Saturday, December 03, 2022

Saturday Splash Page #49

 
"Fish Fight," in Untold Tales of Spider-Man '96, by Kurt Busiek (writer), Mike Allred (penciler), Joe Sinnott (inker), Steve Mattson (colorist), Richard Starkings and Comicraft (letterer)

I'm pretty sure this is just an Annual Marvel didn't deign to call that, for whatever reason. The story idea (credited to Paul Dini), is that Spidey is ticked after the Human Torch showed him up again and decides to wind Johnny up by asking Sue Storm on a date. Sue, annoyed by Reed being his neglectful self and Johnny dismissing her grievances about Reed, accepts (to Spidey's complete shock). The date itself is kind of a dud, other than Allred drawing Spidey wearing a bow tie made of webbing. Sue keeps talking about Reed and Namor, leaving Spidey wishing he was out with Betty instead.

Johnny, lacking the smarts to know when to let things go, flies out to the sea and tells Namor that Sue's been abducted by Spider-Man. Namor decides to White Knight and cue a big fight that nearly results in Jonah and Betty getting hurt (and JJJ blaming Spidey.) Namor really ought to have drowned Johnny after that, but at least Spidey gets a last laugh on the Torch.

The highlight of this comic might be the back-up story, which details the difficult life of Pat Olliffe, as Kurt Busiek keeps calling him with ideas about the obscure characters he wants to use, and Olliffe having to scrounge through comic stores all over Pennsylvania to find a comic with the characters to use as a visual reference. It's not a story that I suppose would work today, since you could probably find an image online easily enough, but it does remind me of poking through the phonebook for any comic stores in the area so I could hunt for issues of whatever series I wanted to find. Groping about in blind desperation.

There was another Annual the next year, that introduced a new character named Sundown back in the Silver Age setting. The story continued in that year's Amazing Spider-Man Annual, set in the present day (meaning, 1997) when Sundown is released from prison. Tom Lyle draws both parts of those, which makes for good visual continuity, but Lyle's art doesn't really fit the Silver Age aesthetic of the first part.

Might as well mention the -1 issue here, set before Peter's born, on Richard and Mary Parker's last mission as secret agents, where they have to rescue a certain scruffy Canadian secret agent with odd hair from Baron Strucker. Drawn by John Romita Sr., though, with a back-up feature by Fred Hembeck!

No comments: