Showing posts with label Steve Skroce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Skroce. Show all posts

Sunday, 20 November 2016

Amazing Spider-Man (1963) # 425-433, Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) # 249-256, Peter Parker, Spider-Man (1990) # 82-90, Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 19-26, Spider-Man Unlimited (1993) # 17-19, Marvel Team-Up (1997) # 4-7, Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995), Batman/Spider-Man (1997), Spider-Man/Kingpin: To the Death (1997)


(I originally read these comics in mid May 2016)

Continuing with my post-clone Spidey read...

Any ongoing sub-plots that were distinct to each of the four main Spider-Man titles seem to have fallen by the wayside as the resurrected Norman Osborn muscling in on the Daily Bugle and using it to make Peter's life hell has come to dominate all. As a result of this, we've seen Joe 'Robbie' Robertson uhmm-ing and aah-ing over whether he can continue on as editor, amid pressure from his wife to quit. Spidey previously beat Osborn up - something which Norman engineered to use against him - and Osborn has recently framed Spidey for the murder of some lowlife mob skel. In the 'Spider Hunt' crossover he's now public enemy number one and has a five million dollar bounty on his head, severely impeding his ability to to be a hero. Norman has also employed a new Green Goblin to do his bidding but as yet his identity remains a mystery. Flash Thompson, meanwhile, is recovering from his bout of alcoholism and is employed as Norman's P.A.


  
   
  
  
  


Other plots include Tom DeFalco's inevitable return of Doctor Octopus in Amazing, after the many-limbed one's death during the Clone Saga, and DeMatteis building on the legacy of the villain he memorably killed off as Kraven the Hunter - actually his son Aloysha - makes his presence felt in the pages of Spectacular.


 
 
   
   
  


The two Spider-Man/Batman crossovers - the first published in 1995 - are written by DeMatteis and drawn by Mark Bagley and Graham Nolan, respectively. The second is marginally better than the first, though neither is as good as it should have been. The same can be said of the Spider-Man/Kingpin one-shot, touted as the return of the Stan Lee/John Romita team supreme, thirty years after their heyday. It's enjoyable enough, but Stan's script is somewhat corny (would heroes like Captain America and the Thing so readily assume Spidey had turned killer on the basis of such flimsy evidence?) and Romita's pencils would have benefited from a tighter inker than Dan Green. 

And just so you're not kept awake nights wondering, the "mystery guest star" from Marvel Team-Up # 5 is everybody's favourite cosmic voyeur, the Watcher...


   
   
   
   
   


As an extra, here's the full gatefold cover of Spectacular Spider-Man # 250, by the father/son combo of John Romita and John Romita Jr.




Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 19-24 are collected in:

 Softcover:
Spider-Man by Todd DeZago and Mike Wieringo (US)
Spider-Man by Todd DeZago and Mike Wieringo (UK)

Spider-Man and Batman: Disordered Minds (1995) is collected in:

Softcover:

Batman/Spider-Man (1997) is collected in:

Softcover:

Peter Parker, Spider-Man (1990) # 88-90, Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) # 254-256, Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 25/26 and Amazing Spider-Man (1963) # 432/433 are collected in:

Softcover:



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Thursday, 17 November 2016

Amazing Spider-Man (1963) # 419-424/-1, Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) # 242-248/-1, Peter Parker, Spider-Man (1990) # 76-81/-1, Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 12-18/-1, Spider-Man Unlimited (1993) # 15/16, Spider-Man Team-Up (1995) # 6/7, Marvel Team-Up (1997) # 1-3, Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives (1997) # 1-3


(I originally read these comics between late April/early May 2016)

I've been busy reading the two-year stretch of Spider-Man comics picking up just after the 'Clone Saga' and up to before the 1999 reboot of Marvel's flagship character. Trying to make sense of the chronology is damn near impossible, though, with at least five ongoing titles sometimes contradicting each others' events. I found what appeared to be a sensible reading order online, but there are problems even when issues are moved months out of publication sequence. For example, J. Jonah Jameson is beaten so badly in Spectacular Spider-Man # 245 that he requires a hospital stay, yet continues to appear unscathed for a dozen further issues or more. With that in mind, the reading order I present here is my own, retrospective one. It might not be perfect and should I get around to reading this particular patch in Spidey's history again it's always open to revision.


 
 
 

(Yeahhh, I don't have much to say about any of these. They're not much cop. Read on!)


Each of the Spidey titles of the time maintains a different, mostly steady creative team and furthers its own sub-plots. Amazing Spider-Man, by Tom DeFalco and Steve Skroce or Joe Bennett, concentrates on Peter and Mary Jane's home life with Anna Watson (Aunt May is currently dead, but don't worry- she'd get better) and a brewing gang war between the Rose and underworld newcomer, the Black Tarantula. Spectacular Spider-Man, by J.M. DeMatteis and Luke Ross, has the Jack O'Lantern intimidating JJ and family into signing over control of the Daily Bugle to the widely believed dead Norman Osborn and Flash Thompson developing an alcohol problem. Peter Parker, Spider-Man, by Howard Mackie and John Romita Jr. has Pete and MJ returning to university and previously unmentioned relatives of Gwen and Arthur Stacy stirring up trouble. One sub-plot that seems to drag on only to end in a total anticlimax is Peter being bitten by Morbius and suffering from vertigo as a result.


   
 
  
  
  
    
   
  


I'd say the strongest of these three titles is DeMatteis' and Ross Spectacular, but while the artist's cartoony style suits the goofy Legion of Losers tale it's less appropriate for DeMatteis' darker, more psychological stories such as that of the Chameleon. Speaking of which, the annual from this period is something of a mini classic, very much in the vein of DeMatteis' own 'Kraven's Last Hunt', as it re-tells the events of Amazing Spider-Man # 15 from Kraven's perspective.

Sensational Spider-Man, by Todd DeZago and Mike Wieringo, tells less continuity-dependent and largely light-hearted stories. The Vulture, having regained his youth through nefarious means four years earlier, reverts to his former aged and follicly-challenged appearance here. Spider-Man Unlimited, meanwhile, was a quarterly title with shifting scribes but mostly drawn by Joe Bennett, and stories are self-contained.


   
   
 
 
 
  
  
  


In-between all this, Roger Stern returns to finally reveal the true identity of the Hobgoblin, something he'd been prevented from doing more than a decade earlier, in the three-part 'Hobgoblin Lives'. The 'Flashback' issues (all numbered Minus 1) were part of a line-wide gimmick where continuity was interrupted for a month to tell retro, 'before the powers'-type tales. The Spectacular ish at least ties into the then-current state of affairs, fleshing out Flash Thompson's childhood. 


   


I must admit to having some nostalgia for this period of Spidey as I picked up the odd issue while at uni - mostly the annuals and 'team-up' comics as they were self-contained and didn't require a big commitment. Having said that, this wasn't really a banner period for Spidey and some of the art is just dreadful. Well, it was the '90s...


Carnage: Mind Bomb (1996) # 1 and Carnage: It's a Wonderful Life (1996) # 1 are collected in:

Softcover:

Spider-Man/Gen13 (1996) is collected in:

Softcover:

Sensational Spider-Man (1996) # 13-15 are collected in:

Softcover:

Spider-Man: Hobgoblin Lives (1997) # 1-3 are collected in:

Softcover:

Amazing Spider-Man (1963) # 420 and X-Man (1995) # 24 are collected in:

Softcover:

Spider-Man Team-Up (1995) # 7 is collected in:

Softcover:

Untold Tales of Spider-Man Annual '97 is collected in:

Hardcover:



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