Spider-Man Team-Up #4
Background
$2.95, glossy paper, 64 pages, and a confused, go-nowhere dribble of a plot which is as exciting as watching the cat chase its tail. George Perez wrote this daft story, then four artistic teams struggled to redeem it through slick graphics. They all failed dismally.
Story 'Webs Of Time'
Spider-Man Team-Up #4
| Editor: | Tom Brevoort |
| Writer: | George Perez |
| Pencils: | Brandon McKinney, Dan Jurgens, Darick Robertson, Steve Geiger |
| Inker: | Andrew Pepoy, Chris Ivy, Tom Palmer |
The story is about a Spider-Man robot who is trying to reactivate some time machine belonging to Kang. The roots of the story go back to Avengers #11, among others. If you haven't read that, you won't make sense out of this story. Even if you have read it, you might understand but you probably still won't care.
The time machine is based in Mexico, but the Spider-Robot heads to New York because... well, he just heads there, OK? He zaps everyone he can find with some webbing which ages things by 100 years or so. Why? Well, he just does, OK?
The Avengers, Spider-Man, and some NSC agents get involved. There's a lot of catching up on the Avengers current woes (especially the new youthful Tony Stark), then we catch up on Ben's woes - then they all go to Mexico, get zapped by the robot but don't die - then they blow up the robot and go home.
After the robot is destroyed, the "Web of Time" is unravelled, and Ben and Tony are the only ones who can remember what (never) happened. The hackneyed 'it never happened ending' seems added as an after-thought. It's like the writer came to his senses and decided to ret-con it out of existance even before the story was over. That's the most sensible thing he does in this book.
General Comments
With this rubbish, it's no wonder the Avengers changed universe! If this was half as long and re-titled as an Avengers story then it might have been acceptable 20 years ago.
As it is, this is the worst so called Spider-Man comic I have read since, well since Team-Up #3 three months ago. This combines the improbable farcical nature of Spider-Man Team-Up #3, the historical self-indulgant irrelevence of Spider-Man Team-Up #2, and the superficiality and inanity of Spider-Man Team-Up #1.
Overall Rating 
Yawn! Save your cash for better comics. One web is generous.