Random Back Issues #147 - Spectacular Spider-Man #160

We'll check back in on these two later.

We looked at the previous issue 4.5 years ago, but today, Spidey's problem isn't random villains attacking him. At least not yet. Today, it's villains - Rhino, Hydro-Man and Shocker - fighting each other in what Spidey describes as beef over guys stepping on each other's turf. Probably shouldn't have used 3 villains primarily associated with the same hero, then. Especially since two of them were in the Sinister Syndicate together. Spidey drops the trio with one blast from his new powers, only to have onlookers start throwing crap and claiming 'super-creeps' like Spidey are 'worse than muties.'

Scumbag paparazzo Nick Katzenberg loves what he sees, hightailing it to Jameson's apartment. Jonah, his wife Marla, and Robbie Robertson's attorney (in prison over something involving Tombstone), Cynthia Bernhammer, are watching Congressional hearings on the proposed Super-Human Registration Act. Jonah is, of course, grousing that he's been telling people for years these costumed types were menaces, only now he doesn't have a paper to crow about it (because Thomas Fireheart, aka the Puma, bought the Bugle out from under him.) In a few months he'll have a new magazine running, but for now, he can only seethe. Katzenberg offers the photos, but wants a salaried position as staff photographer. His other condition? Jonah has to blackball Peter Parker. Oh no, Peter won't be able to work for a skinflint yellow journalist responsible for 20% of Spider-Man's rogue's gallery?

While all this is going on, Dr. Doom's got some guys pulling the TESS-ONE robot out of the muck off New Jersey. One of the guys nearly lets the (adamantium-coated) robot fall (into seafloor mud) due to not properly securing a secondary clamp. Doom considers letting it go, then kills the guy anyway, by shooting his air tank and letting him suffocate, all while lamenting incompetent help. That's what you get for not hiring union labor, Doc.

When Doom brushes off a summons from the other head villains, Loki (in his businessman disguise) and Kingpin pay a visit. Doom's not holding up his end of these acts of vengeance. Doom argues that he's got them a perfect weapon to destroy Spider-Man and has TESS identify Spidey as a super-soldier and smash a big-screen TV with his image. Doom brushes off Kingpin's concerns the robot might turn on them by saying it's under his complete control. Loki astutely, and quietly, notes that's the problem.

Peter returns home, but when MJ makes a comment that his new powers do make him look kind of menacing, he flips out, accusing her of siding with 'creeps and proto-fascists,' then jumps out the skylight before she can get him to calm down. Swinging across the city, Peter reflects he needs to apologize, and that he's still having a hard time not over-reacting to his heightened senses. Which is about when his spider-sense starts screaming, as TESS tears through the building he's clinging to.

Peter monologues how annoying these attacks are getting as he saves an officer worker from falling to his death and keeps onlookers from being hit by debris when TESS smashes what I assume is a statue of Columbus. The onlookers, of course, blame Spider-Man, which brings us back to the image at the top of the post, as Spidey encourages the robot to step into the ring for a few rounds. Let's see how that turned out.

TESS gets knocked clear across town into the Queensboro Bridge, where it begins to repair itself by drawing on the bridge. A new device Doom built into it, with the notion TESS would eventually draw on Spidey's new energy to rebuild itself. For now, the 'bot's content to throw cars. Spidey catches the first, the driver asking him to be careful of the paint. The next, the driver pleads for Spider-Man not to hurt her, even after the robot threw her. Fed up, Spidey unloads with enough energy to blow TESS to bits, shouting, 'I've Got Your Menace Right Here!' Which might be the most New York thing he's ever done, though points deduction for not gesturing to his crotch at the time.

All the drivers decide that, this time, they're better off spitting hate from the safety in letters to the editor and the local bars. Look, it's barely 1990, internet message boards aren't widely available yet (thank goodness.) That evening, Doom plucks what's left of TESS-ONE's head from the river bottom. It couldn't gather enough of Spidey's power to rebuild itself, but it still got a sample, so Doom figures he's made in the shade.

(Note: He is not, in fact, made in the shade.)

{10th longbox, 9th comic. Spectacular Spider-Man #160, by Gerry Conway (writer), Sal Buscema (artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)}

Sunday Splash Page #355

"Better Killing Through Chemo-stry," in Metal Men #46, by Gerry Conway (writer), Walt Simonson (artist/letterer), Carl Gafford (colorist)

Metal Men started in the early 1960s, with Doc Magnus usually having to repair the robots he created after most of their adventures. I guess when you make it that easy to restore them, there was no reason to refrain from an, "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" approach. The book continued on an every other month schedule for almost 7 years, albeit the last 4 issues the Metal Men donned human disguises. As far as revamps go, it might rank slightly higher than when DC gave each of the Blackhawks some dumb super-gimmick, but the book still ended at 41 issues, returned briefly three years later (reprinting earlier stories), then went dormant for another 3 years.

When the book returns again, Magnus is in therapy to recover from a dictator brainwashing him, but when he's not in therapy, the military has him building weapons. So he builds a radioactive robot with his brain patterns, that tries to kill the Metal Men. That gets sorted, temporarily, but from there, they have to recover a vault full of cash Magnus stole, fight Eclipso, fight a secret lab that's trying to accelerate the development of children, fight Green Lantern, fight the Missile Men.

There's a few attempts to change things up. Doc's rebuild of the group after they fight his Plutonium-bot results in a new look for Platinum, and she's no longer fawning over Doc. Now she flirts with each of the male robots, which doesn't seem like an improvement, but it doesn't last long before she reverts back to pining for Doc. The Metal Men actually walk away from Magnus, correctly noting their lives are spent getting destroyed and rebuilt at his command, whether they want to or not. Magnus respects that and tries building a new creation without emotions to appease the military (and make him feel less guilty if it gets destroyed.) It naturally decides it needs to kill the Metal Men.

This stretch lasted 12 issues, although that includes issue 50, which was mostly a reprint of issue #6. Sadly, Walt Simonson only draws the first 5 issues, up through the Eclipso arc. He doesn't have the chance to go grand as often as he would on Thor, but he draws some very nifty designs of the Metal Men forming one device or another. A solar powered laser cannon, a hydrofoil-powered car, things like that. He also gives them and Magnus a lot of character via body language, able to show how easily Magnus can shift from confident and in control (when he's rebuilding the Metal Men) to nervous or flummoxed (pretty much the second things start to veer off-course.)

Sunday Splash Page #288

 

"Big Talk," in Justice League of America #252, by Gerry Conway (writer), Luke McDonnell (penciler), Bill Wray (inker), Gene D'Angelo (colorist), Albert De Guzman (letterer)

The only other issues of Justice League of America I own are the three issues for the Detroit League throwing down against Despero. I bought them mostly because I was curious about the specifics of the fight, since when Despero returned in Justice League International, he was hellbent on revenge against the Leaguers that took him down.

Beyond that, I pretty much knew this era from all the negative talk about it online. That it was a case of Gerry Conway trying too hard to make the Justice League like the X-Men, complete with giving them a sort of Danger Room for training. That the new characters didn't belong in the Justice League. I guess there's less of a feeling that the b-listers can have a place there than in the Avengers.

It doesn't help that it's a team pulled together by Aquaman, and then he left the book (for reasons I'm unaware of and indifferent to). When the ostensible mind behind it doesn't stick around, not a good look. And it leaves the roster with Martian Manhunter and then. . .well is Zatanna or Elongated Man the bigger name in 1986? 

(Although Batman is in this arc, but I don't have the impression that was a regular thing. Batman's like a cat. He decides he wants to be involved, so he jumps in your lap and insists on being included. It's weird to see him go on a date with Vixen as Bruce Wayne. Different era, I know, and Mari McCabe's a well-known model, so not weird for her to be around a billionaire playboy, but seeing Batman that casual with a teammate was unexpected.)

The story itself is alright. It doesn't seem like such a terrible defeat, but Conway establishes Despero shows up wanting revenge on the original League that defeated him, and decided killing the current version was good enough. So him coming back from this loss and doing essentially the same thing is at least consistent.

I don't think Luke McDonnell's really the best artist for a Justice League book. Despero looks alright, and some of the large establishing shot pages are good, but the action isn't very dynamic. The characters don't look impressive. Which, if this was supposed to be demonstrating that a Justice League comprised of more mortal and less gods (2nd-stringers instead of 1st-stringers) can still do the job, then I guess it's a good choice. But you could probably make the characters themselves look almost ordinary, but what they're doing look more explosive than comes across here.

Most of the new characters didn't have much staying power. Vibe got killed, although Geoff Johns tried making him a thing again in the New 52. Steel was basically dead, then john Henry Irons got the codename and was much cooler, and then Johns introduced a new character, "Commander Steel", around the time JSA All-Stars was going. Gypsy, got back in the League eventually, but in the '90s, Extreme Justice rosters. Not exactly a high point, but she also got to be in some Birds of Prey arcs, which is probably better.

Vixen had the most success, since she ended up as one of the heroes keeping the super-crooks on the Suicide Squad in line, and even survived to the end. She's gotten to rejoin the Justice League at least once, albeit I think when Brad Meltzer was writing.

Saturday Splash Page #42

 

"Explosive Finale," Web of Spider-Man (vol. 1) #68, Gerry Conway (writer), Alex Saviuk (penciler), Keith Williams (inker), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

What'd we discuss last week, about selling books by slapping Popular Character on them? Well, here we are again. Amazing Spider-Man is always the primary Spidey book. Spectacular is usually #2, although I've never been able to tell if there's a real difference in the stories the tell. Maybe that Amazing tends towards bigger stories and Spectacular's to smaller-scale, more personal stories. But that might have been simply the difference between David Michelinie and J.M. DeMatteis, the authors on those books back in my youth.

I have no idea what niche Web of Spider-Man filled. Focus on organized crime rather than costumed villains? A lot of the issues I have heavily involve the Kingpin or some other mob boss types jockeying for position. Chameleon trying to sucker the second-raters that went after Spidey in Acts of Vengeance into killing Kingpin for him. The Lobo Brothers, Hammerhead, Tombstone. Again though, maybe that's because most of those issues were written by Gerry Conway.

Possibly also "redemption" as a theme. Conway, between this book and his stint on Spectacular prior to DeMatteis taking over, regularly used characters that had been enemies of Spidey's but were now allies, if not always easy ones. Rocket Racer, Puma, Prowler, the Sandman, even Will O' the Wisp on a couple of occasions. Harry Osborn took a couple of turns as the Green Goblin, trying to redeem his father's name (though DeMatteis then sent Harry into the downward spiral that ultimately killed him.)

Conway was the writer from #50 to #70. Before and after that, the book cycles through writers, nobody sticking around much longer than one storyarc until Terry Kavanaugh, who writes the book for most of its last three years. Saviuk hung on as the regular penciler until almost the final year of the book, dropping off right about when the Clone Saga got going. I'd say it was just in the nick of time, but he'd already drawn Kavanaugh's "Who is FACADE?" story that I've never read, but heard nothing but bad things aboout, so maybe he was still too late.

Saviuk's style feels like it rests halfway in between Sal Buscema and John Romita Sr. Little rougher around the edges than Romita, but with thinner linework and not so squared off as Buscema. Either way, Saviuk always makes sure you've got all the information you need on the page, and that you can follow what's happening. Nothing flashy in panel or page layouts, just solid, straightforward storytelling. Characters are easy to distinguish, like Saviuk could do a guide to how the characters are going to look. Or maybe I just think that because I saw his art in so many comics when I was younger.

Random Back Issues #73 - Fantastic Four #179

Oooh, swing and a miss there, Johnny.

The FF are coming off a narrow victory over the Frightful Four. Real narrow, even with the help of Thundra, Tigra, and (unwittingly) the Impossible Man. But it's not a complete victory because Reed Richards, who has lost his powers somehow, is floating in the Negative Zone in his underwear. In his place, is the Reed Richards of Counter-Earth. Rather than stretching powers, he can transform into a giant purple guy (with green trunks, which explains why he left Reed his blue underwear but took the rest of the costume) called the Brute.

He stomped Reed, tossed him into the Negative Zone, and assumed human form. The FF are none the wiser, even when they gather for a team meeting (their) Reed arranged. Brute doesn't know what it was for, but when he snaps at them over Thing and Thundra's arguing, he's able to play it off as stress, and Sue sends everyone else away. Not like Reed being a bossy, condescending jerk is that unusual. For Brute's part, he's just ecstatic to be able to hold Sue again, since his Sue is in a coma. He plans to let her live, but kill the others, not realizing Sue is starting to notice something's off.

The rest of the team is busy watching "The Bionic Woman". Well, except Ben and Thundra. She won't stop trying to get him to admit he should dump Alicia for her, since she's a better physical match. Ben calls her a 'drag', then a 'wet blanket' and a 'millstone'. He does apologize, admitting he's distracted wondering whether he should go ahead and propose to Alicia, or let her go. Thundra, not reading the room, encourages him to dump Alicia and hook up with her instead, so Ben storms off, musing that Thundra might make a swell date - for King Kong.

Tigra slips in just before the elevator doors close, but it's not to flirt. Instead, she's wondering why Reed hasn't rescued his other self from the Negative Zone, something Ben admits to wondering himself. They head off to get some food and discuss it further. 

Reed's stuck in the Negative Zone, wondering why his friends haven't rescued him. Because you're an unpleasant person to be around, Reed. But he tells himself to snap out of it, reminding himself, 'you didn't come out of World War Two just a few medals shy of Audie Murphy by standing around feeling sorry for yourself!' This is actually the second reference of the issue to Reed serving in World War 2. Reed finds some rocks floating in space that just so happen to resemble flint, and creates a fire. Which attracts some sort of bat thing he snatches out of the air, kills, cooks, and eats.

Back in NYC, Ben and Tigra are at dinner, although he seems more interested in, as she puts it, 'shocking the rubes', by eating his steak with his hands, and lighting a cigar of the next table's candles. Right about then, Tigra notes Ben's kind of cute. before Ben can come to grips with being pursued by three women, and robot runs by carrying a safe. Oh thank goodness, something to hit. The robot chucks the safe at them, but Ben catches it easily and throws it back. The robot turns out to be really hot as well, so when it catches the safe, the whole thing melts. Ben tries a direct assault, only to get baked and pummeled.

Tigra manages to buy him some time with a kick to the face (weird that worked when it shrugged off a punch from the Thing), and the fight continues to the East River. Ben throws it onto a garbage scow and smashes it and the barge with one final punch. At least in this issue, there's no hint of who sent the robot or why, as Ben notes it must have cost more than the money that was in the vault it stole.

The issue wraps up with Sue more certain than ever the Reed in their bed isn't hers, and Reed being attacked by Annihilus. Also, the Impossible Man has decided he's a Humphrey Bogart fan, which partially explains his appearance in Spider-Woman a few years later.

[4th longbox, 121st comic. Fantastic Four #179, by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway (writers), Ron Wilson and Joe Sinnott (artists), George Roussos (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)]

Random Back Issues #47 - Spectacular Spider-Man #159

Has anyone studied it to see how big a pie you can make with 24 blackbirds?

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)]

What I Bought 9/27/2019 - Part 2

I'm writing this up last week, since I'm out in the field all this week. Hopefully the river levels aren't up too much, or that's going to make getting to some of the places I need to get rather difficult. Plus, the folks around here really don't need more flooding to contend with.

I left this book for last since it had a three stories, so I figured it could carry its own post.

Amazing Spider-Man: Going Big, by Gerry Conway and Ralph Macchio (writers), Erik Larsen (writer/artist), Mark Bagley (penciler), Todd Nauck (artist), Victor Olazaba, Andy Owens, Dexter Vines (inkers), Carlos Lopez, Laura Martin, and Rachelle Rosenberg (colorists), Joe Sabino and Ferran Delgado (letterers) - I'm not sure I have the energy to write about the actual comic after listing all those people out. Also,I have no idea what's "going big" about this issue. It's not like it's a 100-page special or anything.

So, three stories. Starting from the back of the book, we've got Larsen writing and drawing a story that starts with Spidey fighting Nightshade and a bunch of people she turned into werewolves in a subway. Which makes him late to meet Mary Jane for a movie, and he forgot the tickets, so he has to rush back home to get them. He says he'll be back in four minutes, but the story ends as he's taking off, so who knows if he made it.

Larsen's artwork is about how I remember, except the faces are a bit rounder than I remember. Might be a shading thing, but I definitely think Peter's jaw is less pronounced than it was in the '90s. Also, Larsen always liked to treat white ovals on Spider-Man's mask as being able to can shape to help convey emotion, but I feel like he used it in almost every panel in this story. Webs is squinting more than Clint Eastwood in a Dirty Harry movie.

The middle story is a quick 3-page bit by Macchio/Nauck/Rosenberg about Spidey fighting some disgruntled Oscorp employee in a stolen mech. Spidey took some hits protecting bystanders but can't escape. So he recalls some conversation Uncle Ben had with him about how to handle bullies, complete with little kid Peter throwing an ice cream cone in a kid's face, and then defeats the guy by blinding him with webbing and hitting the mech really hard once. Don't think he should have needed a wise lesson from Uncle Ben to handle that, but whatever gets you through the fight, I guess.

The first story is a 20-pager by Gerry Conway/Mark Bagley, and Victor Olazaba, plus all three of the inkers listed above. MJ's cousin Kristy has gone missing after investigating sex trafficking of undocumented immigrants, and MJ asks Peter to investigate. Spidey finds the right group, but they have super-powered back, in the form of a character I figured we wouldn't see again after his original appearance. Fine with me that he's back, although I hope he's wrong about another villain being dead. Spidey is having a little trouble, because the guy's power is weird, but there's a mysterious someone on a rooftop nearby shooting people when it's helpful. A someone who narrates the parts of the story taking place at the fight, who doesn't like costumed vigilantes (or 'super-suits' as he calls them here), but really hates criminals. Hmm, I wonder who that could be?

With three inkers, the art is a little variable, although I'd say still recognizably Bagley's. The expression work is clear and easy to read. The action is easy to follow and presented cleanly. Nothing special about page design, just making sure to help tell the story. I think he's drawing his spider-sense squiggles differently, though. They used to be a lot more jagged, closer to lightning bolts, and these are either like snakes or like "w"'s. Not a criticism, because I think he might have gone to a more snakelike look back when he was doing Ultimate Spider-Man with Bendis, but something I noticed.

I can only distinguish two different inkers, mostly based on how they shade the eyes on Spidey's mask. One does it in such a way they have a convex appearance, like they bulge out from the mask, and the other they seem to be flat against the mask. It's possible the third inker is doing the flashback sequences of how Peter tracked these guys down (in just 4 hours, no less, beat that Batman). In parts of that, the faces of some of the characters have a much scratchier, busier look than I'm used to seeing on Bagley's stuff, and Peter's head seems more square than normal. But that doesn't hold in all of them, so I don't know.

I was able to find a copy that I guess wasn't in the best condition, so it was a dollar cheaper. I can't tell what the problem was, but I'm fine with it. I wasn't going to buy it for $5, and having read it, that would have been a good call.