Every Sunday morning we showcase a classic comic cover, complete with compelling commentary, for your cordial contemplation. It’s the Classic Comic Cover Corner!
Marvel Team-Up #74 – October, 1978
Cover art by Bob Hall
Saturday Night Live began its thirty-ninth season last night and since the show first aired on October 11, 1975, the NBC program has seen thirty-eight years’ worth of colorful cast members and hilarious guest hosts. But probably the strangest stars to ever appear on the Studio 8H stage are the subject of this week’s Classic Comic Cover Corner.
Marvel Team-Up #74 had the amazing Spider-Man working together with SNL’s original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players,” which included Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Bill Murray. And who was guest hosting the big show? Why, none other than Stan “The Man” Lee, together with Marvel’s multitalented Rick Jones as the musical guest.
In the Chris Claremont penned story titled, “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night,” Peter Parker takes Mary Jane on a date to see the SNL performance at Rockefeller Center, coincidentally the same night that Stan Lee is performing and that the Silver Samurai and his henchmen are looking for a special ring that contains a “teleportation matrix.”
The teleportation ring was inadvertently delivered to John Belushi, who gets it stuck on his finger. Before the night is over, Belushi is in his famous Samurai costume and slinging swords with the Marvel villain, but fortunately, Spidey is there to save the day.
This book has a lot of fun hijinks between Uncle Stan, Spidey and the old school SNL cast, but because of the NBC copyright for their respective material, you won’t find this issue reprinted in any of the Marvel Team-Up compilations – you’ll have to search out the original in your local comic shop’s back issue bins.
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