by Randy Lander

MARVEL TEAM-UP #1 Marvel Comics Writer: Robert Kirkman Artist: Scott Kolins Colors: Studio F Letters: Chris Eliopoulos Editor: Tom Brevoort Price: $2.25 US/$3.25 CAN Marvel Team-Up sounds like a fun idea, a series that explores the Marvel Universe by teaming up some of its characters, and it's certainly got a promising creative team. A shame, then, that this first issue is a disappointment. Oh, the artwork, by Kolins and Studio F, is gorgeous, equal to the work that Kolins is doing on Earth's Mightiest Heroes and worth a look, but the story has... problems. There are the big ones, like the overexposure of both Wolverine and Spider-Man and the odd fit characterization that Kirkman does for both of them or the fact that the plot seems really, really contrived in order to put them together, and there are smaller ones, like Kirkman falling prey to one of my biggest complaints about Brian Bendis's version of Spider-Man in his writing. There's definitely a light, fun tone to the story, but these characters and this particular story didn't really spark with me, and I hope that Kirkman will capture my attention more fully as the book goes on. One of the dangers of a book like Team-Up is that the stories are going to seem contrived and illogical in order to put the characters together. "Oh, Galactus is attacking? Well, it's up to Moon Knight and Daredevil to stop him!" Kirkman doesn't go to quite that extreme, and certainly a mutant in Peter Parker's school gives a reasonable excuse for both of these heroes to get involved, but the speed at which they all come together, and the way that they meet up (on a random rooftop?) feels pretty contrived. More contrived is the heroes fighting, which requires Wolverine to act like a complete idiot and Spider-Man to act not much smarter, and while I think Kirkman was going for goofy fun, instead he makes both the heroes look like total goofs, which I didn't find really fun. I can forgive a lot if the book is uproariously funny (see the recent Spider-Man/Wolverine teamup in Ultimate Spider-Man), but Marvel Team-Up #1 never quite gets there. On a smaller level, there's some moment-to-moment writing in Marvel Team-Up #1 that I really liked, as well as some that I disliked. It's nice to see Peter interacting with other faculty and with students, since I really feel like the potential of Peter as school teacher has been almost entirely wasted by its originator, Straczynski, in favor of shock tactic stories like the current Gwen fiasco. I got a kick out of Peter being flirted with and not really knowing what to do with it, and I like seeing him step between the bullies and the weaker kids in a nice echo of his childhood and evolution into Spider-Man. I wish that the rest of Kirkman's characterization rang as true for me, but Spider-Man comes off as a bit dim in the head, and I was wondering throughout the fight sequences if he even had his spider sense anymore. Kirkman also steps on a personal hot button issue of mine by having some random character guess Spidey's identity, which makes a tried and true convention of the superhero seem stupid and silly, at which point you're kicking away at the foundations of the genre you're writing in. While the script might have been disappointing, I was not disappointed in the artwork at all. Scott Kolins and Studio F make a great team, and their super-detailed version of New York City feels as real as any version of the city we've seen in comics before. There's also no denying that the opening shot captures all the humor and absurdity that Kirkman was hoping for, or that the sequences between Spider-Man, Wolverine and... uh... Paul, are kinetic and fast-paced and exciting. Kolins is a consummate storyteller, but the most impressive aspect of his art is probably the amount of detail that he packs into his panels, comparable to George Perez or Frank Quitely, and that's definitely visible in this issue. Though much of this issue felt predictable and even a little bit overly familiar (Wolverine cutting through himself to get out of bonds isn't really a new thing anymore), the ending is anything but. It's clear from the start that Kirkman is leading us to a surprise ending, but I hadn't really seen the direction it was going, and this little twist makes it clear that the next issue will probably be quite different, and will probably spell a little more what the story is really about. With any luck, that shift in story will be more to my liking, so that I'll enjoy the story as much as I did the art. 5/10 Email Randy Lander comments about this review.