Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!

The Frightful Four — the Wizard, Trapster, Sandman and Electro — lure Spider-Man into a trap at the Statue of Liberty. They beat him up. That’s about it, really. At the end, Spidey is their prisoner and the Four are going to go attack the Fantastic Four. It was…ok? Nothing really new here, but it wasn’t a terrible read.

Rating:

The Terrible Turnabout!

Now this is an issue! This Spider-Lizard business was fantastic! Sweet, sweet art by Sprinter and Villamonte brought Mantlo’s engaging story to the next level. Why can’t Mantlo write like this all the time? My only complaint — and it’s a small one — is that when Spidey reverted back to a man, and his mask was torn, it was kind of a cop-out for Connors not to see his real face. I think it would have been a really interesting turn for their characters if Dr. Connors learned Pete’s true identity. Anyway, that’s not important. The issue completely lived up to its title, and was truly Spectacular.

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Scourge of the Schizoid-Man!

A fairly mediocre outing, though much better than the last issue. Here Spidey fights that Chip kid, who has become The Schizoid Man. That part’s pretty dumb, unfortunately. The cool thing is that, back when Spidey helped beat the Lizard last time, he absorbed some kinda lizard rays that are changing him. He’s now a raging maniac, and at the end becomes the Spider-Lizard. Awesome.

Curt Connors forgets his own name:

Great art, at least in spots.

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Curse of the Living Vampire!

Well, this was terrible. First of all, Morbius is such a shitty character, or at least shittily used. His whole story here was completely clichéd and boring. And the end? RIDICULOUS! Morbius drinks a bit of Spidey’s blood and gets by lightning and he’s cured! OMGZ! Gimme a break. The two mildly interesting aspects of this issue were Pete’s awkward run-in with MJ, and that Chip guy’s mutant freak-out.

Buscema and Stone really phoned in the art.

Rating:

Missing Angel

Angel is away from the X-Men, and they reminisce. Spidey appears in a flashback, in which he has trapped Angel in a web (presumably accidentally). Cool art, I really like Colleen Coover.

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Enter: Swarm!

This issue starts with a huge waste of space and time, in which Spidey goes after some random bank robbers. It has nothing to do with the plot, and is simply filler.

The rest of the issue deals with Pete starting to get settled into grad school, and having to deal with some bee guy named Swarm. He’s kind of a cool villain, but the issue basically sucked.

Rating:

Lizards on a Hot Tin Roof!

This one follows the standard Spider-Man Cliffhanger Followup structure:

1. Continue fight
2. Bad guy(s) leaves for no good reason
3. Spider-Man/Pete lead normal life
4. Spidey and bad guy meet up again
5. Spider-Man beats bad guy

BORING!

It doesn’t help that Lizard stories tend to suck anyway, and that the Iguana is just an even lamer version of the Lizard. The one interesting part of the story was that Liz recognized his family and seemed to have a connection with them, but that wasn’t followed up at all. In fact, it was almost completely contradicted when the Lizard decided to team up with the Iguana.

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Night of the Iguana!

Lizard issues don’t really excite me, and having two Lizards doesn’t really improve things much. I suppose the next issue — where the Lizard and the Iguana face off — might be good, but this one was fairly boring.

Rating:

A Zoo Story

The first half of this actually have to take place immediately after Spectacular 31. There is a break, though — of “hours”, but we can pretend it says “days” or “weeks” — and then the rest fits in with where I currently am in the timeline.

In Peter’s interactions with Curt Connors it’s made clear that they don’t know each other (when Pete’s out of costume, that is). I was pretty sure, though, that they had met and were on friendly terms even in Pete’s civilian guise. Was I wrong, or is Mantlo wrong?

In this issue Pete finally starts grad school, which is cool fun times. The story was a bit dry, though.

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24 Hours till Doomsday!

This issue brought a surprise return of the Fly! I love that guy! He makes a mess of things as JJJ and Spidey tool around town trying to get Spencer Smythe’s bomb off their arms. Since Spidey is pre-occupied with not exploding he happens to miss not only a very important photography assignment, but also his last-shot date with Mary Jane.

This was an amazing issue. The whole bomb thing played out beautifully, with plenty of tension and boatloads of friction between Spidey and JJJ. I loved that Jonah had the opportunity to peek under Spidey’s mask, but instead took the high road and did the right thing.

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War of the Reptile-Men!

As I suspected, Jonah’s goings-on with a certain Dr. Marla Madison were for the creation of a new Spider-Slayer robot.

Harry and Liz Allen are engaged!

Stegron did decide to “clothe [his] long-tailed brothersss with flesh once more” and he plans to clone more, so i guess South Pole dinosaurs are not necessary.

Pretty boring issue, unfortunately. I like dinosaurs, but this just didn’t really have any oomph to it. One thing I did quite enjoy was that the Lizard still tried to protect Billy Connors – it was a nice bit of humanity showing through, which I hope gets explored more.

Rating:

Stegron Stalks the City

Stegron’s plan is dumb. In a world with real dinosaurs, why is he choosing to reanimate the skeletons of dead ones? I guess it might be a little more convenient than getting them from the south pole again, but it hardly seems as effective. The whole reanimated dinosaur thing is very Night at the Museum-y, BTW:

This issue was mostly a setup for the next, in which we’ll get to see Stegron and the Lizard fight. The behind-the-scenes stuff – MJ and Pete having a heart-to-heart, JJJ cooking up something dastardly, etc. – was all far more interesting than any of the Stegron stuff. Hopefully the big confrontation next issue will be a little bit better.

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Kraven is the Hunter!

• There’s a little foreshadowing of what I assume will be the return of the Lizard next month
• Who’s the leader of this whole kidnap operation? I assumed it was Lansky himself, but I could be wrong. Anyway, now Kraven the Hunter has joined Tarantula on the team.
• Glory Grant becomes JJJ’s new secretary.

I normally hate Kraven issues. This time around he wasn’t so bad, possibly because of all the other crap going around that kept his on-panel time down.

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Deadline!

The Kingpin drains Spidey’s lifeforce to revive his son! This was a great conclusion to the lackluster story started last issue.

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Spider-Man… …or Spider-Clone?

This is the first issue in ages not written by Gerry Conway. Weird.

Pretty crappy book overall, and a big letdown for the 150th issue. I don’t know if Archie Goodwin is permanent or not, but I’m not sure I’m up for the growing pains of another writer.

Spidey realizes he is not a clone, so I guess that’s something.

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Beware the Path of the Monster! / The Lurker in the Swamp! / Bring Back My Man-Thing to Me!

Well, the issue of Gwen’s memory is addressed here – she has no memory of the last two years at all. There was nothing wrong with this, but I just couldn’t get into it…I dunno, I have nothing to say.

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Dinosaurs on Broadway!

Stegron and his dinosaurs are in Manhatten. Spider-Man and the Black Panther fight them, and Spider-Man accidentally drowns and kills Stegron. Oops! Chalk up one more death!

Haven’t seen Sal Buscema around for awhile. He does a decent job here, and it’s a refreshing break from Gil Kane and, to a lesser extent, Ross Andru.

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The Coming of…Stegron the Dinosaur Man!

Spidey os off to the Savage Land at the behest of Dr. Curt Connors, to stop a dinosaur-man named Stegron. A few comments:

• This issue starts off dumb, with Spidey opting to make a web parachute instead of accepting the offer of a real one. I’ve always hated the web parachutes, but this is stupider than normal. Even if he was able to make web parachutes and even if he had full confidence in them – which we’re shown, he does not – it’s a waste of web fluid. Why not just accept the real parachute? I guess Spider-Man always has been kind of a show-off, but this still bugs me.
• Weird art mistake – missing Spider from Spider-Man’s chest:

  

• Zabu the sabretooth tiger also looks incredible weird in this issue. Fail.
• Len Wein’s narration is bugging me again. Check this out:

  

  Based on this narration, the Savage Land is a creationist’s dream – man co-existing with dinosaurs, literal interpretation of Genesis. Maybe I’m just a modern cynic, but I really don’t need the Old Testament being brought into my Spider-Man comics. (BTW, there’s another Old Testament reference too: Stegron’s dinosaur-transporting airship is called “The Ark”.)

• Another thing I have a problem with is Spidey the golden-haired Ka-Zar fighting all the dark-skinned “barbarian” swamp men. I’m sure it’s not meant to be overtly racist, but it bothers me that Savage Land natives are depicted this way.
• At the end of the issue Stegron and a bunch of dinosaurs are heading towards NYC. All of that stuff is shown in Code of Honor 1, which means I read that book in the wrong spot. Boo.

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Squash! Goes the Spider!

Ok, we’re now done with the interlude in the middle of Amazing 105, and the events of this issue directly follow the end of that one. This issue also sees the welcome return of John Romita, even if it is only a brief return.

So where were we? Spencer Smythe had just used a bunch of security cameras to discover that Spider-Man is Peter Parker. Furthermore, Spider-Man is being blames for a robbery Smythe committed using his Spider Slayer robot. Here’s what happens now:

• Spidey realizes the camera spotted him, freaks out
• Spidey visits Curt Connors’s lab to make a Peter Parker mask
• As Smythe is watching with a bunch of mob bosses, Pete appears on camera with his Peter mask over his Spider-Man mask; when he removes the Peter mask, everyone believes the view of Peter they got was all a ruse
• Flash Thompson seems to be buggin out – he might be shell shocked
• Smythe goes after Spidey with a new Spider Slayer that’s twice as big and can actually transport the mad roboticist inside
• Smythe captures Spider-Man

The Smythe story is still pretty retarded, but the character stuff with Harry and MJ, Pete and Gwen, and Flash was all pretty good.

Rating:

Vampire at Large! / –The Way it Begin / The Curse and the Cure!

This is some kind of crazy extra-long issue in three parts. Maybe because it cost 25¢ instead of 15¢? Or maybe it cost that much because it was so long? Or maybe they are both effects of a third cause? Or maybe they are unrelated?

After a quick recap of what’s been going on, we return to Spidey surrounded by Morbius and the Lizard. The two bad guys fight for awhile, while Spider-Man just kinda sits on the sidelines and doesn’t do anything. The fight is decided when Morbius launches the Lizard into some sort of electrical doodad and fries him. As Morbius prepares to sink into the Lizard’s throat, Spidey finally takes his cue and swoops in to stop him. Fed up with how difficult it is to get a decent meal in this mansion, Morbius takes off by flying right out a window into the night. Luckily, Spider-Man was able to put a tracer on his back.

Back in the house, the Lizard comes to — but although he still has the reptilian body, his mind is that of Curt Connors! Spidey and Lizard/Curt chitchat a bit, and then Connors turns half-way human for a minute, before turning back into the Lizard. They speculate that maybe Morbius’s little drink of the Lizard’s blood caused him to weaken and consider maybe using that to help Spidey with his arm problem — you know, because turning human makes the Lizard lose his arm. They don’t really follow up on it for the time-being, though, and just get to work on some chemicals and shit.

After awhile, teetering on the brink of becoming a jerk, the Lizard comes up with an idea: that Morbius didn’t do anything by removing something from his body, but that the change was due to an enzyme Morbius injected. Spidey and the Lizard take off after Morbius with a vial of serum, in search of the needed enzyme.

Meanwhile, Morbius is in Manhatten. The sun is starting to come up, and with it Morbius starts feeling intense remorse and a weakening of his strength. He finds a place to rest, and dreams of his origins. Michael Morbius was a European Nobel prize winning scientist studying vampire bats. The nature of his work is secret, even to his lady friend – but not to us. He’s using the bats – along with radioactive materials and electroshock – to try and cure some disease he has that’s dissolving his blood cells. Moving his research to the sea, Morbius and his assistant conduct the fateful experiment. When it’s all over, Morbius has been changed into the vampiric monstrosity we’ve already seen.

Soon after, his assistant Niko is dead at his hands. Morbius is shocked and disgusted at his acts, and becomes moreso when he begins lusting after the blood of his special lady. In an effort to end his own suffering and prevent that of others, Morbius leaps overboard in an ill-fated suicide attempt. In a manner that’s not quite clear, the human part of Morbius does drown, but the new monster within him survives. When he resurfaces he is bitter and hungry.

When Morbius awakes from his origin-dream, he finds a vagrant standing over him. So long Charlie! That dude is toast. Meanwhile, eight-limbed Spider-Man and the Lizard are swinging through town, on their way to intercept Morbius. Everything’s going swimmingly until the Lizard part of Connors’s brain takes over. It only lasts an instant, but it kinda freaks Spidey out.

We also check in on Gwen Stacy, who is upset about Pete’s brusqueness on the phone and his subsequent lack of communication. She cries, as usual. That whole relationship never makes any sense to me. Both of them always keep each other at arm’s length, and overreact to every thing. It’s completely dysfunctional in my opinion.

Back out in the open, Spidey and the Liz finally find Morbius and start to kick the crap out of him. They knock him out, take some of his blood to mix with that wacky serum they prepared and – bingo bango! – Curt Connors is back to normal! But what of Spider-Man and his probl-arm? Before Spidey can take his meds, Morbius wakes up and does some crap-kicking of his own. Before they can do anything to stop him, Morbius grabs the serum and takes off!

Although he puts up a valiant chase, Spidey is not able to keep hold of Morbius. The vampire disappears, apparently drowned in the river, but Spider-Man is able to get his webbing onto the vial of serum. Spider-Man feels pretty shitty about the whole thing, but on the other hand (haha!) he’s able to drink the potion and lose his extra arms.

Whew…that was seriously long, but it was also really good. Morbius was a pretty great character, but his origin story probably was the biggest drag of this issue. It just kind of interrupted the flow of the story. Whatever, it was all still pretty awesome, so kudos to everyone.

I do wish that there had been more six-armed Spider-Man stuff – he really didn’t use those extra limbs much or very well. I’m pretty sure they’ll be back, though, so I guess I have that to look forward to.

Rating:

A Monster Called…Morbius!

Some interesting firsts in this issue. First issue of Amazing where Stan Lee doesn’t have a writing credit! I guess after 100 issues he deserved a break. Also, the first time I’ve seen Morbius.

Well, after that exciting ending to issue 100, I’m super stoked about this! Let’s hope it’s good!

Things start off good with Peter having a bit of a panic attack about his extra appendages. Even amongst this anxiety, he manages to slip in a sweet Kafka reference. Peter finds himself in an awkward situation when Gwen calls and he has to avoid her. Also, I totally misread Gwen’s first line here:

You know, about the R-RATED FLICK. I was shocked (shocked!) when I saw it out of the corner of my eye. On the other hand, maybe that’s just what Peter needs. I actually think this may have been an intentional visual pun. Gwen suggests seeing “I am Curious (Yellow)” a movie with actual explicit real sex in it. I’m pretty sure the movie was banned in the US, so I’m not even sure it could have been playing. Seems like a pretty racy little thing to have in there.

Anyway, Pete tells Gwen he’s going to be out of town for awhile and, frankly, he’s kind of rude about it. He then gets a call from the Bugle and blows them off too. Trying to sort out his bind, Pete calls Dr. Curt Connors and gets permission to stay at Connor’s summer home, which just happens to be equipped with a lab. When Spidey arrives at the home, he finds a huge sea-side mansion, haunted house stylez.

Off-shore is a ship, on which crewman have been disappearing since picking up a strange man they found adrift. This is a pretty cool nod to Dracula, which has the vampire killing off crew on a boat voyage he makes. The crew has had enough of this, and they go to the hold to beat the crap out of their passenger. The man – Morbius – manages to escape them and hide out until nightfall…and when night does fall, he kills them all. Internally conflicted, Morbius jumps overboard just as dawn approaches. He makes his way to shore and, under the light of the newly risen sun, seeks sanctuary in the Connors mansion (with a wee Zola reference – sweet).

Meanwhile, back in said mansion, Spider-Man has been working on a cure for his affliction. After two days, though, he’s still nowhere and frustration is starting to get the better of him. As the day comes to a close, Morbius rises and finds Spidey. He makes some cryptic comic about recognizing him (has Morbius been around before? I didn’t think so…), but decides he needs to quench his thirst by drinking Spidey’s blood.

Morbius attacks and quickly overpowers Spider-Man, who realizes what he’s up against a little too slowly. Just as Morbius is about to dig in, Spider-Man is rescued by the sudden appearance of Doc Connors himself! When Morbius lunges at him, the adrenaline rushing through Connors’s body instantly transforms him into the Lizard! As the issue ends, Morbius and the Lizard are facing off over the right to kill Spider-Man.

This issue was pretty bad ass. It had some sex (sort of), it had a vampire that actually kills people, it had sweet literary references and let’s not forget that it had a six-armed Spider-Man. This was a hell of a lot of fun.

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The Lizard Lives!

In the Blaze of Battle!
Author: Stan Lee
Innovator: John Buscema
Adaptor: Jim Mooney
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Consultant: John Romita
Originally published: October 1969

I think #76 here is the first issue without a Romita credit since he came onboard. So long Romita, hello Buscema and Mooney.

Spidey fights the Lizard. The Human Torch shows up and gets in the way. Spider-Man wins the fight and turns the Lizard back into regular old Curt Connors.

Rating:

The Web Closes!

If This Be Bedlam!
Script Writer: Stan Lee
Innovator: Johnny Romita
Illustrator: Jim Mooney
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Originally published: July 1969

Call Him…Fear!
Writer: Roy Thomas
Artist: Gene Colan
Inked by: George Klein
Lettered by: Artie Simek
Originally published: July 1969

Death Without Warning!
Author: Stan Lee
Innovator: John Romita
Illustrator: Jim Mooney
Letterer: Artie Simek
Originally published: August 1969

Continuing the saga of the ancient stone tablet. In this issue it is retrieved from the Shocker’s girlfriend by the Maggia, a crime organization headed by Silvermane. They also bail the Kingpin’s man Wilson out of jail and kidnap Curt Connors, all in a bid to discover the tablet’s secret. Spider-Man is really a kind of background player in this issue. It wasn’t bad overall, but the suspense regarding the tablet is long past interesting. They need to just reveal what the hell the deal with it is, and move on.

The secret is finally revealed in Amazing Spider-Man 74. We learn that the tablet contains not written language, but chemical symbols – a recipe for a valuable serum. Throughout the whole thing, Silvermane hints that he needs said serum to improve his own health and help with his aging. Curt Connors eventually is able to completely translate the tablet and make the serum. Silvermane drinks it, and it is confirmed that the secret of the tablet is that of the mythical fountain of youth – Silvermane’s youth is restored.

This second issue was actually pretty solid. I was expecting to be pretty disappointed when the big reveal on the tablet finally came, but this wasn’t too bad. Also, Harry Osborn got the best damned moustache so that helped the book quite a bit too:

Next, Spidey makes a brief cameo in Daredevil’s mag, where it appears that Matt Murdock is dead. He isn’t, though.

Issue 75 blows your socks off. The big tease is that somebody dies, but nobody cares because there’s something way more exciting – another character named Blackie! Woo!

Anyway, Silvermane keeps getting younger and younger. Spider-Man shows up and starts fighting everyone, Curt Connors turns into the Lizard and takes off. There’s general mayhem. Eventually Silvermane turns into a little kid and then disappears completely. He’s the guy that dies I guess. Spider-Man rescues Connors’s family, but the Lizard is at large and crazy.

#75 has an awesome cover.

Rating:

Rocked by…The Shocker!

Shocker attacks Captain Stacy, steals the tablet. Spider-Man beats him up, but the tablet is now missing and hidden. WTF is with this tablet man, just tell me what the motherfuck it says. It’s not interesting anymore, we need some more damned information.

Flash is back, Peter fights with him, Gwen gets pissed at him.

Aunt May goes on vacation.

Still boring, unfortunately.

Rating:

Spidey Smashes Out!
Story: Stan Lee
Illustration: John Romita
Lettering: Sam Rosen
Originally published: February 1967

Curt Connors turns into the Lizard as he’s waiting for his wife and kid to show up at the train station. It seems the fumes from the potion he helped make for the Rhino has triggered his transformation. At the same time, Peter is sending Aunt May off on a vacation. After the excitement Peter can’t actually find the Lizard, so he goes to talk to Jameson about some photos. Foswell overhears and decides to tail Peter to find out how he gets all the awesome Spider-Man photos. That spells trouble, mister. Fortunately he’s too busy for the time-being…

Pete runs into Flash before he goes in for his draft physical Also, Gwen and Harry. Then Mary-Jane shows up and everyone goes gaga over her. Her dress is pretty awesome, actually – it reminds me of the Riddler from the old 60s Batman show.

The Lizard breaks into a jewelry store and inexplicably assumes that Spider-Man will get accused for it. And, even more inexplicably, he does. Finally, and again incredibly, Peter hears about this accusation and instantly deduces that it was the Lizard. This ridiculousness really brought down my enjoyment of the issue as a whole.

The next night, Spider-Man finds the Lizard with no trouble at all. They fight, and Spider-Man sprains his arm like a loser. The Lizard runs off. Spider-Man then goes to see the Lizard’s wife and for some reason tells her that “far as I know, he’s committed no crime yet” – um, what about breaking into the jewelry store, smashing a hole in a train tunnel, and assaulting Spider-Man? Yeah, no crimes at all.

The issue ends with Peter minding out that Aunt May’s vacation is going well, and turning down MJ’s invitation to see her dance at a school performance. Also, he left his camera at the scene of the fight with the Lizard.

The next issue starts with Spider-Man still injured. He comes across a truck being robbed and stops it. After that he decides he better start looking for the Lizard, who is in the process of breaking into his own laboratory to look for notes / lizard serum. I have a problem with the Lizard’s big plan to turn the Earth’s lizards into an army. It’s the same plan he’s had the last two times he showed up, and it’s never made sense. Just because this serum turned a human into a lizard-man, what the hell means it will turn a lizard into a lizard-man? How does that make sense? Plus, he can already command lizards and reptiles and stuff, so why go after the serum at all? Shit.

Anyway, eventually they find each other and fight and stuff. They end up fighting on a train, and Spider-Man beats him in a pretty cool way (pun intended!). He tricks the Lizard into following him into a refrigerated/freezer car. Since lizards are cold-blooded and need warm temperatures to function properly, the Lizard is weakened enough for Spider-Man to actually beat him (one-armed!). Spidey takes the Lizard back to Connors’s lab and reverts the guy to his human self.

Immediately after this, there’s a stupid gimmick panel where the four speech balloons are left blank. It’s dumb and made me angry.

Anyway, after it’s all over we find out MJ took Harry out instead of Peter! More problems: no money to pay for May’s vacation, sprained arm, behind in school. Peter blames all of this, and everything else, on being Spider-Man and questions why he isn’t able to give that part of himself up. The end.

This is a panel where Spider-Man calls the Lizard by the wrong villain name:

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