See my initial post for the context. Suffice to say that I will be sharing my entries to the Classic Comics Forum tradition, “Twelve Days of Classic Comics Christmas“. This is a cross-post of my sixth entry, representing #7 on my list of favorite comic book Crossovers.
7. Spider-Man and Red Sonja
“Sword of the She-Devil”
from Marvel Team-Up #79 (Marvel, 1979)
by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Terry Austin
The team is most famous for their work on Uncanny X-Men, but they delivered a perhaps even more impressive run on Marvel Team-Up. I could have picked a lot of stories from this era, but we only get 12 entries. So let’s focus on the best one. Prior to Claremont and Byrne taking over, Marvel Team-Up was a generally good book, but not necessarily of the highest quality storytelling. Claremont and Byrne brought a better sensibility to the series and told some great little tales.
Somehow, Spider-Man teams up with Conan’s sometimes ally to battle Conan’s arch-nemesis. Various mystic stuff brought Kulan Gath to the present, but had Red Sonja take over Mary Jane’s body to do battle with him. A whirlwind of a story that moves too fast for you to stop to wonder whether any of this makes sense. You just have to hang on.
