Random Back Issues #173 - Peter Parker: Spider-Man #91

All right, it's the good Identity Crisis! What? I'm entirely serious.

Spider-Man's been framed for the murder of some guy named Joey Z. By Norman Osborn, because this was post-Clone Saga, when they made Osborn into Peter Parker's Kingpin, aka, the guy that's behind everything that goes wrong in the hero's life. In response, Peter adopted 4 new costumed identities, which makes getting ready for a clandestine meeting with Arthur Stacy (Gwen's uncle) and a Detective Snipes tricky. MJ has a good laugh at his expense, so Peter throws on his regular duds in a huff.

Snipes had some 'lab boys' analyze a sample of Spidey's webbing, and it doesn't match what was used to suffocate Joey Z. The mayor and D.A. are getting pressure from 'the private sector' (read: Osborn), and they don't care. Spidey figures the only person who could approximate his webbing is The Trapster, and, lo and behold, he's got a price on his head. The issue started with him handling some members of the Hand (?!) that tried to collect.Also, the Trapster's look now involves him tying fabric around his head like he's a ninja.

Peter's ready to hunt Trapster down and do a little enhanced interrogation, but Stacy points out that kind of direct approach is what started this (he got physical with Norman.) I would argue that only proves he didn't get physical enough. He needed to tear Osborn's head off and drop kick it into a furnace. But fine, Peter will try and take advantage of Paste Pot's desperation.

MJ wasn't happy about Peter going out as Spider-Man with a price on his head, and the cold shoulder is in full effect as they cram for midterms at the university library. Peter tries to get her to talk about it, but MJ needs to study. Besides, Peter will just do whatever he wants, so what's there to talk about?

Peter tries again outside the library, now in the Dusk outfit he picked up in the Negative Zone, but he tells MJ he's doing this no matter what so, she was right. He's going to do what he wants. Maybe Peter needs to add a debate and rhetoric class to his course load. Also, MJ comments she sometimes thinks she'd be better off if she just didn't know about the secret identities and all that. Careful what you wish for and all that.

Elsewhere, Trapster's walking down the street, mulling over his wasted life (paraphrasing) when a mysterious figure grabs him by the scruff of his coat and quotes Terminator 2. Because the Shocker's looking to collect the price on Trapster's head. Stop laughing, he's serious! Seriously chunky, and I don't think it's just Romita Jr.'s tendency to bulk everybody up like they've been hitting the wheatcakes extra hard.

Despite doing a lot of darting out of the shadows to hit-and-run, Peter keeps running his yap like he always does. Leave it to Howard Mackie to not understand Peter was supposed to behave differently in the different costumes, in addition to acting differently. (He does do better in the next issue.)

The fight is a mess, in a bad way. It feels like Romita Jr. and Mackie aren't in sync. At one point, Dusk punches Shocker in the back of the head. On the next page, we get a long shot of Shocker seemingly alone on the trashed roof, but in the very next panel, he is, for some reason digging himself out from underneath rubble. Then there's what looks like a blast from his gauntlets, except it's from behind him and Romita adds little surprise lines around Shocker's head like he's being surprised. Then a small panel of Trapster looking, something, before Dusk sweeps over the Shocker again.

I think what's happening is, Peter knocks the wreckage on the left side of the first panel on top of Shocker in the second panel, and that's what he's blasting. There's a barely visible "Get over it!" on Shocker's shoulder in the middle of the 2nd panel, where they didn't put a speech balloon. That's probably Dusk's dialogue. 

Anyway, Shocker loses, Dusk stops Trapster from gluing the valves of his heart shut, says he's also someone Norman Osborn screwed over, and they should work together to get even. Look, even if this is not a particularly good example, I stand by my claim this Identity Crisis is better than Brad Meltzer's version. It's that low of a bar to clear.

{8th longbox, 52nd comic. Peter Parker: Spider-Man #91, by Howard Mackie (writer), John Romita Jr. (penciler), Scott Hanna (inker), Gregory Wright (colorist), Richard Starkings and Kiff Scholl (letterers)}

Sunday Splash Page #432

"Beauty and the Bowl Cut," in Amazing Mary Jane #1, by Leah Williams (writer), Carlos Gomez (artist), Carlos Lopez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)

In late 2019, Marvel tried giving Mary Jane Watson her own ongoing series. I'm not clear on the thinking, maybe her fans were getting annoyed by all the focus on Gwen Stacy (albeit an alt-universe version with super-powers), or Marvel just figured there'd be enough carry over from people who bought Amazing Spider-Man to make it work?

Whatever the reason, they tried it. Whether due to sales or shipping disruptions with COVID, the book solicited 9 issues, but only shipped 6. The first 5 were collected into a tpb that I reviewed in November of 2024. Those issues involved MJ being cast as the love interest in a Mysterio biopic that turned out to be directed by the actual Mysterio, posing as auteur director Cage McKnight, who Mysterio suckered into visiting the Falklands to find the perfect penguin to use for the "Jaws of penguins."

MJ decides to go along with this insane idea, and ends up basically saving the film by managing Mysterio's over-the-top temperament, finding them a new backer when their funding gets pulled, covering for the actor playing Spider-Man when he chickens out over a little thing like irate super-villains attacking the set because they don't like their likenesses being used in the film.

(Although Cobra? Stegron? Tarantula? Really digging the bottom of the barrel there, Mysterio. Was Hypno-Hustler considered too cliche?)

Williams leans into Mary Jane's charisma and knowledge of the world of movies as things that keep filming rolling, along with the idea that hanging around Peter Parker has given her a commitment to helping people try to make the best of second chances. I'm not clear on what MJ and Peter's relationship status was, other than they're on good enough terms to talk regularly over the phone, but there's also an element of guilt for MJ that, while Peter knows she's working on a movie about Mysterio, he doesn't know Mysterio is actually the director. She's doing something she believes in, but recognizes there's a risk that it could damage her connection with someone really important to her if it backfires.

While it stretches my suspension of disbelief MJ can hold off the entire "Savage Six" by herself (with some help from robots of the Original 5 X-Men Mysterio built previously for some reason) long enough for the movie to finish shooting, I definitely prefer Williams' writing here to the work she did on Gwenpool Strikes Back, which may be the only other thing she's written that I've read. Meta-commentary humor is a tricky needle to thread, so maybe that's to be expected.

Carlos Gomez's art is very clean and expressive, really capturing the dramatic personality Mysterio has, as well as Mary Jane's range of emotions. When she decides they need to leverage Mysterio being much angrier than the actual Cage McKnight, she hams it up a little to appeal to Mysterio's ego. When their equipment is being repossessed, she plunks herself in the director's chair with a megawatt smile and chats with the repo guys like old friends. When she discusses the risk she's taking trusting Mysterio is genuine about this with a member of the crew, she draws in on herself and stops making eye contact.

I'm not sure what Williams had planned beyond this - I think issue 6 is a premiere for the film back in NYC, so presumably Peter was going to learn the truth at some point - but I wouldn't have minded seeing more.

Sunday Splash Page #408

"Spider-sicle," in Peter Parker: Spider-Man (vol. 2) #37/135, by Paul Jenkins (writer), Mark Buckingham (penciler), Wayne Faucher (inker), Transparency Digital (colorists), RS and Comicraft (letterers)

Following the general mess that was The Final Chapter, Marvel canceled most of their Spider-titles, rebooting two with new first issues. Amazing Spider-Man, helmed by Howard Mackie and John Byrne, and Peter Parker: Spider-Man, by Mackie and John Romita Jr.

Quite why anyone thought having both books written by Howard Mackie of all people was a good idea escapes me, beyond the fact nobody at Marvel was making good decisions in the '90s. Case in point: that stretch, which lasted about 18 months, is known primarily for Mary Jane appearing to be killed in a plane crash and Peter dealing with being a grieving widower.

Romita Jr. eventually moved to Amazing when Byrne departed, which is also when Paul Jenkins and Mark Buckingham took over Peter Parker: Spider-Man. While they weren't able to entirely avoid plotlines in Amazing (such as Norman Osborn drugging Peter's toothpaste so he could make him dress up as the Green Goblin and attack Peter's friends in some twisted attempt to make Parker into his new heir, no I'm not kidding), they did get to do their own thing most of the time.

(They adapted pretty smoothly to J. Michael Straczynski having Peter move into his own apartment and become a teacher. Jenkins actually had Peter strike up a friendship with a neighbor, more than JMS did, and alluded to the difficulties of getting papers graded when you were out late fighting the Rhino.)

"Their own thing" was, especially for the first year, mostly done-in-one stories about Peter's life. How it shifts to accommodate Spider-Man, and frequently, how other people perceive Spider-Man. One issue might be about a young boy in a troubled home who imagined himself as Spider-Man's sidekick, with Spidey as a sort of parental figure who reminds him to work on his math and be forgiving when his mother forgets to sign his permission slip for the field trip. Another is about how different cops see Spider-Man, or a private investigator who thinks he's pieced together Spider-Man's secret identity (based on assumptions about what the man must be like in his civilian life to act like Spider-Man.)

Jenkins and Buckingham were also the creators of my favorite entry of Marvel's "Nuff Said" Month, as they penned an issue where Spidey comes under attack from a veritable army of criminal mimes.

Jenkins' version of Parker is a bit of a dork. Not as funny as he clearly thinks he is - there's an issue where Peter tries stand-up comedy and bombs completely - and always seems a bit harried. Like there's just a little too much on his plate for him to handle. It fits with Buckingham's depiction, where Peter always seems to have bags under his eyes and look a little older than you think he might. It's a stressful life, and all his neuroses and guilt complexes don't make it any less so. At the same time, Buckingham's Spider-Man can often look graceful, then just as swiftly look like a fool, but always seems to pick himself back up.

The few multi-part stories Jenkins did in his 30 issues were a mixed bag. There was a vengeful parent who at first appeared to be like a Super-Adaptoid, but was more of a low-grade mutant Mysterio. But, proving he didn't play favorites (or that he read the fan responses), Jenkins fed that guy to Doc Ock in a story that felt needlessly convoluted (chips that could control people being placed in advanced cybernetic limbs), but nonetheless played Octavius as a vicious, determined threat.

Then Jenkins brought Norman Osborn into play, although the story is most notable for Humberto Ramos shifting from cover artist to interior artist. Talk about whiplash, going from Buckingham to Ramos was like a brick to the face. Actually, a brick to the face might have been preferable to Ramos' weirdly disjointed, oddly proportioned, undead-esque sunken eyes, art. I could not figure out why Marvel thought this guy had any business drawing comics.

To be fair, even with Buckingham on pencils I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it. However cool I might have originally thought the reveal of Norman as the mastermind behind the Clone Saga was (and I have to sadly admit I was excited to get that comic because i thought it might be worth something, silly me), I was thoroughly sick of Osborn by the time this story rolled around. Especially when Jenkins goes to the edge of Peter killing Norman Osborn, only to pull back, because that would mean Osborn "won," somehow. Osborn had already, just in this story, beat the shit out of Flash, dumped booze on him, put him behind the wheel of a truck and driven it into the side of Peter's classroom, putting Flash in a coma that appeared to be the result of a relapse into alcoholism. That's a pretty solid win, but at least if he's dead he can't enjoy it.

I know, if Jenkins killed him, someone else would just bring him back, and we'd still have Norman trying to be good or whatever the hell is going on in the Spider-Man books right now.

All that is to say, that story got tossed from the collection (possibly into the trash) many years ago. Jenkins and Buckingham left the book at issue #50, turning it over to Zeb Wells and a host of pencilers for 7 issues until the book was canceled. Jenkins took up the second volume of Spectacular Spider-Man, occasionally working with Buckingham. While "Peter Parker" has been placed at the front of at least one volume of Spectacular since, this particular title has been left behind. 

Sunday Splash Page #407

"Big Trouble," in Spider-Man #22, by Erik Larsen (writer/artist), Gregory Wright (colorist), Chris Eliopoulos (letterer)

We're getting to this book now because eventually (75 issues into its 98-issue run), the book's title became Peter Parker: Spider-Man. When they restarted the Spider-titles at #1 after "The Final Chapter", they kept that title, and I bought that book for a couple years (see next week), so that's where this got stored.

But before all that, the book was a Todd MacFarlane vanity project. Todd Mac was the hot name in comics, so Marvel gave him his own book, either to capitalize on his popularity, or just to try and keep him around. If the latter, it didn't work, since MacFarlane was one of the seven who founded Image Comics, and departed with issue 16.

I've discussed in Splash Page entries for Spectacular Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man, and Web of Spider-Man, that it's hard to see any real principle that distinguishes those books from Amazing Spider-Man. Spectacular might have started with a notion to focus more on "Peter Parker", but the civilian side of Peter's life is such a big part of the Spider-Man formula that doesn't really do anything. Amazing wasn't exactly ignoring the Peter Parker side of things.

The best you can probably get is a writer who pursues a particular interest and puts that stamp on the book. J.M. DeMatteis eventually focused Spectacular on the psychological trauma that causes someone to put on a costume and fight or commit crimes. Likewise, I might say Gerry Conway leaned Web heavily into organized crime stories, jostling for territory or dominance (albeit in a very superhero way of big, public battles for Spider-Man to get involved with.)

If I were to try and summarize MacFarlane's run on Spider-Man, it'd be horror. He had basically 4 stories, not counting the final issue crossover with X-Force. You get Spider-Man being attacked psychically by Calypso, who is also controlling the Lizard to make him more feral and vicious (to attack Spider-Man physically.) Or Spider-Man is caught between Ghost Rider and a version of Hobgoblin that's fright mask is his face, but thinks he's a servant of God out to punish sinners. Or the Wendigo shows up, or Spider-Man has to deal with Morbius ruling a sewer kingdom of homeless people with mental health issues. It's all monsters, with at least a hint of the supernatural to them.

Also guest appearances by popular characters like Wolverine and Ghost Rider. Can't forget that!

I'm going off vague impressions. I only had a few issues of MacFarlane's run. Apparently, Nineties Calvin wasn't looking for horror in his Spider-Man comics. But once Todd Mac leaves, the book's adrift. For 30 issues, it cycles between creative teams, each popping up for one story, then moving aside. Erik Larsen's "Revenge of the Sinister Six" is the only one that goes beyond 3 issues, it and the one-shot by Ann Nocenti and Rick Leonardi that precede it are all that I still have.

Issue 45 marks the point where Marvel starts doing a lot of stories that run across all the monthly Spider-titles. Spider-Man becomes less a book of its own - for what that's worth - more a cog in a larger mechanism, especially as The Clone Saga revs up. It's Howard Mackie and Tom Lyle for ~20 issues, then John Romita Jr. takes over as the regular penciler for the most of the last 30+ issues. Through "Ben Reilly is Spider-Man", the return of Norman Osborn/end of the Clone Saga (which is when the book adds "Peter Parker" to the title), and the generally directionless last two years of the book.

I own scattered issues. Peter and Ben fighting Sentinels during Onslaught. Spider-Man getting on the Juggernaut's bad side for an issue. Identity Crisis. The closest thing to an overarching theme I can find is Norman Osborn making life difficult for Peter and Spider-Man. There's some other stuff about Captain George Stacy's brother and his two kids, Jill and Paul, showing up. I think Paul turns out to be a bigot, but I can't pretend I care.

Random Back Issues #158 - Amazing Spider-Man #328

I think I'm going to post these anytime someone does that bit.

Acts of Vengeance tie-in, whooooooo! This is the issue where Spider-Man breaks his own logo on the cover by punching the Hulk into, though I'm kind of fixated on how they colored Hulk's tongue green, while the rest of him's grey.

Anyway, Joe Fixit's trying to get some peace and quiet in the Nevada desert to mope about current circumstances, Banner being in control during the day. He's interrupted by Sebastian Shaw, while wondering if he's got to go to the Moon for a little privacy. Some mysterious group promised to take revenge on the Hellfire Club Inner Circle (including Magneto) if Shaw destroys Spider-Man. Spidey's suddenly a lot stronger so, get somebody really strong to fight him. The Hulk's game, for a price.

Back in NYC, the Statue of Liberty's been seized by terrorists with hostages. Spidey - who flew out there - is crouched on the torch, dwelling on his new powers and if they're too dangerous to use (he almost killed Erik Josten in the most recent issue of Web of Spider-Man), but figures he might as well deal with this. The terrorists are easily corralled, and he's able to alter his webbing's molecular structure to make it adamantium and encase the bomb.

Day saved, he and Mary Jane are off to a double date with Flash and his latest girl, who is a total Karen. Keeps having her steaks sent back as undercooked or overcooked, complains the waiter will hassle her for smoking - in the "No Smoking" section. Fortunately, MJ has to get to a location shoot for her soap opera before dawn and Peter's tagging along, so early bedtime spares us any more of Amber's charm.

While Peter's hanging around the shoot, he senses trouble. Hulk drops from a helicopter and decides to create a disturbance by chucking a Red Cross truck at a building. Look, I know the Red Cross is irritating with how much they hound people for blood, but that's uncalled for. Spidey catches it with webbing, and Hulk, while admitting that's a nice trick, says he's here to fight Spider-Man for money. 

Sick of being attacked by random dickheads, Spidey tackles the Hulk and knocks him down an alley, to Hulk's surprise. Before the fight can continue, Hulk remembers he crossed a bunch of time zones and is about to change into Banner. He wrecks an ambulance - Hulk smash insufficient American health industry! -  and bails, telling Spider-Man to meet him on Roosevelt Island tomorrow. The medics are OK but their ride's trashed, leaving Spidey to fly the patient to the hospital.

A confused Bruce Banner wakes up in an alley and manages to bum a quarter to call in sick, though he thinks a cop's eyeing him for panhandling. It's probably the fact you're walking around in torn pants, no shirt and no shoes, genius. Weirdly, the Hulk has a shirt (part of one) in both fights with Spider-Man, but Banner doesn't. Forget the incredibly stretchy pants, I need to know where these shirts are coming from!

That night, Round 2. Roosevelt Island's a deserted spot, which is why Spidey showed, figuring it was better than having Hulk come looking for him. The fight's inconclusive early on; Hulk can't hit Spider-Man, but even with the emergence of eye beam powers, Spider-Man's not doing much more than irritating Joe Fixit. But two kids, Stan and Steve, snuck out to the ruins to smoke, and Steve's not going to stand for anyone trashing Spidey! Hulk hefts a girder, just intending to scare them, but telepathy isn't one of Spidey's new powers - or he has no reason to give Hulk benefit of the doubt - so he punches him into orbit.

Literally. It's not the Moon, but plenty of privacy. Until the Sun rises, Hulk reverts to Banner and goes 'ker-pop!' Fortunately, Spider-Man flies up and brings him back to the surface, though Hulk of course insists he had everything under control. Still, as a favor, he won't kill Spider-Man. Spidey doesn't respond, wondering if he can even die. Later, commiserating with MJ, Peter wishes the power would just go away, while Shaw puts a very confused Banner on a helicopter and makes other plans.

Reading through this, I never realized what odd postures McFarlane gives Spidey. I knew about the hips that can seemingly dislocate at will when he's webswinging. But even when standing, Todd Mac gives Spider-Man these odd, hip-cocked stances, or he's webbing up the terrorists while standing on spread legs and bent at the waist. Strange, but maybe in keeping with Ditko's approach? 

{1st longbox, 75th comic, Amazing Spider-Man #328, by David Michelinie (writer), Todd McFarlane (artist), Bob Sharen (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)}

Saturday Splash Page #180

"Who is that Helmeted Man?" in Sensational Spider-Man #27, by Todd DeZago (writer), Mike Wieringo (writer/penciler), Rich Case (inker), Gregory Wright (colorist), Richard Starkings and Kiff Scholl (letterer)

So, Marvel canceled Web of Spider-Man in late 1995, still in the midst of the increasingly tedious Clone Saga. Shortly after that, Peter Parker (touted as the clone, but married and a father-to-be) went into retirement and Ben Reilly (at that time touted as the original Peter Parker after all) took over as Spider-Man, with a new costume and all that jazz. And Marvel decided they naturally still needed a 4th monthly Spider-Man book, and here we are.

The book ran for just under three years, and probably the most notable part was that Mike Wieringo was the artist for a decent chunk of those issues. I remember reading somewhere (maybe the online "Life of Reilly" history of the Clone Saga) Wieringo wasn't happy to finally get to draw Spider-Man, but not the "real" Spider-Man.

As it turned out, Marvel only dragged the clone thing out another year, then it was Peter Parker back in the classic look. Maybe that perked Wieringo up a bit. Hard to say, because I never hear much about this book. Anything about it, really. Even by the standards of Marvel's mid-90s output, there was no reason for this book to exist. I don't think it had any special focus to differentiate it from the other monthly Spidey books.

Nor do I think, based on the 4 issues I own, that Todd DeZago was doing anything as the writer that really made it stand out. This issue above features editor's boxes that point out inconsistencies or lies in the Looter's account of things, playing up that he's off his rocker. Which I assume was a collaborative effort between DeZago and editor Ralph Macchio. But after the 2-part Identity Crisis tie-in, there's a two-part team-up with the Black Cat against Arcade that's just lifeless and perfunctory. (Also, none of the artists can keep straight what the Cat's costume is like at the moment.)

Maybe the Spider-books were too tightly interconnected for a writer to go far afield. This was the era where they routinely had 4-part stories that ran across all 4 ongoing series in the span of a month. Each creative team had to stay within the prescribed role for their chapter. But I don't think that's all of the problem.

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)}

Whever I Go, I'm Still Me (Playing Video Games)

Alex and I are probably not great tourists. We don't spending a lot of time checking out notable landmarks. During our brief stay in Madison last weekend, we forgot to go see the plaque commemorating that time Elvis broke up a street fight by jumping out of his limo and striking a karate pose. The shame!

Besides comic stores and playing some mini-golf at a place that's apparently been in business since the '50s, we hit up 3 different arcades. One of them was just down the street from our hotel, and it was $8 for unlimited gaming, which meant we could unwind from 7+hours on the road by beating the X-Men arcade game on a screen that took up half a wall. We each only died. . .a bunch of times! 

(I did suggest Alex might want to stop spamming Colossus' special move right from the start, since it was draining his health, but he stuck with his strategy. I guess if you never run out of continues, why not?)

Even with Alex not waking up until after 11 the next morning, we still had a lot of time to kill before his gig, and the venue wasn't far from two bars with sizeable arcades, so we hit each one at different times. And the last one had a Spider-Man arcade game I'd never seen before. Part of the time, it's your standard side-scrolling beat 'em up arcade game (what the game calls "Big Mode".) You kick, you punch, you jump kick. There's a special move that drains some of your health. You fight a lot of cannon fodder that are just palette-swapped versions of each other.

The rest of the time, it's a platformer, where you move between all these catwalks and rooftops, hitting enemies with your webs or avoiding them by climbing ceilings, grabbing health recovery pickups as you go along. The game refers to this as "Wide Mode" since the camera zooms out, making Spidey a much smaller figure, so you can see more of what's going on around you.

Not that I'm an expert on arcade games, but I didn't feel I'd seen that combo in one game previously. While there seem to be a lot more health recovery items in Wide Mode, the game makes you fight bosses in each, so neither one is necessarily easy (although the fact you can avoid enemies in Wide Mode does allow for a bit of a breather.) Less appealing, your character's health seems to drop a little at a time, even if you're just standing there. I assume to make you keep moving, but it's a stupid mechanic.

The game doesn't skimp on boss fights, pulling out a sizeable chunk of Spidey's enemies, though you still end up fighting Venom a lot. Three times in the opening stage, then one more time at the very end (but there are three of him.) I guess if you really want to kick the crap out of Venom, it's a great game, and the fights against him are less annoying than the part where the Green Goblin flies off the screen, then comes back through lobbing bombs. That wouldn't be so bad if your character could move faster, but he can't, so it's a pain in the butt.

Like X-Men, you have the option to play as other characters. What's odd is the ones they picked, even allowing for Spider-Man not typically being on a team in the early '90s. Black Cat? OK, sure. She'd been an ally more than a foe for a long time. But the other two characters are Hawkeye and Namor. Which is actually what made me to stop dead in my tracks. No one was playing, so the game was rolling some gameplay footage, and there was Namor, crawling up the side of a girder like Spider-Man. So I decided I had to play, even if I did stick with Spider-Man the whole way through. Supposedly the characters play differently, and the game leaned into the notion of Namor being able to absorb and redirect electricity for his special attack.

I did beat it, though I burned at least 12 quarters in the process. The game really likes making you fight the generic goons while also fighting a boss, which was really frustrating. Except when you could grab one of the goons and judo toss him into the super-villain. Anyway, I got the 2nd highest score.

But I'm just thinking about how those are the three people Spidey ends up enlisting. Even if Dr. Strange was doing the old tarot card bit from Secret Defenders, I feel like he might stop and reshuffle the deck. There's a "Sorcerer's Stone" involved, which the Kingpin appears to have swiped, but he's not the actual final boss (SPOILER: it's Dr. Doom.) I guess Black Cat could have heard about the heist through her contacts. And maybe it's Atlantean, so Namor's pissed it got stolen, though it still seems like a member of the FF would have made more sense, given Doom's presence. Hawkeye? Hawkeye was just bored, saw the other three talking, and injected himself into the mix.

Saturday Splash Page #150

"Curtain Call," in Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 2) #27, by Paul Jenkins (writer), Mark Buckingham (artist), D'Israeli (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer)

Marvel canceled the first volume of Spectacular Spider-Man after 264 issues, as part of a larger, post-Final Chapter paring down of the line that resulted in just two monthly Spider-Man books (Amazing and Peter Parker.) Of course, they made Howard Mackie writer of both those titles initially, so I'm not sure that's an improvement.

After about 5 years, they canceled Peter Parker: Spider-Man and restarted Spectacular. Paul Jenkins had taken over Peter Parker: Spider-Man about a year before JMS took over Amazing Spider-Man, and Jenkins and Mark Buckingham had worked together for a couple of years (with Humberto Ramos taking over as artist for an arc or two and man, was that a stylistic shift.) A lot of Jenkins and Buckingham's stronger stuff were one-off stories, sometimes sweet, sometimes silly.

With Spectacular Spider-Man, however, Jenkins shifted to more multi-issue arcs, with a variety of artists. Humberto Ramos for a Venom story, Daimon Scott for a Lizard 3-parter. An Avengers Disassembled 4-parter that resulted in Spider-Man turning into a Spider-Monster briefly and getting organic webshooters.

None of those issues remain in my collection, and they've all been gone for years now, so clearly I wasn't digging them. What's left behind is again, two standalone issues, albeit one (about the Kingpin crashing a superhero poker game) was drawn by Talent Caldwell rather than Buckingham. The other, the series finale, is Peter having an extended Christmastime conversation with Uncle Ben at Ben's graveside. Buckingham adopts a faux-Bill Watterson style for flashback panels of Ben and Peter making Calvin & Hobbes-esque snowmen to annoy Aunt May. Again, it's a little silly and a little sad (it is, after all, Peter essentially trying to not have a breakdown by talking to an imaginary version of his dead uncle), and a little sweet.

I think this volume got canceled to make room for Marvel Knights Spider-Man. Which I skipped in Sunday Splash Page because I only have one issue (where MJ turns out to be a pool shark and whips a creepy fan's ass with a pool cue) and there's no splash page, and I don't care enough about that title to bother breaking my rules for it. Steve Ditko or Colleen Coover can flout the splash page rule, but lesser mortals can go pound sand.

Saturday Splash Page #149

"Skyscraper Showdown," in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (vol. 1) #78, by Bill Mantlo (writer), Al Milgrom and Jim Mooney (artists), Bob Sharen (colorist), Joe Rosen (letterer)

Should this title be in the letter "P"? Maybe, but Summer (and Fall) of Spiders can't waste time worrying about alphabetizing!

(Slightly) more seriously, when I started the word document I'm working from, I only had issues from after the book dropped the "Peter Parker" portion of the title, so that's how it got listed. As Kelvin noted when we looked at the first volume of Web of Spider-Man, the idea behind this title seemed to be they were going to focus more on the Peter Parker side of Spider-Man. Except it wasn't like Amazing Spider-Man was all costumed antics, all the time. The job, the scrambling for rent, the schoolwork, the elderly aunt, the girl troubles, that's always part of Spider-Man, albeit the ratios of the components vary with era and creative teams.

So, in practice, Spectacular Spider-Man is just another book about Spider-Man. And at least when I was a kid, it was the secondary book. Amazing got the hotshot artists, the MacFarlanes and Larsens. Spectacular got over 100 issues of Sal Buscema, albeit the last 20 or so doing breakdowns with someone else on finishes. Buscema is steady, reliable, can make sure all the information you need is on the page, but he's not flashy. Plus, most of the issues I read as a kid were part of J.M. DeMatteis' stint as writer, when he would spend entire issues on Peter in some hallucinatory state, confronted by the trauma of losing his parents as a child. Given the choice, I'd rather have read about him fighting a Spider-Slayer.

So, unlike with Amazing Spider-Man, where I have decent chunks of several different creative teams' runs, or even Web where I mostly have Gerry Conway's stuff, my Spectacular Spider-Man collection is a hodgepodge of different writers and artists. Bill Mantlo/Al Milgrom for 4 issues, all centered around this big showdown with Doc Ock, and Peter wanting to get really serious with the Black Cat. 6 by Peter David, 4 of those his and Rich Buckler's "The Death of Jean DeWolff." 3 by Conway/Buscema (Acts of Vengeance tie-ins), 2 by DeMatteis/Zeck ("Kraven's Last Hunt"), 2 more by DeMatteis/Buscema. 2 by Ann Nocenti and James Fry (Typhoid Mary's involved), and then 4 by a combo of DeMatteis, Glenn Greenburg and Luke Ross. Three of those are tie-ins to Spidey's "Identity Crisis" story, and the other was a joke issue about the "League of Losers."

It's mostly scattered issues tying into some larger event or story I liked, or else a brief, single story that had some specific hook for me. Nothing longer than 4 consecutive issues. DeMatteis and Buscema did a pretty good job with Harry Osborn's slow downward spiral over about 2.5 years, but it's not one I wanted to keep a lot of around. It's in the background for long stretches, and the foreground wasn't grabbing my attention much. Plus, even when it is the main story, it's pretty depressing until the last minute.Watching Spider-Man's best friend slowly implode under the weight of all his father's sins is not exactly an uplifting saga.

Sunday Splash Page #341

"Grievous Bodily Harm From Above," in Marvel Team-Up (vol. 1) #82, by Chris Claremont (writer), Sal Buscema and Steve Leialoha (artists), Ben Sean (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

It feels like Marvel Team-Up started as a co-starring book for Spider-Man and the Human Torch, only to become essentially a second ongoing for Spider-Man after 3 issues. The Torch gets the occasional starring role in the first 50 issues (18, 23, 26, 29, 32, 36), plus a couple of co-star spots. There are a couple of issues focused on the Hulk teaming up with someone later on (Spider-Woman, Ka-Zar, Heroes for Hire) but it's Spidey's world for ~90% of the book's 150-issue run, so maybe that was always the intention.

Most of the time, each issue stands by itself, with some set of circumstances bringing Spider-Man in contact with another hero, and they have to work together to defeat some greater threat. Chris Claremont takes over as writer in issue 57, starting a 30+ issue stretch. While it wasn't unheard of before that for the events of one issue to spill into the next, Claremont seems to lean into that a lot more, and he sometimes stacks the guest stars, rather than coming up with reasons with last issues hero is gone by the next issue. Spidey gets tangled up in Davos stealing the chi of Shou-Lao from Iron Fist in issue 63, then works with Misty Knight and Colleen Wing in issue 64 to try and help Iron Fist not get killed fighting Davos.

Some of those work better than others. By the end of the story that starts in issue 82, Nick Fury's recruited Shang-Chi to help him, Spider-Man and the Black Widow. Maybe the Master of Kung Fu had some backstory with Viper or Silver Samurai I didn't catch, but it seemed a bit random.

Sometimes Spider-Man gets to be the hero, sometimes he gets bailed out by the guest star, or does something that helps the guest star save the day. Ms. Marvel might be the one who ultimately beats the Super-Skrull, but Spider-Man had to keep him busy until they could set things up for her to have the chance to win. Frog-Man catches the White Rabbit, but after Spidey caught the getaway van and took down the rest of the gang.

Like a lot of books we've looked at lately, Marvel Team-Up lends itself to selective reading. I own 16 issues out of the 150, with 10 of those written by Claremont. Mostly drawn by John Byrne or the Buscema/Leialoha duo. But looking at a cover gallery, there's almost that many other issues I read at some point. The cover promises a character I'm interested in, or at least a wild premise that makes me want to know more about what's actually happening.

Saturday Splash Page #143

 

"The Threat and/or Menace of Tomorrow," in Spider-Man 2099 #1, by Peter David (writer), Rick Leonardi (penciler), Al Williamson (inker), Steve Buccellato (colorist), Rick Parker (letterer)

Summer (and Fall) of Spiders is taking us on a trip to the future! Where corporations control an increasingly ecologically damaged world of dwindling resources and the rights of the average citizen are almost nil.

We should fit right in.

Even in the early '90s the Marvel Universe had no shortage of visions of shitty futures. Days of Future Past, obviously, but the Guardians of the Galaxy hailed from a 30th Century where the entire solar system was under the thumb of the Badoon. Killraven's Earth was conquered by Martians. The original Deathlok was from a lousy future. But those were usually confined to a single book or sometimes a single storyline. In 1992, Marvel started up an entire line of comics set in the far off - but not too far off - year of 2099.

I never got heavily into the line as a whole. I think I've read one issue of Ravage 2099, and less than a half-dozen of X-Men 2099. I heard good things about Warren Ellis' Doom 2099, but, eh, maybe if I could buy it used, for cheap. From the parts I've seen online of it, Punisher 2099 was either meant to be a parody - the character, asked where he lives, says in total seriousness, "Over the edge," - or really ought to have been.

I had a bit of Spider-Man 2099 when it first came out, but tracked the entire series down in back issues in the early 2010s. For Peter David and Rick Leonardi's book, we get Miguel O'Hara, a brilliant gene engineer for Alchemax, one of a handful of "mega-corps" that basically run things, at least in the U.S. I was never all that clear on how things worked in the rest of the world.

Miguel is smart, but also arrogant, condescending, sarcastic (so David can give him plenty of clever insults) and a bit of a coward. He's got a comfortable life, and he's reluctant to rock the boat. But David's careful to show Miguel has some sense of responsibility, even if it comes from an overconfidence in his own skill and importance. When he finds out how far his boss will go to keep him there, he makes a risky move to slip the leash and ends up the victim of sabotage by a supervisor that hates his guts. Because Miguel always talks down to him. Couldn't be Spider-Man without ego coming back to bite him!

The costume Leonardi designs is unlike most Spider-Man outfits, other than the marks on the mask form a space roughly similar to Spidey's big eyes. The skull covering the chest is closer to the Punisher, or maybe the symbiote costume's torso-covering emblem. While Spider-Man was the inspiration for the genetic enhancement Miguel got, Miguel mentions this costume is just something he got for a Day of the Dead celebration he once attended. He only wears it initially because he needs a disguise he won't accidentally tear up with his new talons (unstable molecules for the win.) The "web" on the back is some lightweight cloth from a hang-glider that saved his life. It adds a bit of a cape, although sometimes it's drawn as barely more than a fringe.

Overall, it works. Distinctive, but just enough touches to hint towards the inspiration. Leonardi has Miguel move differently as well. Given the ubiquitous "Public Eye Security", Miguel doesn't webswing from place to place more than necessary. (The fact that his webbing is produced by his body might also make him unwilling to rely on a supply of unknown quantity and strength.)

We also don't see a lot of elaborate leaps and flips across rooftops. In part because the rooftops are so high up, and in part because Miguel doesn't seem to retreat into Spider-Man as a way to blow off steam or improve his mood. Also because he can't stick to a surface with any part of his body, only the fingers and toes. So his movements are more controlled, more regular. He'll almost lope along the side of a building in a four-limbed stance, keeping one hand and one foot in contact with the wall at all times.

For most of the two years Leonardi's the series artist, he and David stick to mostly original enemies. Miguel does encounter a Vulture, but it's a guy with big metal wings who set himself up as a boss in the literal underbelly of the city. Otherwise, it mostly hired guns for the corporations, concerned with this new element they can't control, or stuff related to the "Thorites" and their belief the Gods of Asgard will be returning soon and that the return of Thor's ally Spider-Man is a portent. Where Peter Parker started his career fighting people who gained great power and continued to use it selfishly, Miguel O'Hara fights people who accepted (unwittingly or otherwise) being used as weapons by the forces controlling the world.

The last 20 or so issues of the book aren't as strong. It kicks off with a big reveal about Miguel's father, which felt unnecessary, and then more 2099 versions of characters start popping up. Strange, Venom (ugh), a Goblin. Apparently Peter David had one character planned for that and someone else rewrote the story to have a different character be responsible. The whole storyline felt kind of half-baked, as stuff was just getting thrown into and out of the book like crazy. Miguel's in charge of Alchemax! Doom became President, and he wants Spider-Man on his cabinet! The people of New Atlantis are gonna teach those surface dwellers what for!

Maybe it made sense for Miguel, who had been tangled up in the mega-corps stuff since he was a promising young mind, to be involved in all this world-spanning stuff, but it squeezed out the interpersonal drama with his supporting cast.

Saturday Splash Page #142

 

"Night Creatures," in Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds, by J.M. DeMatteis (writer), Mark Bagley (penciler), Scott Hanna and Mark Farmer (inker), Electric Crayon (colorist), Richard Starkings and Comicraft (letterer)

The first of two Spider-Man and Batman team-ups in the '90s. DeMatteis uses the hot new villain of the moment, Carnage, as the entry point, as a scientist who feels regular psychiatric treatment is futile with such people swears she's got a chip that can be installed in a person's brain to render them docile and conflict-averse. Cletus Kasady is the first, and the Joker's going to be the second. While it works on the Joker, the doctor neglects to account for the fact that Carnage is a team-up, and her chip doesn't do snot to the symbiote, and Kasady was simply eager to meet the Joker.

The story follows the basic beats. There's a brief initial team-up when things go wrong, but the villains escape. Batman, in his full 90s/2000s jerkass glory, then tells Spider-Man to leave, because Gotham has 'unique dangers', and he doesn't want Spider-Man getting hurt.

'90s Calvin rolled his eyes at the notion Spider-Man was in any danger from Batman's villains. Most of Batsy's enemies are roughly equivalent to Mysterio, and Spidey beats him all the time!

Whatever. Spider-Man doesn't leave, Batman reconsiders, they team-up, find the bad guys and save the day. DeMatteis doesn't try to put over the new guy as being better than the more established villain. He does outline the differences in the Carnage and the Joker. Carnage claims the Joker understands that life is absurd and meaningless, so insanity's the only proper response. From the Joker's, "Oh. . .that joke," I think we're meant to take he's already mentally downgrading his opinion of this guy. Later, Carnage loses patience with some elaborate scheme the Joker's got and starts ranting about how the point is to kill immediately, which the Joker dismisses as lacking style. DeMatteis doesn't pretend the Joker is above killing, only that he insists there be an art to it. It's like the difference between someone who sculpts hedges into animal shapes, and someone just hacking away with a weed-whacker.

DeMatteis' attempts to interject the sort of pop psychology stuff that littered his Spectacular Spider-Man run are intermittently successful. Suggesting Kasady is a serial killer because he's actually afraid of death, and kills in some bizarre hope it will somehow appease death into sparing him feels like a stretch. He presents each villain as becoming like an avatar of what the other hero fights against, starting with dream sequences where the killers of their respective parents shift to mimicking the villains. So Uncle Ben's killer sports a Joker smile, and Joe Chill transforms to Carnage's jagged tooth leer.

(I also randomly note that Bruce Wayne apparently sleeps in the nude, while Peter wears pajama pants.)

I don't know if it works. Maybe Carnage with Batman, as Kasady's whole thing is just to kill randomly, without pattern or meaning beyond the taking of life. That could be the sort of unthinking, unpredictable Crime that Batman fights but can never extinguish. (Having Carnage not particularly care about killing Batman beyond him being another body to stack on the pile is a nice touch.) But the Waynes weren't really killed randomly. It was either a mugging gone wrong or a revenge hit disguised as a mugging gone wrong, depending on which version they're using. But I guess from a child's perspective - and Dematteis was always writing about how childhood trauma infected one's adulthood - it all feels random, without cause or reason.

The Joker for Spider-Man, though, no. You can't spend a few pages having the Joker extol the virtues of elaborate plans and set-ups for his schemes, then compare him to a burglary gone wrong. DeMatteis tries to save it by having the Joker threaten to release a virus that will kill the entire city of Kasady doesn't release Batman, because no one gets to kill him but Joker, as 'the kind of madness, the kind of chaos,' Spider-Man always been fighting to prevent. Except that's not really what he fights. He fights guys who think the world owed them something, so when they get power, they decide to take what they think the deserve. Power without responsibility. Not really the Joker's shtick at all.

Guess with 48 pages, you do what you can.

I think this is Bagley's first time drawing DC characters. We don't see a lot of Gotham, or any established characters besides Batman, Joker and one page with Alfred, but he keeps everybody on-model. Joker's extremely tall and skinny (looks a head taller than Spider-Man), but I know Alan Davis among others drew the clown that way, too, so it's not unusual. He goes with a version of the Batmobile I associate with early Batman stories, with the big Bat face/shield thing over the front, rather than one of the sleek, sports car/jet plane models I thought were more common at the time. Don't know if there was a reason for that.

Saturday Splash Page #141

 

"Back in Black," in Spider-Man and the Black Cat #1, by Kevin Smith (writer), Terry Dodson (penciler), Rachel Dodson (inker/colorist), Richard Starkings and Comicraft (letterers)

Hoo boy, this book. A six-issue mini-series that took almost 4 years to complete. In its defense, the first three issues did come out in three consecutive months, and so did the last three issues. Just, you know, 40 months late.

In 2002, it had been over three years since the Black Cat had even shown up in a Spider-Man book (very early in the Howard Mackie/John Byrne, post-The Final Chapter, reboot) Even longer since she'd been any sort of regular presence in Spider-Man's supporting cast. So at the time, I was pretty stoked she was getting a mini-series devoted to her and Spider-Man.

And the first two issues (which are all I still own) weren't a bad start. Felicia travels to New York to look for a missing actress friend of a friend, who it turns out died of an overdose. Peter, meanwhile, is looking into the death of one of his students, also from an overdose. Both paths lead to the same actor, and eventually to the mysterious "Mr. Brownstone," a mutant with the ability to teleport small amounts of liquid (so he 'ports the drug directly into your body), who is some bigshot businessman/philanthropist.

There's still a couple of homophobic jokes that I notice more now than I did in 2002, and Smith somehow wants Spidey to both make pop culture references (dated references, but still) while apparently never having even heard of Pulp Fiction. Not, "hasn't seen it," but rather, "has no idea what it is." And while Felicia keeps insisting that as much as she might want to get back together with Peter, now that she can appreciate the guy under the mask too, she won't because he's married, she sure is climbing all over him as they swing across the city, and apparently trying to French kiss him through the mask after he saves her. The book's giving off mixed signals in all sorts of directions, is what I'm saying.

But what was the point I was trying to make? Oh right, at least the basic concept behind getting the two characters together, while having them trying to navigate their messy history at different points in their lives, isn't a bad one. Felicia's matured and sees things differently now. Peter still feels the connection, but he's also married, albeit this started during JMS' first year on Amazing Spider-Man, so Mary Jane is living on her on own on the West Coast. So he's trying to find that equilibrium of being friends with an ex he hasn't seen in a while. 

Anyway, the book goes off the rails once Spidey thinks he knows who Mr. Brownstone is based on hearing his voice over the phone and then in person (when they save the guy from an attack by a rival cartel.) Felicia charges in rather than find evidence that could actually stand up in court. She gets dosed, it looks like she's going to be sexually assaulted, and she wakes up the next morning beside the guy's corpse. Daredevil gets involved, Nightcrawler shows up to give everyone a lecture on mutant history, it turns out the guy's brother actually killed him.

Felicia then talks that guy down by either a) admitting that she became a thief after her attempt to take revenge on a frat boy who assaulted her while drunk was thwarted by him getting in a car wreck, or b) she makes that whole story up to get the guy to drop his guard because he thinks he's speaking to a kindred soul. It's not great either way you want to read it, and thankfully no one seems to have paid any attention to it as a retcon for her origin.

The Dodsons revamp her look, in that besides minimizing the white fur fringe stuff, her outfit now seems to be skintight leather or some sort of plastic, whereas it was previously given a fabric texture (even if it was still highly impractical as an outfit.) That stuck for at least a few years, although I think by Brand New Day the artists mostly shifted back to variations on the classic look, which has subsequently maintained its hold (that brief, idiotic "Queenpin" phase where she had the Kraven the Hunter-style cat face across the chest, aside.)

Saturday Splash Page #140

 

"Meet Me at the Big Green Lady," in Spider-Man/Human Torch #5, by Dan Slott (writer), Ty Templeton (penciler), Drew Geraci and Greg Adams (inkers), J. Rauch (colorist), Dave Lanphear (letterer)

Released in 2005, Spider-Man/Human Torch was a humorous look at the antagonistic friendship between the title characters over the years. Each issue was set at a different point in their history, and involved the two either one-upping or saving each other, if not both at the same time. Critically, Johnny interacts with both Spider-Man and Peter Parker, while not realizing they're one and the same.

Though the fifth issue is set during the JMS/Bendis' New Avengers era, meaning Peter is a schoolteacher and Aunt May knows he's Spider-Man, Slott and Templeton stick mostly to before Peter's marriage to Mary Jane. This plays into the idea that Johnny can't believe Parker is somehow dating a different beautiful woman every time they cross paths, but it involves the creative team distilling the '90s into "clones," as Johnny keeps mentioning certain team-ups which Spidey responds to with "clone."

(Around the time this mini-series would have come out, I had a rough estimate that 4 years in our time equaled one year in Marvel time. Which means the entire Clone Saga would have been about 6 months, Ben Reilly's time as Spider-Man probably not even half that.)

It isn't until issue 3 (of 5) they even get to the '70s, in what is probably the most commonly cited issue online. Spidey, struggling to pull out of a depression brought on by Gwen's death, asks Johnny to give him driving lessons in the Spider-mobile. The Red Ghost and his Super-Apes get involved, and Spidey stops them with the power of fruit pies.

The various supporting casts are around - Spidey accompanies the FF on a trip inside a difficult-to-reach dimension when he and the Torch swap roles for the day; the Black Cat enlists Johnny's help on a heist inside the Wakandan Embassy when Spidey objects - but the focus is on the two leads. How much they envy each other, how much they can get on each other's nerves. But at the end of the day, neither of them really wishes the other ill. Spidey's not going to let Doom kill Johnny, and Johnny will lend an ear when Spidey's depressed.

Saturday Splash Page #139

 

"Future Super-Ex Boyfriend," in Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #3, by Sean McKeever (writer), Takeshi Miyazawa (artist), Christina Strain (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

We'll look at the two mini-series that preceded this in a couple of months in Sunday Splash Page, but for now we'll start at the end. Set in some vaguely mid-2000s Midtown High School, the book mostly follows teenage Mary Jane Watson as she tries to navigate high school and figure out what she actually wants in life.

That is apparently a very difficult question, because MJ vacillates constantly over the course of 20 issues. She wants to try dating Spider-Man, so they give it a shot and it's awkward. So she tries playing a shallow party girl instead - "going plastic," she calls it - but that gets complicated. She tries dating Harry Osborn, but just doesn't like him enough. Harry dates a lot of girls, but isn't above manipulating MJ's feelings to get her back. Meanwhile, her friend Liz Allan's constantly insecure about her boyfriend Flash having a junior high crush on MJ, or some other girl stealing him away. And there's always old Puny Parker, the quiet friend (?).

If I ever had any regrets about being an introverted social outcast in high school, this book killed them, but good. All this drama and arguing and no one being able to stick to anything for more than five minutes seems exhausting.

McKeever keeps adding other characters to provide new angles for drama, but it muddies the water. When you've got Spider-Man and Firestar sort of dating, but Gwen Stacy is figuring out if she's mad at Peter or he's mad at her for telling Mary Jane a secret, and oh, here's Felicia Hardy as the new bad girl at school trying to steal Flash away from Liz, it's a bit much. Things end abruptly, or have to get shoved on the backburner for several issues until there's time for a scene dealing with it. I guess there were only so many permutations McKeever thought he could run through with MJ-Harry-Liz-Flash-Peter-Spider-Man.

Takeshi Miyazawa, who drew the two mini-series, handles the art for the first 15 issues, before Jeremy Haun takes over for the last 5. Miyazawa keeps the characters looking young; rounded, smooth faces lacking even the hint of facial hair - surprised Harry's not trying to grow a crappy mustache. Spider-Man's a skinny teenager, while Peter Parker walks with perpetual slumped shoulders and thick glasses.

It's usually several panels a page, mostly close-ups. Since this is a book about teenagers having big emotions, McKeever gives Miyazawa and Hahn room to focus on expressions and body language. A lot of "panel 1: comment, panel 2: silent reaction, panel 3: reply or follow-up comment." Liz, who is drawn as significantly smaller than the rest of the cast, is all about big gestures and open expressions of emotion (usually anger.) Hahn's not as adept at it - there are some panels where you can guess what he's trying to convey, but the art doesn't carry it - but the effort's there. It's not repeated panels of the two characters with the same expression or posture the whole time.

Saturday Splash Page #138

 

"Cat Chase," in Spider-Man Unlimited (vol. 3) #14, by C.B. Cebulski (writer), David Finch (penciler), Danny Miki (inker), Frank D'Armata (colorist), Dave Sharpe (letterer)

Summer of Spiders bids Jessica Drew adieu, and says hello to a fellow with radioactive blood!

Spider-Man Unlimited was, back in the '90s, a quarterly anthology book.  Because four monthly Spider-Man titles was not enough of the Webhead. It was born under an ominous star, its first two issues acting as start and finish of Maximum Carnage. 

Usually one lead story, sometimes part of whatever crossover was running through all the Spider-books that month, but sometimes a standalone story. Doc Ock stealing research equipment for an unknown reason. A guy announcing himself to the public as Spider-Man and becoming a public sensation, to Spidey's annoyance. Then various shorter back-ups, maybe focused on a villain or supporting cast member. What Mary Jane's thinking as she watches Peter fight Boomerang. Will Cardiac, in his day job as a heart surgeon, save the life of a crooked CEO he tried to kill the night before? Stuff like that.

The second volume was 5 issues based on that weird late-90s cartoon where Peter chases the symbiotes to Counter-Earth and fights Beast-Men and stuff like that. Whatever. Volume 3 went back to the original formula, but every other month. Probably most notable for Locke & Key co-creator Joe Hill writing a story in one issue, otherwise basically like Volume 1, standalone stories that needed a book to be published in. In the above issue, the lead story is Felicia making Peter repay a favor from Millar's Marvel Knights Spider-Man by breaking into Latveria's embassy to steal what is ultimately revealed as a spider-tracer with Peter's fingerprint on it. They fight a Doombot, that's about it.

The second story, by Joe Reitman and Ron Garney, is about a guy who works on the crew for New York City that clean up after superhero battles. He's gathering up any left over weapons he finds, apparently intending to become a villain, in spite of Spidey leaving a gift basket outside his window as a thank you. More of an interesting idea, albeit one that's been done before in various ways.

Random Back Issues #134 - Peter Parker: Spider-Man #55/153

I know social media wasn't a thing in 2003, but that's still not something I'd say aloud surrounded by teenagers. Word gets around quick.

What we've got is a bunch of wealthy guys illegally broadcasting superhero/super-villain fights so people can bet on them. Spidey's already taken out the mastermind, Donald Hart's, selection, Boomerang, and followed that up by defeating oil magnate Buck Masterson's selection (Scorpion) at the same time as tech genius Edwin Hill's XP-2000 robot. But he's trying to convince one of his students fighting is pointless, and constantly showing up with bruises and lame excuses is making that a hard sell. Time for answers!

XP's not entirely trashed, so Spidey brings him to the FF's HQ to see if he can figure out who's behind it. XP isn't enjoying the prodding, so Reed takes over and hits it off instantly with the robot, quickly using it to triangulate the broadcast points. XP is transmitting all this back to the rich guys, so they know they've got trouble. Their only remaining line of defense is film producer Gary Wisen's guy, Rocket Racer?!

The new outfit comes complete with rubber nipples, so I assume Wisen is supposed to be Joel Schumacher, the way I think Hill is Bill Gates (Hill mentions Congress is looking into him for possible anti-trust violations) and Hart is Trump, though he may not be ugly, stupid or vain enough for that.

The fights were broadcast to over 20 locations around the city, so Spidey drops the still-dismantled XP in an alley and switches into a terrible disguise to do some undercover work. He asks the bartender for 'Coke. On the rocks.' then panics when asked if he's trying to buy drugs or if he's a cop. He stumbles through asking about what bets are open, then makes a big show of putting all his money on his hero Spider-Man. Which doesn't make him any fans among the bouncers, especially when "all his money" is five bucks and a lunch ticket.

A significantly more battered Peter returns to the alley and changes back into costume just in time for Rocket Racer to arrive, following XP's homing beacon. Rocket Racer admits he's doing this to pay his student loans, and starts off with a barrage of mini-missiles. Spidey is slow to get up, and makes no effort to keep RR from throwing him through a brick wall. Hart figures out Spidey's throwing the fight and order Racer to hit him harder. Which doesn't work, making all the bettors think the fight is fixed, since the odds for Rocket Racer winning were really steep.

Hart offers Racer a million bucks to kill Spidey, but Racer turns off the comms and sits down for a chat instead. He wants to make sure Spider-Man knows he'd never kill him, and Spidey says he does, and that he appreciates it. As Rocket Racer zooms off, a slip of paper with an address on it just happens to fall out of his pockets.

Spidey has significantly more success smashing through the window than Rocket Racer did. He's pretty angry about the time he wasted on these fights, that could have been spent helping people in real trouble, just so these guys could make money. Hart insists it was about power, about finding a way to control all these super-powered people who think they can't be controlled. Then he pulls a gun, which gives Spidey an excuse to web and fling the guy across the room. Hill insists Spidey can't do anything to them given his grey legal standing, but apparently XP got very chatty with the FCC (and ends up testifying before Congress, to Peter's delight.)

At school the next morning, Louis sees Peter and asks what happens, Peter explains it wasn't worth fighting back, which seems to impress Louis.

{8th longbox, 72nd comic. Peter Parker: Spider-Man (vol. 2) #55, by Zeb Wells (writer), Khary Randolph (penciler), Wayne Faucher (inker), Studio F (colorist), Randy Gentile (letterer)}

Random Back Issues #128 - Amazing Spider-Man #677

I do not believe for a second Peter Parker wears Axe Body Spray. That's a Lance Bannon move all the way. Peter uses plain Old Spice, or some industrial-strength perspiration fighting deodorant you buy in 5-gallon jugs.

Peter is depressed because his current girlfriend broke up with him. I have no idea who that would have been in 2012, so whatever. Peter webs up some loser trying to rob a joint and that is the only moment he'll manage even mild competency for the rest of the issue.

The Black Cat appears on the fire escape and Peter tries (pitifully) to flirt. You've already seen how that goes. Felicia reaches her hideout and after a shower, discovers a spider-tracer on her costume. Then the cops bust in. No, he didn't actually put a tracer on her, it's part of a larger plot by shadowy organizations.

Next morning, Peter is late for a meeting at Horizon Labs. Oh yeah, I dimly recall that being part of his status quo for a hot minute. But work is canceled, because there was a theft of some hologram-projecting phone, by the Black Cat. Caught on camera, no less. Setting aside how uncharacteristically sloppy that is, she was deflecting Peter's weak game at the same time, so he knows something's not right. Time for a jailbreak!

OK, never mind, she's got that handled. Time to consult a legal professional! Failing that, talk to Matt Murdock, in the middle of his cat-and-mouse game with Kirsten McDuffie about whether he's Daredevil or not.

They meet up later at the Chrysler Building, so Spidey can lose a game of suicide fall chicken (or whatever you want to call it) to Daredevil. I know, "Man Without Fear," but Spidey is "Guy with vastly superior speed, strength and reflexes that would enable him to pull off moves Murdock couldn't on the best day of his life." I know this is "pretending to not be depressed" Murdock, and Waid's writing that book so he's going to make his boy shine, but come on. How the fuck does Daredevil, the universe's litter box, always manage to make Spider-Man the Daffy Duck to his Bugs Bunny? Every damn time.

Spidey suggests they go question the scientist whose hologram phone was swiped, but they find him being held hostage by a bunch of armed guys. Or do they? DD's radar sense says no one is there, and Spidey forgot the hologram-projecting phone that got stolen makes really good holograms. I wouldn't mind Daredevil being the one to easily see through the deception there if not for the entire rest of the issue making Spider-Man look like a hapless dope.

Dropping into the tunnel the armed guys used, Spider-Man is sure something is still up, because his spider-sense wouldn't go off if there had been nothing dangerous. Are you sure? Maybe you've just got indigestion, or it's warning you forgot to pay the electric bill.

Once in the tunnel, it is (of course) Daredevil who senses the trap and tries to get them to backtrack. Too late, the entire tunnel collapses and as Spidey tries to dig his way out, he grabs a power line that's protective sheathing breaks so that he gets electrocuted.

Well, Black Cat's glaring down at him by that point, so that's less down to incompetence than angry ex with probability powers. It doesn't get any better in the second half (which takes place in Daredevil, because the shadowy organization that framed Felicia is trying to strongarm her into stealing something from Matt.)

{1st longbox, 133rd comic. Amazing Spider-Man #677, by Mark Waid (writer), Emma Rios (artist), Javier Rodriguez (color artist), Joe Caramagna (letterer)}