With Marvel Team-Up #9 (May 1973), writer Gerry Conway and artist Ross Andru began a three-part time travel story arc that took Spider Man into the future, back to the present and then back into the future. If Peter had signed up for Time Travel Frequent Flyer points, he would have cleaned up.
The story begins with Avengers Mansion briefly blinks out of existence and then turns out to be surrounded by a force field. Iron Man arrives to try to deal with this. Spidey, in the meantime, sees a news report about this on TV and swings over to help.
Both heroes are in a sour mood,though, and spend several panels bickering with each other before a hole in the fabric of time and space opens next to them.
Caught up in a sort-of superhero oneupmanship, Peter and Tony both jump through this hole. It's a fun scene. The two had quickly gotten on each other's nerves and are reacting emotionally rather than logically, but this is the sort of fallability that always makes the inhabitants of the Marvel Universe so appealing. Even two of the smartest people in that universe can just plain mess up.
Still, things don't go too badly at first. They find themselves in another dimension, with highly advanced aircraft dogfighting around them. One of these crafts picks up the two heroes. Soon, they are introduced to Zarrko the Tomorrow Man.
Zarrko is a villain, but he hadn't appeared in a comic book for nearly ten years of real-life time and, at that time, he fought Thor. It's understandable that neither Spidey nor Shellhead knew he's a bad guy. Heck, a lot of readers in 1973 probably didn't recognize him.
Zarrko wants there help in dealing with a villain who is conquering 23rd Century Earth, which is where he hails from. Since this mystery villain has also captured the rest of the Avengers, the heroes agree to help Soon, they find themselves transported to that century., battling their way into a citadel, taking out mooks and sparring with a giant robot. They make it past these obstacles, but Iron Man's armor is severely damaged.
They make it to the citadel's control room, where they find the Avengers being held in stasis. They also abruptly discover that Zarrko's enemy is Kang the Conquerer. With Iron Man already nearly helpless, Kang easily zaps the good guys.
Zarrko shows up again, helpfully monologing his own plans to take out Kang and then carry out Kang's intention to use the 23rd Century as a base to conquer the 20th Century. A badly dazed Spider Man hears this and realizes that Zarrko is as much a threat as Kang. But there seems to be little he can do about it.
Marvel Team-Up #9 is a fun start to the trilogy. The interactions between Peter and Tony are fun, the story makes sense within the context of a Comic Book universe and the issue is packed with plenty of fun action, brought to vivid life by Andru's art.
We'll look at Part 2 of this story next week and see how it holds up as the action snaps back to the 20th Century.
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