In the Hands of Bullseye

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.

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Beware the Spider-Woman — Bounty Hunter!

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.

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Sword of the She-Devil

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.

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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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The Arms of Doctor Octopus

This was an awesome issue. Really great story. Seriously cool art in here, too. Kudos to everyone involved.

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Chaos on Campus!

This is a promo comic given out with the Columbus Dispatch in 1979. It features Peter Parker fighting the Hulk on the first day of school. There a number of weird things about it:

- Pete has the hots for a girl named Cindy Sayers, that he’s apparently been pining over for the last semester. I’m not sure how this could fit in.

- The Hulk is referred to in the narration as “Dr. R.B. ‘David’ Banner”, clearly evoking the 70s TV show. However, in the show Banner’s name was David Bruce Banner, so this is just a topical reference.

- Similarly meant to evoke the TV show, the Hulk doesn’t talk

If this is canon (I’m willing to bet it can be placed somewhere, but I haven’t figure out where yet), I’ve read it in the wrong spot.

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The Gamma Gambit

Yes, that’s right: toilet paper. This comic was printed on toilet paper. Back in 1979, you too could wipe your asshole with your favourite super-heros.

In this story, Spidey and the Hulk (in their civilian identities) are both watching a radiation demonstration when in bursts the Leader. Both heroes fight him and then go on their separate ways. The story was short, simple, and fun. And it was printed on toiler paper.

This is definitely not in the correct spot. In it, Peter doesn’t know that the Hulk’s alter ego is Bruce Banner. This means it must come at least before Marvel Team-Up 53.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Jessica’s Night Out!

Incredibly boring issue (with requisite over-the-top sexiness) saved by an interestingly mysterious last panel, where Jessica Drew’s date starts to melt into a gelatinous blob.

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All You Need is Hate

Well, we’ve once again got two ridiculous excuses for Jessica Drew to get naked. Nekra is also pretty much naked as well:

And they of course get into a huge fight — described as “tiger against tiger”, a.k.a. a catfight — in which their clothes get torn to shreds. None of this is anywhere near as bad as the crap Marv Wolfman was writing, but it’s still pretty gratuitous and stupid.

As a side note, we learn that Spider-Woman won the fight because Nekra loved her. So it wasn’t just a normal catfight, it was a hot lesbian catfight.

On the plus side, Jerry Hunt is moving to London. Are we finally rid of him? Let’s hope so.

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Into the Heart of Darkness!

Finally, a halfway decent issue that managed to keep my attention! Spider-Woman teams up with the Shroud to fight a group of murdering cultists. This issue had action, decent pacing, and some lines that were almost funny. Crazy!

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Cults and Robbers

Unfortunately, Jerry Hunt is still in this issue. Boo. There’s also another Jessica Drew shower scene, but this one is a little tamer. Also, the comic is not that good still. But getting better!

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Suddenly…The Shroud!

Goodness gracious, praise the Lord. Jerry Hunt and Magnus depart in this issue. Between this and #12, Gruenwald has eliminated Jessica Drew’s entire supporting cast. They were terrible and I wont miss them. The issue does cut back to Jerry’s new assignment, but I’m hoping it gives up on him pretty quickly.

This issue was much, much better than most previous Spider-Woman outings. It was still fairly boring and uninteresting by any normal standards, but at least it didn’t make me want to vomit with rage.

Also, although he wasn’t necessarily very good here, the Shroud seems to have the potential to be interesting.

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The Last Tale of the Brothers Grimm

In this issue the story of the Brothers Grimm is finally wrapped up. Thankfully, the issue as not nearly as offensive as past issues (though still a little). Unfortunately, it’s still pretty terrible.

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And Dolly Makes Three

More of the same from this mag. Here, Spider-Woman is forced to wipe some white “goop” from her face and, later, is chained to a wall. “Can’t I go a week without getting tied up by somebody?” she wonders. Amen, sister.

Truth be told, this issue wasn’t as bad as many of the others, but that’s really not saying much.

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Things That Go Flit in the Night

The cover promises a new female character, the Gypsy Moth, and asks whether she is friend or foe. May I predict she engages in lesbian bondage with Spider-Woman? Well, the first thing the moth does upon seeing Spider-Woman is start to literally undress her with her mind:

And then, as predicted, there’s a wee bit of bondage.

This issue wasn’t as offensive as some of the others, but it was just as poorly written and illustrated.

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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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Labyrinth

To refresh my own memory, here’s what’s happened recently in Spidey’s world:

• in Captain America 237, Peter Parker photographed Cap at a press conference
• in Marvel Team-Up 91, Spidey and Ghost Rider helped defeat an evil freak show operator
• Peter Parker got messed up by some kinda force waves in FF Annual 14
• Spidey is in NYC for the whole Dark Phoenix thing in X-Men 135

In other words: not much is going on! I think it’s around end of summer / beginning of autumn right now, and I can’t really recall many of the major plot developments of late.

Time to move this gravy train forward.

This issue sees the return of the Mindworm, unfortunately. This seems to be capitalizing on the late 70s psychiatry/pyschoanalysis surge, and has Spidey and a Damsel In Distress “trapped inside [Mindworm's] neuroses”. Gimme a break. It’s a lot like the movie The Cell, only worse.

Lee Elias’s pencils are kind of off, too. He doesn’t really seem to have Spider-Man down.

Overall, not a very good issue to come back to after my break.

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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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Cat’s-Paw!

This was a mostly uninteresting magic story that was mostly about Agatha Harkness and Franklin Richards. Agatha’s evil monster son tries to take over the world, and Franklin somehow stops him.

Peter Parker appears in one panel, getting shoved aside by some force waves, along with the rest of humanity.

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From the Ashes…

Finally done with stupid ass Spider-Woman comics for a bit.

Peter Parker only appeared in this for one panel, photographing Cap at a new conference. Despite being basically Spidey-less, this was an awesome issue. It was an incredibly dark story that involved Sharon Carter dying, Cap retiring, and a disturbingly gruesome look at World War II. It was extremely well done.

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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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