Monday, July 11, 2016

Ultimate Team Ups

As a lifelong comic book reader, a lot of my favorite issues involve team ups. Team ups are great, they take two or more popular heroes (and/or villains) and team them up for an issue or mini-series. A current popular team up is Deadpool and Spider-Man. Spider-Man was the most popular super hero when I was growing up and so there were a butt load of Spider-Man titles available. There was Spider-Man (of course), The Amazing Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Deadly Foes of Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Astonishing Spider-Man, Marvel Team up featuring Spider-Man, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, Spider-Man Unlimited, The Sensational Spider-Man, Webspinners: Tales of Spider-Man, and Marvel Knights: Spider-Man just to name a few. So obviously there were many opportunities for Spider-Man to team up with someone.

My favorite team ups had to be the bad guys though. And Spidey has a FANTASTIC rogues gallery. Above I mentioned Deadly Foes of Spider-Man, within those pages I met the Sinister Syndicate, an offshoot of my favorite group that I will get to in a minute. The Sinister Syndicate consisted of baddies The Beetle (armored suit that made him look like a beetle. Had stuff to make him a tough opponent, he was also the leader), Boomerang (hot shot loud mouth dude that has rocket boots and themed boomerangs that he can throw extremely fast and accurately), Hydro-Man (remember Sandman from Spider-Man 3? Him. Except water), Speed Demon (a speedster like The Flash, but not nearly as fast or as charming), Rhino (every group has a strong guy and that's Rhino. He's a big dude anyway, but in the comics he also wore an armored, imprenatrable suit. Always a tough fight for Spidey), and Shocker (Herman Schultz wears a self invented suit that provides defense from physical attacks, and gauntlets that project concentrated vibrational air blasts. Another tough one for the Webhead).

Then there's my favorite Spider-Man rogues team up. Then Sinister Six! There have been many incarnations of the Sinister Six over the years, sometimes their ranks grew to be the Sinister Sixteen! I'm not going to list their powers with the guys, there's too many.
Original line up - Doctor Octopus, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio (Quentin Beck. Also several people who have been known as Mysterio), Sandman, the Vulture (original one, Adrian Toomes)
Others that would eventually join and leave at different times were: Hobgoblin, Gog, Beetle, Scorpia, Shocker, Venom, Green Goblin, Boomerang, Chameleon, Hammerhead, Tombstone, Venom (when Mac Gargan, formely Scorpion, had the alien symbiote. Ask me about this later, good fun stuff.), Grim Reaper, Lizard, Trapster, Rhino, Living Brain, Overdrive, Speed Demon, SPIDER-MAN (during the Superior Spider-Man storyline when Doctor Octopus' mind was in control of Peter Parker's body), and many others that aren't even worth mentioning.

Other groups I was a big fan of was The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Enemies of the X-Men that had various members throughout the 90's. I think my fascination for these baddie team ups came from my early years. Even before I could read comic books I was watching shows like He-Man & the Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, Silverhawks, and Super Friends. Super Friends and He-Man stick out the most for me. If you're unfamiliar with Super Friends, it was a cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera that started in 1973 and ran until 1986. It was the Justice League of America basically, but written only for children. Very cheesy, ya know what I mean? I loved it. But my favorite part wasn't Superman, or Batman & Robin, or Wonder Woman, or Aquaman, or Green Lantern, or Plastic Man, or Green Arrow or Marvin & Wendy or the Wonder Twins, or even Wonder Dog! Nope, it was the Legion of Doom! The bad guys!

The Legion of Doom met in a big Darth Vader helmet in a swamp and they were led by Lex Luthor, the greatest criminal mind of all time! Members were Lex Luthor, Bizarro (a reverse Superman, he even speaks in opposites), Black Manta (Aquaman villain. A real good one too, I'll talk about him another time.), Brainiac (Superman baddie that I hope we see in the Justice League movie), Captain Cold (Flash villain, would become a very interesting character to me in 30 years), Gorilla Grodd (super intelligent gorilla villain of the Flash), Riddler (Batman's Riddler), Scarecrow (another Batman bad guy), Sinestro (Green Lantern's arch nemesis), Solomon Grundy (Batman villain. I think I'll do a Batman Rogues gallery vs. Spider-Man's tomorrow :-) ), and the Toyman (Superman villain who, 20 years later, would be responsible for the murder of a child in an issue of Superman. I remember how much that bothered me when I first read it.)

So who would be my ultimate team up, you ask? Well not only will I tell you, but I'll show you!





Can you see who those guys are?! They're the ULTIMATE SINISTER SIX! Apocalyspe (X-Men villain, featured in last X-Men movie), Darkseid (big baddie of the Justice League, the Thanos of DC comics), Kang the Conqueror (Avengers villain), Magneto (X-Men villain and sometimes leader), Lex Luthor and SKELETOR (He-Man villain)! Ignore the Lego Ghostbusters, I assure you they have NOTHING to do with the PURE EVIL that stands next to them. Now, I never actually intended to team these guys up, it was a happy accident that happened when I was setting up a bunch of my old toys for my cousin's and my friend's kids to play with while the adults drank adult drinks on Saint Patrick's Day. Don't judge.

Who is your ultimate team up? I'm on twitter, you can tweet me (i really don't like saying that or writing it either for that matter), @SuperNerdyNews or leave me a comment on here or on my Facebook page! If I get enough responses I'll talk about them on my podcast, The Good Shit, now available on soundcloud.com.

 I would love to hear who you would put on your ultimate team. It doesn't have to be Villains or Good Guys! It can be both! AND your team up could include ANYONE from ANY universe out there! Have fun, interwebslingers!

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