Marvel Team-Up (Vol. 3) #3

Background

Who is Titannus? Why did Dr. Doom suddenly appear? What happened to the chubby kid Paul? Do there questions get answered? Kinda...well...no, not really.

Spider-Man and Wolverine fought a naked fat kid named Paul, who could shoot yellow beams from his hands. (If the kid was fighting Hal Jordan, he'd kick serious butt.) Wolverine poked the kid in the arm with a claw, and he mysteriously disintegrated.

Meanwhile, an alien warlord type guy is talking to his presumably dead girlfriend. He sends out metal baseball things to retrieve information.

Story Details

We open with Dr. Strange in some kind of deep meditation. He is violently thrust out of it by some great disturbance in the force. This disturbance compels him to stay up all night and study. Better put on a cup of tea, Wong--looks like it's going to be a long night. (You see, Wong is Strange's sidekick and...never mind.)

Moon Knight flies by the Baxter Building for no apparent reason. Johnny Storm (a.k.a. The Human Torch) now has green hair. Why? It would seem that our blue-eyed rock pal the Thing (a.k.a. Ben Grimm) gave Johnny some special shampoo. A scuffle follows and is soon broken up. Moments later, Dr. Doom (a.k.a. Victor Von Doom) bursts through the wall of the breakfast nook, yelling "Richards!"

Doom's armor looks suspiciously un-Doom-like. He looks more like a silver Iron Man with a green cloak. Either way, Doom sees Johnny Storm and starts muttering how he watched him die and how something isn't right. He flies away, jabbering, "I don't understand..." You and me both, Doom, you and me both.

The naked fat kid Paul appears right in front of the Incredible Hulk (a.k.a. Bruce Banner). Is that luck or what? We'll miss ya kid.

Dr. Strange meets up with the Fantastic Four and tells them he has a spell that can track Doom. Sue Storm (a.k.a. The Invisible Woman (getting tired of these yet?)) makes a comment about how it would've "taken Reed at least an hour to invent a way to track him."

A four-page colorful battle later, and Dr. Doom realizes that they were calling him "Doom." Good ear Doom, good ear. You were called Doom three times before the Doom you heard. Anyways, Doom lifts up his mask to reveal that he is, in fact, Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) with major burns around his eyes.

General Comments

Basically, it comes down to this: Robert Kirkman has a lot of explaining to do. Dr. Doom is Iron Man, Paul teleported somewhere (presumably) in New Mexico, and who is Titannus?

I was hoping we'd get an answer to at least one question. Well, actually, we did. Paul teleported away when Wolerine stabbed him. But we didn't get a definite where. I guess I'm getting too picky, but I WANT ANSWERS!

The art is very, how should I say..."Marvel-Age-esque"? It's good, for kids. Young kids. The two battles were okay but we could have saved pages if "Tony Stark" had heard Reed Richards (a.k.a. Mr. Fantastic) the first time...or the second time...or heard Sue the third time Doom was mentioned. That's just bad.

Overall Rating

They took one of my favorite villains of all time and made him Iron Man. Instead of answering any questions brought up last month, they pile more questions on. Books that take this long to get answers usually leave me with bad answers.

I didn't think about this until now, but what was Dr. Strange doing all night? For all of his studying, he came up with one spell that could track Doom. As McFarlane wrote in Spider-Man, "pray for our hero". Well, "heroes" in this case.