The Spider and the Sea-Scourge!

You know what’s weird? I might be crazy, but I don’t see any credits for this issue. I looked them up online.

Namor, the Sub-Mariner, has been busting up equipment in the ocean. Good for him.

Spidey finally checks out the docks and Deb Whitman’s uncle, which she asked Pete to do long ago. Uncle Whitman has a contract with the government to setup equipment in the ocean, but his crew is scared because of Namor’s activities. Spider-Man, being his usual helpful self, beats up the crew and chases them off. Then he leaves when Uncle Whitman asks him for help.

The next day Deb shows up at school whining about the whole thing, and Pete decides he better stop being a bitch and go help out. He becomes a crew member onboard the ship, along with some other crew members who apparently came back or something.

So we get Spider-Man vs. Namor in a battle on the high seas. Spider-Man actually kicks the crap out of Namor, which is pretty cool and unexpected. Eventually they finally sit down and have a chat and work things out amicably, with Namor helping the surface dwellers find a better spot for their gizmos.

This reads a little like an issue of Team-Up, though not as crappy.

Rating:

buy on amazon.com: single issue or dvd collection

Aliens and Illusions!

The cover of this issue features Spider-Man, Mysterio and Deb Whitman apparently floating in outer space. Spider-Man is punching the fishbowl off Mysterio’s head. Spidey’s legs are wrapped around Mysterio’s body. Deb has a very odd zero-gravity boob thing going on, and a major camel toe. One of Mysterio’s boots has a high heel. The whole thing is very, very weird and very, very bad. I read online that it’s a Frank Miller cover, but for some reason I find this hard to believe.

So we start where we left off, with Peter onboard a space ship with Mysterio and some supposed aliens. Mysterio wants the Dutch Mallone money, and the aliens are helping him in exchange for Mysterio’s help in taking over the world. Of course, it turns out to just be an elaborate ploy by Mysterio. The aliens are just dudes in alien masks, whom Pete / Spider-Man take care of quite easily.

This issue retcons the aliens’ earlier appearance in ASM 2, when they were working for the Tinkerer, so that they were actually movie extras and stuntmen then as well. One of them, apparently, was Quentin Beck, who went on to become Mysterio.

Not a bad issue, really. Mysterio stories can sometimes be formulaic, but for some reason I was a little more engaged this time around.

Rating:

buy this issue on amazon.com

Monster in the Meadow / Payoff / Heroes for Hire / The Men and the Machine / Confrontations

As tends to be the case with annuals, this is a big honking issue. Unfortunately, Spider-Man only appears very briefly, observing a fight between a blackmailer and Luke Cage and Iron Fist.

The issue is a bit convoluted and long, but overall a decent read. Some of the art is nice.

Rating:

To Salvage My Honor!

As you may know, I’m not normally a fan of Kraven. However, I think he’s probably better than the lame-ass parade of goons from the last while. Spidey hasn’t really faced a real villain since the Vulture in Spectacular 44 & 45. Combined with all the Spider-Woman I’ve been reading, this has been a really boring stretch.

We open on Kraven and a lady named Calypso, somewhere in the Caribbean. Calypso is busing goading Kraven, who is lamenting the dirty tactics he has employed against Spider-Man of late. But it looks like he will soon have a chance to redeem himself, as they prepare to ship some animals to New York.

Once there, Calypso frees all the animals, causing a stampede and forcing Kraven into action. He and Spidey actually kinda work together to set things right. Later Calypso claims Spider-Man was actually the one who opened the animals’ cages, and the slaps Kraven in the face and calls him a coward. I think Kraven could do better, this chick seems like a bitch. But, she manages to convince Kraven to go after Spidey.

They end up fighting in the Museum of Natural History where Spider-Man puts in a quite lousy performance. Some posturing from Kraven and dumb luck let him come out on top, but he really should have died.

A couple of b-plots worth mentioning: first, Deb Whitman’s uncle is in some kind of trouble, which she asks Peter to help out with. He’s a dick, of course, and refuses. But later he feels guilty and heads out to the docks as Spidey to investigate. Second: Rupert Dockery is still being a sleaze at the Globe, and when he gives Pete a dirty assignment, Pete refuses.

I enjoyed this issue. Kraven was a lot more of a real, balanced character than he normally is.

Rating:

A team-up with Spider-Man and the Black Widow. Comic Book DB calls this “The Fatal Attraction of the Black Widow”, but I don’t see where they got that title. The bad guy on the front cover looks like Wolverine. Is it him? Read on!

Spider-Man is patrolling and spies the Black Widow on a gig. They’re both after some arms smugglers; Spidey wants to team-up but BW doesn’t. This ends up being a fairly by-the-numbers crime story — Spidey and Widow both follow some leads and end up at the mansion of a bad guy, just in time for a huge crime convention. It turns out the big bad is not Wolverine, but the Owl. He was in Marvel Team-Up 73 with Spider-Man and Daredevil, in which he was soundly trounced. Now, he’s pissed.

Spidey is fairly often facing dudes who want to clean out all the cities gangs and take over. This isn’t much different than normal. The writing here isn’t great, but the issue is more or less enjoyable.

Oh, I don’t really like Will Meugniot’s inks. Everything just seems kinda dirty. Or maybe it’s just the printing?

BTW, part of me wonders if I should be reading Black Widow comics along with everything else. I mean, she’s a spider-related super-hero right? But then the number of comics to read would probably double, and I can’t really have that. Oh well.

Rating:

Writers: Brian Michael Bendis, Brian Reed
Pencils, Inks & Colors: Jonathan Luna
Layouts: Joshua Luna
Letterer: Cory Petit
Originally published: June 2006

No idea if this is placed correctly. When I was last reading about Spider-Woman, in Spider-Woman 21-26, she was basically doing crime fighting and bounty hunting with a guy named Scotty. When I last read Spider-Woman Origin I was pretty sure I had misplaced stuff. The recap in the beginning of this issue says that Nick Fury reached out to Jessica with an offer for her to work with SHIELD, which she declined, and that he told her that her parents were alive. I don’t remember this, nor do I understand how it all fits together.

So this opens with Jessica strangling Nick Fury and demanding to know where her parents are. She agrees to work with Fury so they can help each other. Fury tells her that her dad was working for Hydra and that her mom has been hiding, but has recently turned up in NYC. When Jessica arrives at the apartment, she finds some Hydra agents and her mom’s body — recently murdered by some clown named Whiplash. Jess also finds documents about something called “Athena Device Mk 2″. Oooh.

Jess takes off, and later winds up hobnobbing undercover on the yacht of one Otto Vermis. When Whiplash shows up, though, the jig is up. Interestingly, while she is taking to Vermis, at one point Jessica sees him with a cow head, like Bova. I think she’s still screwy in the brain, which gives credence to my theories about past issues. Anyway, Jess has no choice but to toss herself into the shark-infested ocean to get away. Also she blows up the boat with Vermis and Whiplash on it.

Jess I guess found out enough to discover where this Athena was, because she heads out to some oil rig that seems to be the Athena HQ and finds her dad working there. And, that’s the end of issue 4.

This was OK. It seemed to move too quickly, or leave too much out, but I might just be used to exposition-saturated bronze age comics at the moment. The story’s interesting, though, I like it.

In the final issue of this limited series, we open on Madame Hydra arriving at the Athena place and meeting up with a wheelchair-bound General Wyndham. He’s all disfigured and gross. I had been assuming that General Wyndham was Vermis, but it’s made clear here that he’s not. That said, it could still be that the mind-probes from previous issues still caused Jessica to confuse them.

Anyway, Jess is talking with her dad and confirms that he’s a Hydra jerk. He’s simply interested in testing her so her can further Hydra’s experiments with Athena, which is basically a project to make more Spider-Women. When Jessica gets pissed, though, she sees her dad as some kind of Wolf thing and then others from her past — mindprobe brain/psychological damage again. In fact, her dad basically says as much.

Jessica’s response is to basically fly off the handle, blow everything up, and beat the snot out of every Hydra agent she finds. Hydra’s response is to “wake them up” — and then she’s faced with a shit-ton of other Spider-Women. So she beats the hell out of them, too. Madame Hydra gets pissed when Dr. Drew won’t leave, so she shoots his face off. The whole place explodes like crazyballs. Eventually, SHIELD finds Jess floating in the water. The apparently picked up Madame Hydra too.

In the end, Jess is depressed but has an open invitation to work with SHIELD. She gives Fury her card for Drew Investigations and they say their goodbyes. THE END.

So I guess these were probably in the right place, chronology-wise. That’s good.

Again, I more or less liked this. The ending was a little weak, but whatever. For some reason, the Luna Brothers characters sometimes remind me of Lego people.

Rating:

A Night on the Prowl!

Double Defeat!
Writer: Roger Stern
Penciler: Marie Severin
Inker: Bruce Patterson
Letterer: Rick Parker
Colorist: Ben Sean
Originally published: November 1980

Pete’s enjoying a cup of joe at a local pub (on a date with Deb Whitman) when a news report comes on claiming that Spider-Man has been involved in a series of break-ins that have led to a death. “Oh, no!” says he.

Turns out the break-ins have all been against people in the fashion business. Can we see where this is headed? Yes. Do we like it? No. The robber doesn’t sound like Spidey, despite what the victims claim, but Pete has a hunch that it may be — the Prowler! But Hobie Brown’s gone legit, so that doesn’t make much sense. Spidey pays him a visit and they discover that his Prowler gear has been stolen! Spidey goes looking for the new Prowler.

Meanwhile, we see what this Prowler has been up to — consorting with none other than Belladonna, as expected. It turns out the new Prowler is the former Cat Burglar, and he’s been hired by Belladonna to knock over these fashion designers. But to what end?!

The next day, Spidey and the new Prowler finally meet up, with Prowler leading Spidey into a well-orchestrated trap. Unfortunately for the Prowler, it snares him too. Belladonna ends up with both guys locked in an air-tight room, and starts pumping in the gas. Can they escape? Probably, yes.

In the next issue, things are looking grim for Spider-Man and the new Prowler. BUT THEN THEY GET OUT! And Spidey has the Prowler arrested. But, there’s still Belladonna to deal with. Also, the Prowler gets away later.

JJJ gives Peter a ring, Pete and Deb have some more bonding time, Pete’s stuffed beardog burns down, Aunt May and Peter have some chitchat: good times all around.

Eventually we all learn the Belladonna is really Narda Ravanna, a bitter fashion/cosmetics maven out for revenge. OK. Eventually, everything comes to a head and everyone goes off to jail. Hurray!

I liked this story, actually. It was fun and had good pacing. Well-done.

Rating:

Man-Hunt!

Apparently J. Jonah Jameson has had a nervous breakdown. Neat. This issue is mostly about Spidey and the Punisher going after some mob guy, and the Punisher suspecting that Peter Parker is up to something. There’s no resolution really, the story is continued in the next issue.

This might be in the wrong spot? Pete runs into MJ and says he hasn’t seen her in months. He just saw her in Spec 38 or something I think though. So that’s weird. Probably just a topical reference to the fact that she hasn’t appeared in ASM for months — at least, that’s what the Official Index claims.

Rating:

Tangled Webs

Ok, this issue is definitely a milestone. Here we have the first meeting between Spider-Woman and Spider-Man. :O

This is a good opportunity to catch up on what’s actually been happening in Spidey’s continuity, since I’ve read so many damned things out of order lately. In M/TU 92, Spidey teamed up with Hawkeye to beat Mr. Fear. Before that, in Spectacular, Spidey fought Swarm. As far as his personal life goes, Peter Parker is just kind of starting grad school and settling into things, and is working for the Daily Globe.

This issue opens with a surprise — Spider-Woman has stolen a bunch of money! We then flash back to how this came to be. Basically, bad shit started happening to dear Jess: she got fired, she got evicted. How does she cope with the bad news? By robbing her former employers, of course. This is completely out of character and not even slightly believable. It’s really pretty annoying.

Feeling shitty about what she’s done, Jessica immediately decides to return the money. She, of course, is interrupted by Peter Parker, who just happens to be out in LA on a photography assignment. Quickly changing into Spider-Man, Pete chases Spider-Woman around for a bit. They lightly spar before having a nice cordial conversation.

Then, as he is wont to do, Spider-Man takes off into the night, before even finding out that the woman he was hanging with was a Spider-Woman.

So this was pretty gimmicky and clearly designed to try to get Spidey fans interested in Spider-Woman. It even included a retelling of Jessica’s origin, to catch new fans up on what her deal is. Kinda lame. At the same time, it was basically inoffensive and and mildly entertaining, which is kinda saying a lot for this book.

Rating:

The Beast Within

A mildly interesting issue that crams in quite a bit — Jessica visits Mrs. Dolly, becomes better friends with Lindsay McCabe, fights some creep named the Enforcer, and chitchats with the Werewolf By Night. Not great, but pretty stellar by Spider-Woman standards.

Rating:

Sins of the Flesh!

This is the first Spider-Woman issue that I can actually recall enjoying. The Waxman was a genuinely creepy character, and the story had a nice brisk pace. It reminded me of an episode of Twilight Zone or Outer Limits.

Rating:

It’s Good to be King

high school summer break, peter goes on a summer field study trip to the peruvian jungle. he ends up being captured by awesome spider-worshipping natives. they recruit him to fight some snake-worshipping jerks, and he kinda falls for their spider princess. i really liked the idea of this, but the execution was a bit weak. the fights were muddled and they whole thing felt very hasty.

Rating:

Nightmare

Spider-Woman!

This takes place basically immediately after issue 4, so it’s definitely in the wrong spot. Or #4 is, maybe that’s a better way to look at it.

In this issue, Spider-Woman is the prisoner of the Hangman and is driven almost insane by Morgan le Fay! That’s about it. It’s pretty ok, but the illusions/insanity thing gets a little tired.

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.

Rating:

In Search of the Man-Wolf!

I guess Spidey wasn’t unconscious from the Man-Wolf’s blow, just stunned and “barely conscious”.

It turns out Spencer Smythe is behind a bunch of this lunacy (ha!), orchestrating the attacks by Chameleon, Electro and Man-Wolf. Smythe is pissed because he’s dying from Spider-Slayer-related radiation poisoning, and wants revenge on Jameson and Spidey.

At the end John Jameson dies! :O

Rating:

There’s One Iron Man Too Many!

…And a Child Shall Slay Them!
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Illustrators: Keith Pollard, Joe Sinnott
Letters: Costanza
Colors: G. Wein
Originally published: February 1979

The Andromeda Attack!
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Illustrators: Keith Pollard, Joe Sinnott
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Francoise M.
Originally published: March 1979

Spidey’s unconscious from the Man-Wolf attack, so we’ll have a brief stopover with the Fantastic Four before rejoining him. First, the Fantastic Four battle Quasimodo and an evil duplicate of Iron Man. Next, the Fantastic Four fight evil duplicates of themselves. Finally, in 204, The FF deal with some Skrull stuff and Johnny Storm gets bamboozled by a fake university.

Spidey appears in a flashback in FF 202 and has a real appearance in FF 204, as a cut-away to a fight with the Man-Wolf in ASM 190. I’m reading 203 because it comes in between those! FF 202 and 203 should come before ASM 187, by the way.

Rating:

A Fluttering of Wings Most Foul!

Spider-Man and the Daredevil take on a bad guy named the Owl. His helicopter was very Nightowl-from-Watchmen-esque. There was nothing really special about this story, but it was entertaining enough.

I may have read this in the wrong order, as Spidey seems to be wary of cops, but in ASM 186 he was cleared of all his charges.

Rating:

…And Where the Big Wheel Stops, Nobody Knows!

Spider-Man scares Aunt May into having a seizure / heart attack, and MJ rejects Pete’s proposal and dumps him. Harsh! If only the actual action and Spidey stuff in this issue had been interesting, it would have been a real winner. Sigh.

Rating:

The Rocket Racer’s Back in Town!

Finally we see MJ again, who apparently just lives in the hospital with Aunt May. We also learn that Spider-Man’s webbing has been getting weaker, which is interesting. Generally speaking, this issue was fairly boring.

EXCEPT THAT PETER PROPOSES TO MJ OMGZOZR!!11!

If not for that, this issue would get a 2. However, a proposal is a big deal, so it gets bumped up a whole 1.5 stars/spiders.

Rating:

…The Coming of Razorback!

this issue completely unexpectedly drops the sha-shan story line and starts out with a new bad guy, razorback. he’s huge, wears a boar’s-head-hat, and has an electrified mane. it turns out, though, that he’s actually a good guy. he’s an uninteresting character that does little more than waste space in the issue.

The issue ends in a cliffhanger, with Flash, Razorback, and Spidey manacled and about to be dynamited.

Weaker than the last one, but fairly decent.

Rating:

My Sweetheart–My Killer!

We finally learn more about these mysterious crooks — one of them is an old Nazi agent who had hidden some huge amount of stolen loot, and is now seeking to retrieve it. It’s dumb.

Alicia Masters gets the serum derived from Spider-Woman and turns into some kind of crazy spider monster. She goes on a mad, Hydra-controlled rampage to kill Ben.

Mystery Menace

Rating:

Two Against Hydra

The Thing and Shang-Chi team up against Hydra, to rescue a Dr. Kort. Kort was kidnapped to make some serum that will somehow duplicate the powers of Spider-Woman. Kort is saved, but Hydra retains the serum!

I haven’t read any Spider-Woman stuff in awhile, and I think when I did it was all over the place timing-wise, so I’m a bit confused about when this takes place with respect to other things I’ve read. Spider-Woman seems to be a prisoner of Hydra, so I guess it comes at some point after she left them, and was possibly recaptured…

Rating:

What If Someone Else Had Become — the Amazing Spider-Man

There are a couple pages of new 616 material here. Not sure why I have this placed here in the chronology, it really doesn’t fit.

This shows what would have happened if Flash Thompson, Betty Brant, or John Jameson had been bitten by the radioactive spider. All three of their stories end in tragedy, and the Watcher shows us that it takes a special kind of person to be a hero. Interestingly, after all their failures, Peter still manages to become Spider-Man. That’s pretty cool.

Rating:

Whom Gods Destroy!

With the help of Thor, Spidey finishes off the Living Pharaoh. This was a fairly satisfying conclusion, I enjoyed it more than the first part.

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Not All Thy Powers Can Save Thee!

I’ve been away for awhile, busy with things, but now I’m back. Whoopity doo.

Spidey and the Torch team up against the Super Skrull. This goes along well with the Secret Invasion shizz I’m reading. By the end of the issue, the Torch is out of commission.

Rating: