101. Marvel Teamp Up vol 1 #103 ... Marvel ...

Why did I start my next 100 reviews (hopefully) with this? Because I happened to chance upon it last night, dug it out and re-read it, not that I bought it when it was new, of course but via Mile High Comics (hi, Chuck!)

So how was it,, you asked?

Well, firstly, I loved the artwork. It's typical Marvel comics of the 80s but done well. Look at that cover. You have perspective and depth in the page and I love Ant Man because of the uniform. Hehehe! No further comments on this

As for the tale, apparently it is an indirect continuation from Avengers wherein Ant Man had encountered the villain Taskmaster before. So in this tale, Task is running his Academy for villains' grunts. What he does is recruit criminals and in a way clean up the streets freeing them from petty thieving and what-not. Then he trains them for use as grunts by master criminals and super-villains. Hence super-powered crimes will go up but not the petty ones ... ooo like purse snatching and house robbing. A community service in a way, eh?

Well, Ant Man here is Scott Lang and he was a former criminal. So someone who he knew had offered him to join up only to be knocked off within minute of leaving Scott's home. Therefore our buddy the Ant decided to investigate

And how does our friend Spidey got involved?

Because in his photographer guise of Peter P, at the Bugle, Jonah noticed this trend with the burglaries and crime rates and sent him to the district to check it out. And there you have it! It is a logical meeting between heroes ...

Best part? You get to see Spidey actually surprised, fought and lost to Taskmaster as per the cover. So that's no hype! Awesome action, enjoyable read!

Ratings: 8/10 (1 point extra here for Ant Man)