Marvel Team-Up #8 (April 1973)

Let's look at Marvel Team-Up #8!

The cover is a Jim Mooney and Morrie Kuramoto piece. It's pretty cool. I got a chuckle out of Cat threatening to team up with Man-Killer to beat up Spidey if he jumps into their fight.

"The Man-Killer Moves at Midnight!"
Writer: Jerry Conway
Penciler: Jim Mooney
Inker: Jim Mooney
Colorist: Stan Goldberg
Letterer Gaspar Saladino, Charlotte Jetter
Editor: Roy Thomas
Editor-in-Chief: Roy Thomas
Peacemaker: Irving Forbush

The story begins with Spider-Man doing what he does best: Wall-Crawling! Yup, our man Spidey is patrolling the streets of his native New York City, not realizing that a figure is stalking him. The figure is a mysterious woman in yellow and blue. Spider-Man's trademark Spider-Sense alerts him of the woman as she leaps at him. The two scuffle, and Mr. Parker makes a discovery.

Yeah, because the skintight suit didn't make that obvious. Peter Parker, Master Detective.

The lady introduces herself as The Cat, knocking him away. Spidey is able to save himself with his webbing. The Cat wanted to demonstrate her skills as she felt that Spidey would have found it hard to believe that a woman could have superpowers. Yeah, more on that later. The Cat wants Spidey's help. Back in her stomping grounds of Chicago, a politician was killed by an assassin known as...the Man-Killer. 

Back in Chicago, the Cat had been watching a rally held by the politician, a Mayor No-First-Name Samuels. One of his platforms was being hardcore anti-Women's Lib. Someone had thrown a spinning blade at the Mayor. It hit his chest, killing him almost immediately. The Cat had spotted the killer on a rooftop. The feline heroine made her way there, and discovered the assassin.

The two scuffled, but the Man-Killer was able to KO the Cat with one blow. The Cat tracked the assassin to Manhattan, and we're here. Spidey is wondering why she wants his help. After all, it's not like he's the only superhero in town. She explains that she sees Spider-Man as a fellow outsider, but the Wall-Crawler's like "Yeah yeah, let's just get this team-up going". Meanwhile, the Man-Killer makes an entrance.

The meeting involves a group of women, one of whom implies this group trained and financed the Man-Killer. The villain spots a man in the group and gets very angry. The group try to explain that the man is a professional they hired. It doesn't help that the man, only known as Drake, has a big mouth that makes him rant about how he won't take trash talk, especially from a woman.

(uh-oh)

He gets a beating for his trouble. We then get a flashback of the origins of the Man-Killer. Before she was an assassin, Katrina Luisa Van Horn was a skier. A good skier. Good enough to ski in the Winter Olympics. One night, Van Horn overhears a male skier named Karl Lubbings guffaw at the idea of women competing in the Olympics.

Van Horn understandably takes offense to the statement. Instead of showing him up at the actual games, she challenges him to a ski race "off-hours", as it were. The race heads towards a rock formation that resembles a ski jump. The egomanical Lubbings tries to cut Van Horn off.

Lubbings' ego causes the two skiers to fall off a cliff. Lubbings was killed, but Van Horn...was arguably not so lucky. Van Horn did survive, but her body ended up scarred and crippled, only able to even move thanks to a lot of rehabilitation and the exoskeleton in her costume. The costume itself was provided by a militant group. So, what is Van Horn in New York for? Well, she and the group plan to attack the Manhattan-Harlem Power Plant.

The Cat and Spider-Man wall-crawl through the city, and we get a quick recap of The Cat's origins. Basically, Greer Grant-Nelson was a widow, and ended up working on a project with a Dr. Joanne Tumolo whos purpose was to realize a human's physical potential. Other stuff happened, Greer got her Cat powers. Keep in mind, she's not quite Tigra yet. that comes later. Spidey and Cat's conversation is interrupted by the Man-Killer's attack.

Yeah.

More like a Mad Max-ified Volkswagen Beetle. The vehicle is a glorified battering ram, which smashes its way into the power plant. The Man-Killer and her all-girl goon squad attack the plant, but are taken down by Spidey and the Cat. Spidey webs up the goons, but the Man-Killer gets away. The owner of the plant reveals she made off with a prototype of a new generator. 

Spidey takes off searching for the Man-Killer. The Wall-Crawler spent until dawn searching the whole island. The Man-Killer ambushes him. The Cat finds the two and reveals that her rehab and training was actually funded by AIM, not the radical militant group she thought had funded her. This somehow makes Katrina's brain go blue-screen. The story ends with Spidey and Cat getting back the generator...while leaving Katrina Van Horn just standing there catatonic. Hopefully, one of the heroes called the cops to pick her up.

This comic was...not that great. The Man-Killer is admittedly a rather flat villain. Very one-note. The story does also have one big hole in it, and that's The Cat discovering AIM's involvement. How did she find that out? The story never indicated AIM was involved in any way. The story is an interesting in that it can be seen as a bit of snapshot of 1970s culture. Women's Lib and the feminist movement was a big theme of the Cat's stories at the time, and it does show here as well, with Man-Killer being seen as a more militant feminist. Her dialogue and actions show that. 

If you really want to read this for yourself, I recommend tracking down the 2019 trade paperback Tigra: The Complete Collection.