Marvel Team-Up #138

Name: Marvel Team-Up #138
Brand: Marvel
Availability: InStock

Feb 1984 · Marvel · 0.60 USD; 0.25 GBP; 0.75 CAD

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“Starting Over!”

★ 1st appearance — Arranger

About this Issue

Marvel Team-Up #138 marks the first appearance of the Arranger (Oswald P. Silkworth), who would spend most of the mid-to-late 1980s as the Kingpin's indispensable right-hand man and a recurring antagonist across multiple Spider-Man family titles — a surprisingly durable debut for a character who arrived in an anthology team-up book near the end of its run. The issue is also a meaningful chapter in the Sandman's long reformation arc: by casting the former Spider-Man villain as the issue's de facto hero, writer Tom DeFalco demonstrated that morally complex, villain-to-antihero character development had a legitimate place even in the comparatively low-stakes Marvel Team-Up format. Together, these two threads — a new villain who would graduate to 'Kingpin lieutenant' status, and an old villain actively choosing decency — give the issue an outsized narrative footprint for a single-issue team-up story.

writer Tom DeFalco · artist Greg LaRocque · artist, inker Mike Esposito · colorist Bob Sharen · letterer Diana Albers · cover Al Milgrom

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NM $2.25 NM $5.19 NM $70.37 Marvel Team-Up Comic Book Spider-Man and Sandman #138 Marvel 1984 VERY HI GRADE $3.99 Marvel Team-Up Comic Book Spider-Man and Sandman #138 Marvel 1984 $8.99 Marvel Team Up Spider-Man & The Sandman #138 1984 $10 Marvel Comic Book Marvel Team-Up Vol. 1 #138 February 1984 Spiderman and Sandman $11.4 Marvel Team-Up Spiderman And Sandman #138 1983 Polybag Sealed $17.5

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History

Tom DeFalco scripted the issue while working at Marvel during Jim Shooter's tenure as Editor-in-Chief; DeFalco's attachment to the Arranger is notable because he continued deploying the character even after becoming Editor-in-Chief himself, suggesting a genuine creative investment in the figure he had introduced. The pencil art was broken down by Greg LaRocque and finished by veteran inker Mike Esposito, with a cover by Al Milgrom — a workmanlike Bronze Age production team typical of Marvel's anthology titles in that period. The story was built on a multi-title foundation laid in Amazing Spider-Man #217–218 (Sandman/Hydro-Man merger) and Marvel Two-In-One #86 (Thing's conversation that prompted Sandman's reformation), making it one of the more continuity-rich single issues in the series' late run.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of the Arranger (real name: Oswald P. Silkworth), the Kingpin's trusted criminal operations manager, who would become a significant supporting antagonist in Spider-Man comics through roughly 1990.
Written by Tom DeFalco; penciled (breakdowns) by Greg LaRocque and finished by Mike Esposito; cover by Al Milgrom. Colorist: Bob Sharen. Letterer: Diana Albers.
Cover-dated February 1984; actually shipped to newsstands in late November 1983 under Jim Shooter's editorship.
Story title: 'Starting Over!' — featuring Spider-Man and a reformed Sandman (Flint Marko, using the alias Sylvester Mann) as co-protagonists against the Enforcers and the debut Arranger.
The Arranger's debut mission is organizing the Kingpin's Brooklyn extortion operation through a rebuilt Enforcers lineup that includes Fancy Dan, Montana, Ox, Hammer Harrison, and Snake Marston.
Issue is a direct narrative continuation of Sandman's reformation arc seeded in Amazing Spider-Man #217–218 (forced merger with Hydro-Man) and Marvel Two-In-One #86 (the Thing's encouragement), with the Thing appearing in a cameo flashback.
The Arranger went on to appear in approximately 39 recorded Earth-616 stories before his death in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #165 (1990), cementing this issue as his sole origin point.
The issue was reprinted internationally, including in the Marvel UK title Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends #596 (August 1984) and the Spanish Spiderman (Planeta DeAgostini) #91 (1986). It was also listed as a collected edition in the Marvel.com entry for the Spider-Man: Saga of the Sandman TPB.