Marvel Team-Up, Vol. 2: Master of the Ring

Marvel Team-Up (2004) (Collected Editions) #2

by Robert Kirkman, Scott Kolins (Artist)

The Ringmaster is sick of sitting on the sidelines. Reality-altering ring in hand, the newly super-powered villain is out to make a name for himself. Unfortunately for Spider-Man and Moon Knight, they are caught up in the middle of his master plan for world domination. Also featuring the Punisher, Blade, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and more How about Titannus's plot to take over Japan Collects Marvel Team-Up #7-13.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Superheroes, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Spider Man

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2005

About the author

Robert Kirkman is an American comic book writer best known for his work on The Walking Dead, Invincible for Image Comics, as well as Ultimate X-Men and Marvel Zombies for Marvel Comics. He has also collaborated with Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane on the series Haunt. He is one of the five partners of Image Comics, and the only one of the five who was not one of the original co-founders of that publisher.

Robert Kirkman's first comic books were self-published under his own Funk-o-Tron label. Along with childhood friend Tony Moore, Kirkman created Battle Pope which was published in late 2001. Battle Pope ran for over 2 years along with other Funk-o-Tron published books such as InkPunks and Double Take.

In July of 2002, Robert's first work for another company began, with a 4-part SuperPatriot series for Image, along with Battle Pope backup story artist Cory Walker. Robert's creator-owned projects followed shortly thereafter, including Tech Jacket, Invincible and Walking Dead.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just whipped through this in one morning. It was a heckuva lot of fun. Nice artwork too. I'm a sucker for team-up stories...

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume collects issues 7-13 of a re-vamped Team-Up, which consists of two nicely written stories by Kirkman. The first one features art by Scott Kolins and sees Ringmaster and a mystic ring facing Spider-Man, Moonknight, Punisher, Blade, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and a semi-ridiculous number of other characters. Titannus War has art from Paco Medina, who does weird things to noses. It has Skrulls and Hulks and Spider-Man again and Tony Stark and a raft of still more characters. Kirkman slides in some really clever lines that show he gets the Marvel-verse as well as the Dead-verse. The art is pretty good overall, typical of computer-assisted work from twenty years back. I preferred the ring story; how can you argue with Stilt Man? It's not great stuff, but it's fun. Excelsior!

[Tim Avers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume is a Team-Up tour de force featuring many of Marvel's New York based heroes vs. one of their oldest, goofiest villains, Ringmaster. Meanwhile, tensions build as Skrull offcast Tyrannus plots to enlist Earth's heroes against an alien king, with a twist. Kirkman proves he understands characters like Spiderman, Dr. Strange, and Nova through deft dialog, in-jokes about being a superhero, and straightforward action Although the pacing of the collected format feels a bit rushed, Kirkman brushes the pieces of his world-shattering story into place, proving it doesn't tale a summer crossover or a multi-year metaplot to tell a really grand tale.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ringmaster gets a cosmic ring. Blade and Punisher team up in an interesting way. This is just a series of loosely related sequences where heroes team up to stop bad guys. It is a fun read, and very light reading. It does finish off the Stark Doom storyline-ish from the first volume. The Blade and Punisher sequence is very good, considering how similar their personalities and motives are. A good read.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

What was that? 3 different versions of how Titannus got here? Also Titannus, wouldn't it have been easier to just offer some gold, or tech or something to some of the supervillains? Even some of the heroes might have gone for that. Probably would've been more effective anyways

[sixthreezy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good. First Kirkman work outside of The Walking Dead that I've legitimately enjoyed..

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

okay
just okay

[Matthew Ledrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This is graphic storytelling used very well. Full marks, just for that."

Read the full review at TheBookCloset

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh.