The Book of the Vishanti

Despite the title on the cover (and, subsequently, this post), this actually is an Annual for Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1. I’m not sure why they left out “the amazing” on the cover. It just seems weird.

This book features Dr. Strange and Dr. Doom, neither of whom I’ve read about in awhile. We open in Latveria, at Doom’s castle, where Doom’s assistant Dilby has finally, after 10 years of research, built a magic-science interface. He created a device that either is called or creates or gives him access to something called “the Bend Sinister”. That, my friends, is a cool name. This device transports a person to the dimension of the Dread Dormammu, and Doom sends Dilby on a little trip to said dimension to test the Bend Sinister out. Once there, Dilby is basically existing inside a nightmare. He meets Dormammu.

Later, Doom is hanging out in his castle watching Nazi movies, “to learn from them”. Ok. Dormammu interrupts him with news that Dilby has some new powers and is building magic robots with them, or something like that. I’m not exactly sure why, but Doom and Dormammu seem to have some sort of plan.

Some time passes I guess and we check in on New York City, where Dr. Strange is chilling out with a book. His studies are interrupted by the delivery of a mysterious, huge, glowing crate. Inside is one of those magic robots that Dilby was building, and Doc Strange accidentally activates it using his Eye of Agamotto. It turns out it’s a killer magic robot. The robot beats the snot out of Wong and Strange.

With little hope of defeating the killer magic robot, Strange ditches his body and takes his astral form out to look for help. This seems like a really good plan, except that there’s a whole bunch of astral demons outside his house, and they proceed to beat up his astral body! Dude can’t catch a break. Strange can’t ditch this and leave in an astral astral body (I assume), so his only recourse is to send out what he calls “a psychic flare”.

Now, this being a Spider-Man comic, the flare is naturally observed, though rather circuitously, by Peter Parker. Pete finds a reason to ditch the first-year chem class he’s teaching and heads out to Doc Strange’s rescue. He finds just enough time to break a date with Deb Whitman, though, because that’s how Peter rolls. Pete eventually arrives at Strange’s Sanctum, fights off a couple gargoyles, and shoots webbing right into the face of one of Dr. Strange’s neighbours (what a dick), and finally he also fights off some weird yellow demons. This bit had some decent action. Spidey finally makes his way inside. He finds Wong, who tells him that Dr. Strange has been abducted.

Meanwhile, Doc Strange is tussled up under the command of Dilby. It turns out creating the Bend Sinister requires a human sacrifice; that sacrifice is to be Strange.

This is where things get stupid. For some reason (lame gimmick writing) Dilby is holding Strange a CBGB, the punk club. When Pete arrives there, Dilby somehow manages to brainwash everybody, including the band Shrapnel, into marching around and chanting “Bend Sinister”. I guess that’s part of the ritual to create the Bend Sinister? The parade of people grows as they pass through different parts of Manhattan, until the whole crew ends up in Central Park. Then there’s a lot of business about the moon and a huge crystal and eldritch this and darkling that.

Spidey goes in for the attack, fights killer magic robot, and ends up smashing the robot into the giant evil crystal. That pretty much saves the day!

There are some totally sweet panels in this. I don’t totally understand the credits on the issue, but I assume it was penciled by Frank Miller. A lot of it looks awesome. The issue had good pacing and had me interested up until the last act or so. Overall it was still good, I just wish the ending had been tighter.

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Vengeance is Mine–Sayeth the Sword!

For continuity purposes I’ve split this issue up and thrown a whole mess of comics in the middle. This is the first part (up to the end of the 5th page of comic, which is numbered as ’7′).

It’s midnight, and our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man is checking out what appears to be a robbery at the waterfront. Just as he’s about to intervene, a masked figure with a sword descends and takes out the thieves for him. It’s Raper! He’s pretty suave. Spidey, recognizing that he may be outclassed, decides to help out a little.

Once they’re done cleaning up the mess, Spidey and Rapier exchange some pleasantries, and both are off…

Split like this, it’s just a short and sweet encounter, and definitely piques my interest for later.

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The Punch

A story set very early in Spidey’s career — seemingly his first adventure after Ben’s death — in which he learns a valuable lesson about his own strength and how not to use it. This wasn’t as good as a lot of the Busiek Untold Tales, but it was entertaining enough.

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…In Love and War!

So I guess Christmas has come and gone? If Pete’s going back to school?

Anyway, in this story we find out that the Black Cat is head-over-heels in love with Spidey, though in a kind of crazy, “I’ve lost my marbles” kind of way. Michelinie has a couple missteps, but overall I really liked what he did here.

Incidentally, I wouldn’t mind an explanation of why/how the Black Cat is alive, and how her bad luck powers work.

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The Black Cat Always Lands on Her Feet

The Black Cat reemerges… and it’s nice. Good, playful dialog between her and Spidey. The mysterious insanity that’s gripping J. Jonah Jameson and seemingly affecting Robbie Robertson — and how Jonas Harrow is involved — has also captured my interest.

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Bewitched, Bothered and Be-Dazzled!

I don’t know why, but I’ve really looking forward to the Dazzler. Is it because I know she’ll suck? Because I dislike (most) disco? No! It’s because she zips around on roller skates and turns music into light with a magic disco ball! WTFantastic!

This cover is amazing. Seriously. You know what else is amazing: Pete and the gang going to see Star Trek. Yeah, that’s right. ON THE WORLD’S TINIEST MOVIE SCREEN:

Wow, Star Trek on a 2.7″ screen. Hot.

So the action gets pretty lame…who cares? So the plots a stinker…big deal. This issue still has enough badassery to make it a fun read.

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…And No Birds Sing!

Arriving at the airport in LA, Pete witnesses a lady getting attacked by some dudes. Although the lady defends herself well, Pete jumps in as Spider-Man to help. Unfortunately, it turns out that the dudes were SHIELD agents and the lady, Mockingbird, is a wanted woman.

Later, Pete decides to help SHIELD capture Mockingbird. Everything goes bananas, and it turns out the SHIELD agents in question are corrupt and Mockingbird is good. Nick Fury pops in to dish out the punishment.

Although all the baddies end up put away, at the end Mockingbird is gravely injured.

This was a nice intrigue-y issue. Good, entertaining read. Also, there are flying cars, like in Back to the Future.

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Fear!

This was surprisingly decent. I liked Mr. Fear. The relationship between Spidey and Hawkeye was nice too. It wasn’t just all buddy buddy as usual. Hawkeye was embarrassed a bit about working with Spidey but the two just basically acted professionally. There were some other nice touches too, like Hawkeye having to work a security job and Spidey browsing Hawkeye’s record collection.

My two biggest complaints are that the art wasn’t as crazy and imaginative a I would have liked for a fear issue, and Hawkeye’s gimmick is kinda lame. Rescuing himself from a fall with a flare arrow is kinda bullshits.

Overall I really enjoyed it.

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A Star is Born!
Writer: David Lapham
Penciler: Tony Harris
Inker: Jim Clark
Colorist: JD Mettler
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Originally published: April 2008

The Big, Wide World!
Writer: David Lapham
Penciler: Tony Harris
Inker: Jim Clark
Colorist: JD Mettler, Paul Mounts
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Originally published: May 2008

Smoke and Mirrors!
Writer: David Lapham
Penciler: Tony Harris
Inker: Jim Clark
Colorist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Originally published: August 2008

With Great Power…
Writer: David Lapham
Penciler: Tony Harris
Inker: Jim Clark
Colorist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Originally published: September 2008

This series is about Spider-Man’s brief stint as a wrestling star, as he grabbed the world’s attention before Uncle Ben’s murder. It’s set entirely within Amazing Fantasy 15, which is kinda cool.

It’s pretty good, but gets kinda clichéy at times. Overall I enjoyed it.

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Freaks

This is a followup story to the last Team-Up issue, in which some of the carnival freaks take on Hammer and Anvil. It’s surprisingly good!

Spidey appears in a couple flashbacks, but the freakshow Spider-Man (a.k.a. “Six”) is the star of the story!

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Murder in Cathedral Canyon!

Well…this thing says it’s the Fourth of July, but once again I think it’ll have to be ignored. I will assume that’s a metaphor, since Pete is kissing Cissy and Fireworks are metaphorically going off (though they are shown on-panel).

Pretty good epic anti-bomb, anti-armament story. I quite liked it.

So Cissy Ironwood’s dad gets killed here, and Spider-Man is powerless to stop it. What the hell’s with Peter’s girlfriends’ dads getting killed?

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Never Let the Black Cat Cross Your Path!

Alright, the Black Cat! This should be good, right? Right! This was a fun issue and the interplay between the Black Cat and Spidey was well-done. I’m really looking forward to more of Ms. Hardy.

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Mayhem by Moonlight!

Betty kisses the crap out of Peter in this issue. They probably have pop-pop in the attic after that. BUT PETER ISN’T EVEN INTERESTED IN BETTY. Boy, does our hero have girl troubles.

This was a pretty nice issue with a good pace. Having the Man-Wolf back makes sense, and I think the whole Jameson vs. his son thing could be interesting, even if it’s ground that’s been tread before.

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The Power of Electro!

Cool art in this one. It seemed really short for some reason, but maybe it just had a quick pace. It was a decent story about some kid with the Plague. Electro apparently dies, which is good — I like when characters die, if only because I like seeing how they’ll get revived later.

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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.

Rating:

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!

Rating:

The Smoke of that Great Burning!

I don’t know what happened to my review of this issue, but it somehow got deleted. It’s a shame, because I really liked this issue and wrote nice things about it. Highlights:

• Amazing, fantastic art by everyone involved
• Sharp writing, with a different story that was a nice change of pace
• Classy dedication to NYC firefighters
• First Ralph Macchio credit in my project

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Chaos is– the Chameleon!

There’s a panel here that references Doc Ock dying “last month off the New York coast” in “Mayhem in Manhattan…the Spidey novel.” WTF is this? There are novels that are considered canon? That’s bull, IMO. I’m going to assume that Wolfman just threw that in there because he was one of the writers, and that the book isn’t canon.

This issue is a pretty big milestone, because Spider-Man is officially cleared of all charges and suspicions by the DA and the police.

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White Dragon! Red Death!

Holy calamity, everything’s going down the shitter — Betty Brant left Ned! And now, she’s after dear ol’ recently-dumped Petey.

In other news, apparently John Jameson is ill and in cryogenic stasis. That’s weird.

The issue ends with Spider-Man boiling to death in a vat of burning oil. Good stuff!

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The Beetle and the Badge!

The pencils in this issue are terrible, way below Sal’s usual. The inks and colours are kind of weird too, to be honest. The whole thing looks kinda cheap and rushed.

Kinda shitty dialogue, here, but the plot was good. It had an old-fashioned Stan Lee kinda feel. Much like with that Team-Up I just read, I’ve never heard of this writer.

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Deathgarden

I read this issue last night before bed and today I had absolutely no recollection of the plot. Even after looking at the cover, I was pretty confused. My main, overall impression was that it was weird. I remember thinking that it read like one of the Hostess ads; I kept expecting to throw Twinkies at the villain.

Eventually the story came back to me a bit — Captain America has been poisoned and the Falcon is trying to get an antidote for him. Spidey’s role is very much a supporting one.

This was really bad, but for some reason it had a surreal quality that I really enjoyed.

BWT, who the heck are Bill Kunkel and Dave Wenzel? Where did they come from? I wonder if they’ll be on this book for awhile, or if this is just a blip. ALSO, who the hell is this Plantman guy? Why do he and Spider-Man seem to have a relationship or at least prior acquaintance?

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Killing Me Softly…With His Hate!

This issue was great. All the shit’s about to go down with Hate Monger (who is really the Man-Beast), Sha Shan, etc.

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Brother Power, Sister Sun!

Peter fights against a cult, the Legion of Light, run by Sha-Shan and her husband, Achmed Korba — a.k.a. Sister Sun and Brother Power. They somehow possess super powers that may or may not have been given to them by an alien known as “the Mentor”.

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The Peril of– Brother Grimm

Spider-Woman and Magnus are in America now, in LA. They get mixed up with a corrupt congressman, and in turn with a mysterious baddie named Brother Grimm. However, at the end it’s revealed there are actually two Brothers Grimm! Shock!

This was a cool story, and I’m looking forward to its conclusion. Unfortunately, that won’t happen for awhile, as I have a buttload of Spider-Man books to get through next. Shucks!

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