Marvel Team-Up (Vol. 3) #6

Background

A battle with a chubby kid led Spider-man and Wolverine on a wild adventure. An adventure that ended with Paul Patterson disintegrating in a bright gold light.

An evil version of Tony Stark appeared from an alternate dimension somewhere near Latveria. He wasted no time seeking out the Fantastic Four and started a battle at the Baxter Building. Dr. Strange joined in and helped turn the tables in the favor of New York's first family.

Shortly thereafter, while building a machine to take him to his reality, Evil Tony Stark detected a powerful power source for his machine in the form of Paul Patterson. After a small skirmish with the Incredible Hulk, Evil Stark made off with his chubby battery.

Finding an abandoned phone in an abandoned building Paul Patterson leaves a message for Peter Parker at the school where Peter teaches. Peter calls in a favor from Mr. Fantastic and the call is traced back to Evil Stark's hideout.

On the rooftop of Evil Stark's hideout Spidey meets with X-23, the female version of Wolverine. They fight briefly and fall through the roof...and land at the footsteps of Evil Iron Man.

Story Details

"Spider-man? I've never heard of you," says the Evil Iron Man. Then he starts blasting away at Spidey and X-23.

After a few blasts and a lot of Spider-man's nervous joke making, X-23 says, "Can't you shut up?! I can't hear myself fight."

We are then taken to the S.H.I.E.L.D. heli-carrier where Nick Fury, Black Widow and Captain America are about to grab some lunch. They make a quite stop to visit the Diamondback Robot that gave the Cap some trouble in his own self-titled comic book a bunch of months ago. Who says there's no continuity in the Marvel U?

Reed Richards tips Nick Fury off about Evil Iron man's whereabouts through Paul Patterson's energy signatures. Fury, having the best team in front of him, sends Captain America and Black Widow into action.

X-23 makes a move to free Paul, but Spider-man warns, "Don't free him! He's bad too. We want to save him, but don't set him lose!" A blast delivered from Evil Iron man pummels him and then the cavalry shows up in the form of Captain America.

Evil Iron man seems to recognize him and stands down if only for a moment. After Cap tries to talk a little sense into Evil Tony, a beam is shot, some webs are shot and Evil Tony gets a face full of shield...oh, and he gets a bit of adamantium in the face too.

To gain the upper hand in the situation, Evil Iron man turns on his neural scrambler a device on his suit that make it's victims feel as if their "nerves are on fire." He begins a monologue about how he's so great and how he's going home when he realizes that not only is he in the wrong dimension but the timeline doesn't match up. He goes on to realize that "the Titannus War" hasn't happened yet.

Oh and Paul yells, "Spider-man! You suuuuuck!"

With the neural scramble wearing off, the heroes devise a plan. Actually, Spidey's the man with the plan. He busts out with an X-23 "fastball special." Specifically an upside-down, X-23 "fastball special" aimed at Paul Patterson. Paul, like he did when Wolverine stabbed him, disappears in an explosion and a "Fa-faash!" noise. With the threat stopped everyone looks at Spider-man like he's an amazing idiot.

In Canada, Paul appears at the feet of "WEN-DI-GO!"

After being told that everyone hate him, Spidey ponders aloud what everyone who's been following this story has been pondering. "What's a 'Titannus'?" Well, actually everyone's been wondering "Who's Titannus?" but whatever. The point is Titannus beat the crap out of Sunfire. Not to be morbid or anything but I hope he killed him. What's wrong with that?

The real Tony Stark decides to take a peek at the alternate Tony Stark and states how weird it is to be looking at himself. He then offers to take Captain America to lunch. Meanwhile, Dr. Strange claims that we must be vigilant as long as the doppelganger Tony Stark is in this dimension. Then Strange demands more tea as Spidey swings through the city.

General Comments

There were a lot of little things that I liked in this issue. In my review of issue #5, I stated that I didn't like X-23's involvement in the story, but now I'd like to take that back. She was a nice little touch to the story with her insults to Spider-man, and their imitation "fastball special." I think it worked really well.

I also like the way that Kirkman pays attention to continuity. He makes mention of the Diamondback robot that was in Captain America 29-32 and he makes mention of Spider-man being a "fellow Avenger" as Spider-man put it towards the end of the book. Kudos to Kirkman.

This was a decent ending for this arc. There are still many questions unanswered but after a bit of apprehension, I'm thinking this Titannus story will end really well.

Back to what I was saying about Sunfire maybe dying. I kind of...no I hope he dies. Just so we can see just how big a threat Titannus is. If Sunfire is just beat up hard and not dead, it softens Titannus' character.

Overall Rating

I can't see myself giving this book a five. It was well done, but it didn't seem to me a good conclusion. They just kind of passed the buck by stabbing Paul and sending him on his merry way.

Also for being the character who was Teamed-up with Captain America on the cover of this book, Black Widow was as she said herself "useless." She was out of her element completely.

Four webs.