team-Up definitely gets better once Claremont and Byrne take over as you might expect. I never read B&B as a kid, as I was mostly a Marvel fan, but these look really cool! I might have to try and find a collection of these.
July 5, 2025
I had the issue of The Brave and the Bold with Green Arrow and the Atom teaming up with Batman. I was pretty new to actually reading comics (as opposed to just looking g at them) and I just assumed the greedy nature and overall jerkiness of Green Arrow was just part of his character – like he was the Reggie Mantle of the DC Universe. Now that I know the difference it’s really weird to see Ollie so money hungry.
July 6, 2025
Great article!
I agree with the Haneyverse win, but look out for the next battle.
Off topic but is Wildcat somehow traveling from Earth-2 whenever he teams up with Batman?
July 6, 2025
Doug, you answered your own question. It’s what made it part of the Haneyverse. Though my younger self had those very questions back in the day.
July 6, 2025
Bob Haney wrote good stories and Jim Aparo’s artwork was awesome! Aparo is at the top of his game during this period. For a kid who either couldn’t find or couldn’t afford many books, B&B was always a treasure! The stories were typically fast-paced and concluded in one issue (far superior to most of the decompressed stories we get today). Jim Aparo could draw any character that the writers and editors threw at him! I still don’t know how he did the pencils, inks, and letters all himself yet seemed to hit his deadlines every month. Truly a master!
July 9, 2025
A better “death match” would be B&B vs Marvel Two-in-One! Haneyverse in B&B was great when I read the title in the seventies as it seemed less of a team up comic but rather Batman recruiting a DC co-star in his war on crime. Marvel Two-in-One was basically a Thing comic or side story of the Fantastic Four comic with a guest star. Ben Grimm characterized at the time as Marvel’s most popular character.
July 12, 2025
I called the Haney/Aparo B&B the Best Team-up book run of all time in an article for Comics Should Be Good…. Buuuut these seem like some of the strongest Brave and the Boldses vs. the averagest Marvel team-ups. Pit the Wildcat appearance in 127 or the Sgt. Rock story in.. 116? 117? both of which I’ve read half a dozen times and barely remember against a correlative MTU and it will be a lot closer.