Spider-Man Vs. The Hulk! at the Winter Olympics
Script: Bill Mantlo
Story: Bill Mantlo, Mark Gruenwald, Steven Grant
Pencils: Herb Trimpe
Inks: Bruce Patterson
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: George Roussos
Covers: Bill Sienkiewicz, Bruce Patterson
Art Department Coordinator: Dan Crespi
Coloring Coordinator: Andy Yanchus
Originally published: 1980

God-awful. One (hyphenated) word: web-skis.

This is an insane story, overly complex with no reason or payoff, insanely long and boring. The only cool thing was seeing hulk in battle armor, but he ditched that pretty quickly.

If you don’t care about the really boring plot, skip to the last paragraph.

The holidays are over and it’s time for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. We open at the Olympic Village, one night before the events are to start, where skater Maria Karsov is being kidnapped by some creepy-looking weirdos. They are Digger, Boulder, Landslide and Water-Witch: the Outcasts. Spider-Man fights them, but it turns out they were maybe actually trying to protect the athlete — while all this is going on, a weird giant diamond rises up through the ground, envelops Karsov, and sucks her back into the Earth. The Outcasts get away.

Later, we find out that Karsov is the third athlete to go missing like this. There’s a bunch of talking and exposition that bores everybody.

The next morning the Hulk is jumping around like a lunatic when he gets captured by one of the weird diamond things. He breaks out, and then some “lava men” attack him with a “lava catapult” and some “carbonizers” and “flame-guns”. Hulk takes care of them and enters their cave and eventually meets Queen Kala, Monarch of all Subterranea. She wants the Hulk to help defeat her enemies and to be her king (or so she says).

The next day, a skier named Brad Rossi is competing. He went to Midtown High with Peter Parker. There’s a full freaking page describing his ski-jumping, in detail. Gimme a break. As Rossi is performing a second jump, he gets eaten by one of the big diamonds and sucked into the Earth. The crowd is upset, the readers not so much.

As Spidey attempts to help Brad, the Outcasts show up again and they all fight for no reason at all. It’s dumb and annoying. The Outcasts overpower Spider-Man and knock him out. When he awakes he finds himself underground, in the presence of the Mole Man. There’s a lot more boring exposition and it turns out he’s the enemy Kala wants vanquished and Mole Man, it seems, would like her defeated as well. See, Mole Man has a fountain of youth that Kala wants. Mole Man won’t let her in because she spurned him. Kala’s ridiculous plan is to have the kidnapped Olympic athletes fight the Outcasts. Mole Man doesn’t know that Kala also has the Hulk, and Kala doesn’t know that Mole Man also has Spider-Man. Ugh.

Lots of fighting. Hulk fights because he’s drugged and under mind control, Spider-Man fights because Mole Man threatens to destroy the Olympic Village, the athletes fight because Kala is holding Brad’s girlfriend hostage. The athletes get some ridiculous equipment: Brad gets “rocket skis and power poles”, Maria gets “super-skates”, Claude Lebron gets a “bomb-sled” and Bobby Lyle gets a “super-stick that fires power pucks”. You know what you could give them instead, Kala? Guns. Or anything not dumb. But, these are apparently the “most advanced weapons known to subterranean science”.

I can’t believe how much I hate this comic. I can’t describe any more. In the end it all works out. Fine, done.

Rating:

In the Hands of Bullseye
Script: Roger McKenzie
Pencils: Frank Miller
Inks: Klaus Janson
Lettering: Joe Rosen
Coloring: Glynis Wein
Originally published: September 1979

This being a Daredevil comic, I really have no idea what’s going on. The issue starts with an epilogue to (I assume) the previous issue, which I have not read. Then the story begins, and I really don’t care about most of it.

Here’s the skinny for my purposes: some crap is happening, and while it’s happening, Peter and Mary-Jane walk by in one panel. Matt Murdock is jealous of them.

Rating:

Beware the Spider-Woman — Bounty Hunter!
Script by: Michael Fleisher
Art by: Frank Springer & Mike Esposito
Letters: Albers
Colors: Sean
Originally published: December 1979

Bring on… the Clown!
Script: Michael Fleisher
Pencils: Frank Springer
Inks: Mike Esposito
Letters: C. Robins
Colors: B. Sean
Originally published: January 1980

Enter the Gamesman
Script: Michael Fleischer
Artists: Trevor von Eedon, Mike Esposito
Letters: Robins
Colors: Gafford
Originally published: February 1980

Trapped–in the Doomsday Room!
Script: Michael Fleisher
Art: Trevor von Eedon, Mike Esposito
Letters: Jim Novak
Colors: Glynis Wein
Originally published: March 1980

To Free a Felon!
Script by: Michael Fleisher
Art by: Steve Leialoha
Letters by: Diana Albers
Colors: Glynis Wein
Originally published: April 1980

The Blades of the Grinder!
Script: Michael Fleisher
Art: S. Leialoha, M. Esposito & Associates
Colors: Gaff
Letters: Novak
Originally published: May 1980

I needed to read six issues of Spider-Woman. For the first five of these I’m pretty iffy on placement; the sixth also has Spider-Man in it, so I was pretty sure where it had to go. I decided to just read and review them all in one big bang.

So… I haven’t read any of these comics in about a year. I do not remember much about what was going on with Spider-Woman in her book, except that I remember not liking it and thinking it was full of weird pervy rape fantasies…OK, I just reread some of my last few posts on Spider-Woman and it seems like my memories are pretty much correct. I guess the last one I read involved Spider-Man and Spider-Woman meeting, so that’s something. Luckily, I also put a bit of a recap of what’s been going on in there.

When we last left Jessica Drew, she was about to embark on a new chapter of her life. Basically jobless and homeless, she was given a second chance by Spider-Man. Now (apparently a few weeks later), we open on her life having “changed suddenly and drastically, and never again will it be the same.”

Issue 21 actually starts out interesting, with a robbery and the revelation that JD is working undercover nearby, ostensibly to catch the thieves. It turns out Jess is making a living as a bounty hunter, working with a guy named Scotty McDowell. Just by capturing the jerks involved in that one heist, she made a cool twenty grand. Not bad work if you can get it, I guess. It makes my wonder how Pete Parker is always so broke. Stupid moral high ground doesn’t pay, I guess.

In addition to the new-found riches, we also learn that Jess has somehow inherited (I think?) a costume shop, and is living in a new place by herself. So she’s got that going for her, too.

OK, so this issue wasn’t bad at all. It did still involve Jessica getting naked, but I guess that’s just how this book rolls. At least it was in a fairly innocent manner this time — a shower after a long night — and not something lurid and sexed up. Not that lurid and sexed up is bad per se, but… I don’t know, this book certainly never seemed to do it right. ANYWAY WHATEVER.

It ends on a weird note with Scotty having dinner with Jess and pining after Spider-Woman. I can’t tell if he knows they’re one and the same.

ONWARDS TO ISSUE 22!

This issue starts off with a welcome piece of news: Jess is not just crime-fighting for the money. Her and Scotty — who figures shit out behind the scenes, and does research/analysis — decide to go after a serial-killing clown for which no reward is posted. Money and moral high ground! Best of both worlds!

(BTW… So far, Scotty’s character definitely brings to mind DC Comics’ Oracle: both are disabled crimefighters with computer/technical expertise, who provide valuable information to their superhero pals. Also, it’s hard to think of serial-killing clowns without thinking of the Joker. Especially when one of the victims in this comic says “What the heck are you, anyway? Some kinda Joker?!”. This Spider-Woman stuff was written years before The Killing Joke and Barbara Gordon’s transformation into Oracle. I’m definitely not implying anybody copied anybody, I just think the similarities, though slight, are interesting. COINCIDENCE CITY, USA.)

The issue follows Spider-Woman and the Killer Clown as their paths cross a few times — including a clown attack on JD’s friend Lindsay. Clown serial killers have the potential to be super scary, but this one ended up being more on the pathetic side. I would have preferred a little more creepiness. Also, the clown is a total woman-hater, and we end up with lines like “My wife thwarted me! Women thwarted me! Women destroyed me, as I shall destroy you!”. In isolation — fine, a woman-hating villain, no biggy. However, this totally fits in with the rest of the misogynistic vibe this comic has had for its entire run, and it really derails the whole thing for me. I guess it’s good that Spider-Woman usually triumphs over shit like this?

The end of this issue felt entirely rushed, but by that point I was glad to see it end.

In the beginning of issue 23, Spider-Woman gets called a bimbo by the chief of police and has some street toughs attack her so she can “show [them] all a good time”. She is unable to actually successfully fight off these common thugs, but luckily a (non-super-powered) man shows up to save her. And get this: the dude’s name is Mr. Braverman. Spider-Woman rewards the Brave Man for his brave manliness with a date and some french kissing. Stay classy, Fleisher.

Well, it turns out Tim Braverman is actually the Gamesman, a criminal matermind who has recently been a problem in LA, and who Spider-Woman and Scotty had been after. Tim hired the goons to attack Spider-Woman, and he set up the rescue to get close to her. Scotty, jealous genius that he is, figures this all out but insta-love-struck Spider-Woman ignores him and gets herself into a whole heap of trouble. Luckily good old Scotty and his six-shooter bust onto the scene in time to save the day!

But — even after Tim/The Gamesman dupes Spider-Woman, has her stun-gunned, ties her up to a pole, and lights the building she’s in on fire — even after that, Spider-Woman still thinks he’s a swell guy and makes out with him for a bit. Meanwhile, poor Scotty (who actually saved her and actually is a swell guy) gets rejected. Ain’t that always the way?

When issue 24 starts up, Tim is in jail and Spider-Woman is visiting him. Tim goes on to explain about his shitty upbringing and why he turned to a life of crime. (IT’S CAUSE HIS DAD WAS MEAN, YO.) Then he plays up how much he loves Spider-Woman and begs for her help in getting him out. Stupid idiot that she is, she goes along with it. I guess I should cut her some slack. I keep forgetting that mentally she’s actually quite young and naive, which might explain why she’s so easy to manipulate. And a shitty crimefighter.

Later, Spider-Woman gets ambushed and shot. There’s now a new Gamesman and he is after her. You see, the new Gamesman thinks Spider-Woman knows the whereabouts of the old Gamesman’s $10 million. But she doesn’t. So, he sets her up in an insanely convoluted death trap and leaves her alone without actually verifying that she’s died. Such a damned cliché. Dumb issue.

Issue 25 opens immediately following the end of 24, and Spider-Woman is in deep trouble. OF A DEADLY NATURE. The setup is thus: Jessica is chained to a stripper pole in the middle of a metal room. The floor, walls, ceiling and door of the room are electrified, and touching them will kill her. There is a bomb at the top of the stripper pole that will explode in one minute that will also kill her.

Spider-Woman escapes thusly: She notices that the door has a glass panel that is not electrified and that she could probably fit through. She climbs up her stripper pole to near the top, and snaps off the bottom of the pole. She then leaps off the top stub, using the snapped off pole as a pole vault thingy, and lunges towards the glass. She manages to smash all the way through it without actually touching any of the metal.

Since the new Gamesman foolishly assumes Spider-Woman is dead, he makes a fake Spider-Woman that he uses to bust the original Gamesman out of jail, in an attempt to find out where that $10 million is. Meanwhile, Jessica Drew lounges around her apartment in sexy lingerie and bathrobes. ZOMG THE FAKE SPIDER-WOMAN IS ACTUALLY JESS’S ACTRESS FRIEND LINDSAY MCCABE! When Lindsay inadvertently drops some hints to Jess, Jess is able to figure it all out and eventually save everyone. (Except the bad guys, they go to jail.)

Steve Leialoha’s art in this issue is really sucky, BTW. Lindsay McCabe, especially, looks like she’s a had a really bad collagen injection in her lips. And her eyes are crazy.

Finally we reach issue 26, in which Spider-Man briefly appears. The issue starts with Spider-Woman hanging out at the LA port, going after some hoods — The Desmond Boys — stealing a fur shipment. She gets them.

Meanwhile we’re introduced to Rupert Dockery, who has purchased the Los Angeles Courier newspaper. The guy is a creep. He almost gets fake kidnapped, but then Spider-Woman shows up and saves him. Dockery writes up the incident in his new newspaper, and I guess the story gets picked up by the wires or something, because next we see Spider-Man reading about it in New York. CAMEO OVER.

Dockery realizes that Spider-Woman sells papers, so he organizes a crime spree, turning a goon named Brute Bashby into a villain named the Grinder. Grinder then publicly challenges Spider-Woman and she goes after the guy. Bingo bango, there are your newspaper sales. They fight, she wins, Dockery is a douche, the end.

Whew! That was a lot of Spider-Woman! Lots of dumb clichés, lots of dumb plot holes, lots of unrealistic and out of character behaviour, occasionally shitty art, misogyny — and still an improvement over the older issues (or at least how I remember them). I’m glad to be done with these for a short bit.

I love the word “presently”, but Michael Fleisher uses it way too much.

Rating:

Ok, so I disappeared for almost a year. Sorry about that.

Around the time I stopped posting here, I got stuck. I got really confused for awhile about how the stories I had read and was about to read fit together. I thought I figured it out, realized I was wrong, and started over. While I was reassessing all this, other things in The Real World (aka Earth-1218) kinda got the better of me. I ended up realizing that I had both very little time and very little money to keep doing this project, and I was forced to put it on hold.

However, I’ve had my little break now and I would very much like to resume. I’ve missed reading these comics and figuring out all the orders and details of the chronology. It’s fun.

So, now I am back, or at least I intend to be. When I last left you I was, as I mentioned above, quite confused. Below is what I now believe to be the proper order for Spidey comics taking place from the winter of Marvel Year 10 to the early summer of Year 11 (with the years as defined by Paul Bourcier’s calendar). I’ve already read and posted about some of these in what I now believe to be the wrong order, so I’ll be doing new posts about those I haven’t talked about yet.

• Amazing Spider-Man 203
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 42
• Fantastic Four 218
• Amazing Spider-Man 204
• Amazing Spider-Man 205
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 43
• Amazing Spider-Man 206
• (Amazing Spider-Man 207-Flashback)
• Marvel Team-Up 79
• Spider-Man vs Hulk: Battle of the Century
• (Spider-Woman 21-25)
• Spider-Woman 26
• Daredevil 160
• Marvel Treasury Edition 25
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 44
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 45
• Amazing Spider-Man 207
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 46
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual 2 (pp 1-5)
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 47
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 48
• (Spider-Woman Origin 4 & 5)
• Spider-Woman 28
• Spider-Woman 29
• Amazing Spider-Man 208
• Marvel Team-Up 96
• (Marvel Team-Up 97)
• Marvel Team-Up 98
• Amazing Spider-Man 209
• (Spider-Woman 31)
• Marvel Team-Up Annual 3
• Marvel Team-Up 99
• Amazing Spider-Man Annual 14
• Marvel Team-Up 100
• Marvel Team-Up 101
• Amazing Spider-Man 210
• (Spider-Woman 32)
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 49
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 50
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man 51
• Amazing Spider-Man 211
• Amazing Spider-Man 212
• Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual 2 (pp 6-32)
• Dazzler 1
• Dazzler 2
• (Spider-Woman 33-38)
• Marvel Team-Up 82
• Marvel Team-Up 83
• Marvel Team-Up 84
• Marvel Team-Up 85
• Spider-Man & The Hulk: What Price a Life ~ Marvel Team-Up 126 (Story 2)
• Hulk Annual 11

There are also some Spider-Woman issues in brackets that have to fit in there somewhere, that I’m not too sure about. They’ll probably be wrong, but I’ll figure that out later — I’m more concerned about Spider-Man’s stuff at the moment.

Alright, well that’s it for now! Hopefully I’ll post again soon with an actual review, having actually read a comic!

Sword of the She-Devil
Author: Chris Claremont
Co-plotters: Chris Claremont, John Byrne
Penciler: John Byrne
Inker: Terry Austin
Letterer: Tom Orzechowski
Colorist: Glynis Wein
Originally published: March 1979

In this issue, some creep named Kulan Gath possesses the body of a museum security guard and Red Sonja possesses the body of Mary-Jane Watson. You know, because they both have red hair. It’s really terrible, and clearly just a ploy to sell Red Sonja comics to Spidey fans (although I guess that’s kinda the point of Team-Up as a whole).

So, this takes place December 22, before the new school year and while Pete is still working at the Globe. That makes it especially strange that he is at the Bugle Christmas party, that Jameson gave him a bonus, and that he got sent on assignment. However, it’s not crazy, as he still has lots of friends at the Bugle, did work there for part of the year thus perhaps earning a bonus, and is freelance so still able to take the assignment when nobody else was able. An annoying little chronological glitch, but not the end of the world.

Oh, you know what else is weird? Clark Kent is at the Bugle Christmas Party.

Rating: