All right, Acts of Vengeance tie-in! It's gonna be a good Friday! (Note that I'm typing this on Monday evening, so the week between now and then may have put that to lie entirely.)
We're in Month 2 of the Spider-books tying into Acts of Vengeance, and Spider-Man is still trying to get a handle on his strange new powers. Which is how he finds himself floating in mid-air without realizing it. Worse, his spider-sense is reacted with almost blinding sensitivity to everything, and he can't keep himself from reacting on instinct. Like when it warns him of a flying camera drone, and he immediately tries webbing it, only for the drone to explode.
Doom's spying on him, trying to understand the source of the new powers, so he can claim it for himself. When the Wizard calls and says he's busted the Brothers Grimm out to send after Spidey, Doom politely suggests they start in the Lower Midtown area and sits back to watch.
The old spider sense kicks in, saving Peter from an awkward conversation/job offer from Jonah (having lost the Daily Bugle to Thomas Fireheart, who made it pro-Spidey as a way to pay off his 'debt of honor' to the webslinger), and directs him to Madison Square Garden. Which promptly lifts into the sky.
When people say no team on earth should be as incompetently run as the Knicks, this is not the solution they were hoping for.
The brothers are using some the Wizard's anti-gravity discs, and now that Spidey's there, start in with the exploding pies and tear gas Easter eggs. None of which does more than annoy Spidey, so they make the anti-grav discs detonate and try dropping the Garden on him.
Spidey does three panels of exposition about how sick he is of random nuts trying to kill him recently, while using his webbing to keep the arena suspended in mid-air. Which is enough to convince the villains it's time to run, not that it does them any good. Spider-Man catches up easily, and is able to make himself stop reacting instinctively to all the different warnings his spider-sense is putting out, and finishes the fight by swinging one Brother Grimm into the other.
Peter's feeling pretty good about himself until his spider-sense goes off again, and he instinctively shoots a webline at the threat, blowing up another camera drone. So much for having things under control.
Before it was all said and done, Doom would throw Goliath (Erik Josten, the future Thunderbolt Atlas), and the TESS-ONE robot at Spidey, both of whom would push him further, but eventually get trounced (and in TESS' case, completely obliterated). Doom doesn't get his hands on the Captain Universe power, either, unless there's a What If? out there I missed.
[10th longbox, 8th comic. Spectacular Spider-Man #159, by Gerry Conway (writer), Sal Buscema (penciler), Mike Esposito (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)]
5 comments:
I haven't read this one, but I remember the Brothers Grimm turning up in a later issue that was included in a UK reprint. I'm fairly sure the art was also by Sal Buscema, so maybe he had a thing for the characters.
(I've just looked it up and it was a reprint of Web of Spider-Man #65, which is apparently a sequel to this one. Alex Saviuk rather than Sal Buscema though.)
Anyway, I still don't get the Brothers Grimm. Comedy weapons but very unimaginative costumes. They feel like a concept that wasn't given enough thought.
Yeah, I have that follow-up. Chameleon suckers, by extreme coincidence, all the villains Spidey beat down in Acts of Vengeance and makes them think the Kingpin stiffed them so they'll try to kill him, and Spidey has to fight the lot of them, minus cosmic powers.
I think my first intro to the Brothers Grimm was in a Captain America issue when Cap meets the Shroud and he has a team of maybe-reformed villains called Night Shift working with him. Yeah, the costumes aren't the best, and the weapons don't seem to match the "fairy tale" aspect of the name.
According to the Marvel Wiki entry for the Brothers, Captain America considers them to be very dangerous opponents.
Uh, okay Steve. Sure.
Captain America was raised to not say anything, if he can't say something nice, mister.
That's actually a good point. A No-Prize for you!
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