In "Our Lives Together," I spotlight some of the more interesting examples of shared comic book universes. You know, crossovers that aren't exactly crossovers.

Today, we look at the fascinating way that Len Wein dealt with Spider-Man receiving a THIRD comic book series.

As you all may or may not know, Spider-Man had just the one series, Amazing Spider-Man, for close to a decade (not counting the Spectacular Spider-Man magazine, that ran two issues in the late 1960s in an attempt to expand Marvel's superhero line of books into the magazine format). That changed in late 1971 with the introduction of Marvel Team-Up, which teamed Spider-Man up with a different superhero every issue...

In 1974, Marvel launched a new initiative. Dubbed "Giant-Size," they would be like annuals, only they would come out four times a year. All of the major Marvel series had them, like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and, of course, Spider-Man.

However, Len Wein, then the writer of Marvel Team-Up as well as the writer of Giant-Size Spider-Man, still considered it essentially a third Spider-Man ongoing series and he seemed to believe that that was a bit TOO much exposure for the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. So he came up with a novel approach.

The month that Giant-Size Spider-Man #1 debuted...

Marvel Team-Up would star not Spider-Man, but the Human Torch!

Then, Spider-Man returned for the next two months' worth of Team-Ups...

and then when Giant-Size Spider-Man #2 came out...

Human Torch once again starred in Marvel Team-Up!

This way, Spider-Man technically wouldn't have more than two comic book series in any given month!

This approach continued for as long as the Giant-Size books continued to do new material (which was just five issues worth of Giant-Size Spider-Man). Giant-Size, by the way, was also treated by Wein as a team-up series, so it was sort of like an extra issue of Marvel Team-Up (I believe Marvel has even collected Giant-Size along with Marvel Team-Up when they did Marvel Masterworks for Marvel Team-Up).

Okay, you might be thinking, "But what about shared continuity, Brian?"

Here ya go!

Giant-Size Spider-Man (by Wein, Ross Andru and Don Heck) opens up with Spider-Man responding to a burglary and getting attacked by an unknown foe who has ice powers...

Spidey then has to get to an ocean liner to bring a doctor back to New York City to help save Aunt May's life. Spider-Man asks the Human Torch for transportation that can get him there and back as soon as possible. The Human Torch complies...

Spider-Man then tells the Torch about the mysterious burglary.

Marvel Team-up #23 (by Wein, Gil Kane and Mike Esposito) OPENS with Spider-Man taking off in the transport...

And then the Torch investigating the burglary...

Which leads him to Iceman...

The culprit, though, is Equinox, who has ice AND fire powers!

Clever stuff by Wein all around.