Spider-Man Vs. The Hulk! at the Winter Olympics

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.

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When a Spider-Man Comes Calling!

The Frightful Four, with Spider-Man held captive, attack the Fantastic Four.

Surprisingly, this continuation of the story in Spectacular 42 was even worse than the first part. Once again it was almost entirely one big fight scene; no character development, no plot, no surprises. And, frankly, the fight itself even kinda sucked.

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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.

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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.

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And Men Shall Call Him… Octopus!

This is a continuation of sorts of the story in ASM Annual 13. Here, Spidey fights Doc Ock some more. The issue as a whole largely fails, due to lackluster writing by Mantlo and incredible boring and occasionally muddled art by Buckler and Mooney. Nowhere near as good as the ASM Annual. The one point at which the book gets interesting is near the end, when Doctor Octopus starts becoming completely unhinged and starts talking to his arms and referring to him and them as “we” — very Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. It’s a nice touch, but it doesn’t save the issue.

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Into the Hive!

A pretty lame wrap-up to the Swarm story line. I wish this had BEEn a little better. Ahahahahahaha.

Sorry.

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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.

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The Crash of ’79!

WTF, this mag has full-on nudity! That’s kind of shocking! Howard and Bev face off against Pro-Rata again, and Spidey shows up in a flashback. There are some people that “get” Howard the Duck, but I most certainly not one of those people

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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.

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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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Till Death Do Us Part!

There was a sweet interesting twist here — Carrion created a “protoplasmic pre-clone” of Peter Parker, a “Spider-Amoeba”. That’s kind of awesome.

This was really great except for this panel:

Also, it’s snowing at the end. I thought it was still spring/summer. I’m going to assume everything’s cool, and it’s just a freak occurrence.

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Secret as the Grave!

My guess at the start of this issue — Carrion is a Miles Warren clone. Man, that would be awesome.

….and…I was right! Awesome town!

Great issue, but I hope they explain where some of Carrion’s powers come from.

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Dust to Dust!

Super cool cover on this one, it looks great!

Man, Carrion is one scary motherfucker. I love him! Is he Miles Warren? That would be crazy, but I can kinda believe it I guess. Unfortunately Carrion had a lot more exposition here and a lot less sinisterness, but it was still good.

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Ashes to Ashes!

Daredevil and still-blind Spidey beat the Masked Marauder and the Maggia, and Spidey’s sight returns. But that’s not the end!

Carrion shows up and he does indeed know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man! Taking advantage of Pete’s still sensitive eyes, Carrion quickly gains the upper hand!

This was another really good issue, but it suffered from being too split-up — the structure could have used a little bit of tightening in my opinion.

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The Blind Leading the Blind

Frank Miller?! Weird.

This was still good, but there wasn’t a lot of progress from last issue. More Carrion please!

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Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Spider-Man is blind! O NOES! To make matters worse, he’s severely sprained his ankle.

By the way, I thought the Masked Marauder was dead. What happened there? I guess he came back at some point, despite having been disintegrated.

I feel like I should know who Carrion is, but I don’t. How does he know Pete’s secret identity? (At least I assume he does, since he was waiting in Pete’s apartment when MJ and Betty showed up.) Have I totally forgotten something in all the ordering kerfuffle I went through?

This was an awesome issue! I can’t wait to see where it’s all going.

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Carrion, My Wayward Son!

Carrion is awesome and scary! He’s like a zombie Green Goblin! Unfortunately the awesome Carrion introduction is balanced out by dumb-shit White Tiger.

This issue could have been cool, but there are too many bad guys — Masked Marauder, Tri-Man, Carrion, some street toughs, a drug dealer. Come on dude. Also, Mantlo really needs to stop filling up Spidey’s book with friggin White Tiger crap.

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Spider-Man Night Fever

Oh jeez, Spidey goes to the disco and fights a bad guy named the Hypno-Hustler. Give me a break.

Frank Springer’s art is weak.

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Guess Who’s Buried in Grant’s Tomb!

Aw, man, I was hoping Zeck would be on this title permanently, or at least for awhile. Looks like we’re back with the regulars, though, and it just doesn’t look as good.

MJ is trying to date other guys, but the one she goes out with is a dork. Betty misses Ned. The White Tiger and Holly pine after each other. The A-plot is boring.

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By the Light of the Silvery Moon Knight!

Moon Knight. Is. Awesome. Also, really cool art by Zeck and Patterson, it’s a totally different style from what I’ve been seeing, and it works great.

I loved this issue!

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Crack of the Whip!

Fairly boring issue that sees the return of Jean DeWolff and her brother, the Wraith. This was very bland, and Iron Man did basically nothing.

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Still Crazy After All These Years

MJ is totally sending Peter some mixed messages, but she still doesn’t want to marry him.

As far as bad guys go, the Scorpion re-emerges, ostensibly stronger and faster than ever. Spidey’s pissed and fed up, though, and just smashes the crap out of him. It’s really cool to see, and Scorpion’s demasking at the end was awesome.

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