This is "How Can I Explain?", which is a feature spotlighting inexplicable comic book plots.
Today, based on a suggestion from my pal, Fraser, we look at a funny time paradox from an early issue of Marvel Team-Up featuring Spider-Man and the Vision.
It is difficult to quite grasp just how big of a shift both Marvel and DC went through in the early 1970s as a whole new generation of writers took over both universes. In the DC Universe, it was a matter of one group of writers being replaced by a younger group of writers, but over at Marvel, it was a stranger transition, since it meant going from two guys writing essentially every comic book set in the Marvel Universe to a whole pile of young men taking on those titles plus a rapidly expanding roster of comic book titles.
Thus, when Marvel went from basically Stan Lee coordinating a bunch of titles that he was editing himself to Lee and Roy Thomas splitting up those titles between themselves to suddenly a disparate group of young writers tackling a much larger number of books, then there was bound to have some continuity problems. One of the more amusing occurred between Marvel Team-Up #5 and Avengers #105.
Marvel Team-Up #5 (by Gerry Conway, Gil Kane and Mike Esposito) saw Spider-Man suddenly running into the Vision, who was in some considerable distress.
When Spidey asked the Vision why he couldn't just ask the Avengers for help, the synthezoid explained that he couldn't at the moment, not after the events of Avengers #105.
Okay, sounds good. Well, not GOOD, but you know what I mean.
As it turned out, the Vision's problems were caused by the Puppet Master finding a Skrull sentry robot that had been left on Earth following the Kree Skrull War.
This, of course, doesn't make any sense in and of itself, since that robot did not, in fact, appear during the Kree Skrull War. Not only that, but let's say that it did, wouldn't this same problem have happened then?
As a complete aside, I just adore Puppet Master karate kicking the Vision. How awesome is that?
Anyhow, him being a semi-useful superhero (he once beat up all of the X-Men! That's Wasp-levels of power!), Spider-Man helps the Vision out.
Okay, so now let's check out Avengers #105 and find out why Vision is on the outs with the Avengers at the start of this issue of Marvel Team-Up!
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Avengers #105 (by Steve Englehart, John Buscema and Jim Mooney) follows the Avengers on their search for their missing member, Quicksilver, who had set off on his own to search for his sister, the Scarlet Witch, after she had been kidnapped by a Sentinel! The Avengers rescued the Witch, but lost her twin brother in the process.
But wait, here's the Vision, and he just got back from his fight with the Puppet Master? Huh?
At the end of the issue, the Vision is the only male Avenger not to fail for Lorelei's spell, so that made him so mopey he wouldn't even go on the team's next mission...
So, Conway and Englehart were both told to tie into the other guy's story, but not which story to be placed first! They apologized in the letter column to Marvel Team-Up, noting that they have to be more careful now they have so many more titles!
Funny stuff.
Thanks for the suggestion, Fraser! If anyone else has a suggestion for an inexplicable plot point, write me at brianc@cbr.com!