Now there's a run you don't really need to read, or that’s what so many people would say. Even before I started, people kept telling me this run is skippable. But I do like my bigger picture. So yeah, throwing it away and pretending like I’m not missing something important wasn’t exactly an option. Do I regret that?
Spoilers ahead
Well. If you just want to know She-Hulk's origin, you really are better off just starting with Sensational She-Hulk. It's rehashed on two pages right there in the first issue, and there’s not a lot you’d miss. But still, there are reasons to check out the debut run as well.
For a superhero, their first run can either define them for decades to come or present an opportunity for a reinvention down the road. She-Hulk definitely didn’t retain any of her early qualities. Back then, she was still Jennifer Walters first and had a secret identity that remained concealed from her family and most of her friends. Like the Hulk, she was trying to suppress her mean and green side and not let it ruin the everyday life of Jen-the-lawyer. Was she successful? Not so much.
The first run is so far the longest time we've spent with Jen. And there are things you’d instantly like about her. She doesn’t have it all together (who does?), her job title is prestigious, but she constantly has to deal with insane men trying to ruin things for her, and her father is… well, let’s say in terms of anger he could give the Hulk a run for his money (if he had any, those purple pants don’t have pockets). Jen might be optimistic, but she is filled with self-doubt and the need to prove herself.
We meet her in the middle of her own adventure, if that’s a fitting enough name. That’s an interesting and uncommon choice, too. We usually witness the very beginning of a hero’s arc, with Jen, we’re thrown into an already ongoing legal conflict with Trask (not Bolivar) — LA’s own local kingpin of crime. His goons are following Jen with a kill order, and they shoot her in the back just as she’s about to get in the car. Luckily, she’s accompanied by her cousin, Bruce. In a less-than-scientifically accurate twist, Bruce performs an emergency blood transfusion, and the rest is history.
Wait, that’s exactly the history we’re here to discuss.
Jen transforms into the She-Hulk, and just like with Bruce, at first, it happens whenever she feels anger. Unlike him, Jen remains in relative control over her alter-ego. She-Hulk isn’t exactly Jen, but she’s not something different. If I had to sum her up, I’d say she’s everything regular Jen would want to hide. She-Hulk is her anger, her power, her strength, her unapologetic self. Pretty much everything you experience but fear to show because you’d be called “emotional” or ummm savage? But She-Hulk doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. She could swipe anyone off the board with ease, fear is not in her vocabulary. Maybe that’s why her decision to remain She-Hulk at the end of the run, while written off as her getting rid of Jen’s problems, feels justified. It even feels right if you think about it and consider the era. Besides, She-Hulk has her share of issues.
Some are adventures, and some are pain in her green behind
Throughout the run, both She-Hulk and Jen have to deal with a lot. Some of the wildest baddies include mad scientists, robotic versions of She-Hulk and an elephant, different superpowered beings who turn out to be just one guy, poisoning, and maybe the most random of all – a girl who can’t sing. The last one is… questionable at best, but I’m not gonna speak on that. I’d rather point out an interesting detail about the run as a whole: it’s well structured. The story spends enough time with Jen and She-Hulk, both get personal stories, both get in each other’s way when it comes to relationships and life in general. Throughout all that, the run maintains a strong continuity and solid pacing. The events aren’t rushed, and seeds for every story are planted in advance. There is a villain of the week, and there is a big bad.
I talk often about missing that slower storytelling on more modern comics, so that was pretty nice.
Jen and the men around her
One of the main problems in this run is every male character Jen deals with. And I don’t mean villains, I mean specifically the good guys (well, mostly).
Jen’s colleague is Buck, who is a flashy, misogynistic, condescending lawyer with an annoying attitude who likes to trigger Jen. Why does he do it? Probably because he can (it’s the 80’s and… you know, based on the real world). In the beginning, it’s Buck who causes the death of Jen’s best friend (he thought SH was attacking her, while she was trying to save her). Halfway through the run, he realizes that and dives deep into blaming himself. He does get what he deserves, more or less.
Jen’s father, the sheriff. He is dating a scammer, who drives a wedge between him and Jen. But his problems really go deeper than that. He constantly criticizes Jen for her career choices and misses the good ole’ days when his daughter was obedient and wanted to please him. Naturally, his resentment started as soon as Jen showed signs of independence. According to him, it started after her mother’s death, but that does sound like bs he invented to justify himself.
Zapper is a young med student whom Jen used to babysit. He convinces himself he’s in love with Jen and proceeds with stalkery behavior. Sure, he helps her all the time, but all his actions are not selfless in the slightest. He expects her to return his feelings and eventually gets that from She-Hulk. Now there is room for an argument that Jen liked him back, but was too well aware of everyone else’s opinion regarding her dating a younger man. Naturally, SH had none of those concerns.
But it’s the way Zapper gets pushy and gets angry that she doesn’t return his feelings that makes me write him off instantly.
Richard Rory is a very random guy. His main feature is that he’s unlucky. Even after hitting a jackpot at a casino, he manages to lose all his money. He has his own set of hopes tied to Jen, and it seems like she gets together with him out of pity.
The problem with all these men is that even when they are trying to help Jen (or SH) and even when they worry about her, they always think about themselves first. How does it affect me that She-Hulk was captured by a big bad? Jen’s disappeared, but I need her to tell me whether we’re dating or not, so I’ll look for her. It’s always framed like that.
I almost never say that, but it seems fitting here: Jen and She-Hulk both deserve better.
Marcel Dorcel is a convicted criminal with three exes, a mind that's keen on identifying political subterfuge, and enough experience surviving the wilds of Zarkass that she makes for the best (worst) tour guide one could hope for. In her own words, "just because I'm ballsy doesn't mean I'm stupid." But then again, if one were not relying on Marcel to ford the wilds during the apparent crumbling of the local human outpost, then who?
TRAPPED ON ZARKASS is exquisitely colorful and richly indecent, what with its focus on an odd-couple pair who is absolutely terrible at doing precisely whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. Marcel is the guide and bodyguard; Louis Doisy is an entomologist sent undercover from the local human government. Louis is supposed to be investigating the wreckage of an unnamed adversary's ship, but as often happens in sci-fi exploits, the woman has her own agenda at hand. En totem, navigating jungle flora, all the while surviving encounters with giant spiders, carnivorous butterflies, and hostile populations of roach-people puts this duo on high alert from cover to cover.
One imagines the task of surviving a mysterious planet of hostile others would be equally exciting and terrifying, and TRAPPED ON ZARKASS delivers on both accounts. Is tracking down and investigating an intergalactic crash site on a wayward Earth colony worth the effort? After dropping into the luscious greenery, all bets are off.
Not to say the story makes it easy for these characters to have a good time. Marcel is crass and butch and doesn't really give a shit, but she's a felon who can't quit digging a deeper grave for herself. If she and her partner can pull off this mission, then she'll sleep in a real bed for the first time in 20 years. Louis is snotty and upper-class, but her ambition tends to outweigh any sense of danger lurking over the next cliff. A person with a secret agenda and with nothing to lose tends to harbor the most gall. Marcel and Louis hate each other from the outset, but if they're going to survive the bush and make it back to civilization before everything turns to crap, then they must swallow the irritation they have for one another, one thorny affront at a time.
TRAPPED ON ZARKASS is a beautiful book and demonstrates the best character art many contemporary European comics have to offer: angular but dimensional character designs that don't take up more space than they need to; brilliant and moody coloring; environmental designs and background artwork with layers of informational detail; compelling character expressions that never give away too much. Cassegrain has a style that offers comfort and order on one level (e.g., balanced page composition, smart character blocking) and desirable anarchy on another (e.g., designing messy and dangerous slums, ruins, battle sequences, caverns).
One finds it difficult to disassociate the comic's superlative design quality from its narrative spectacle. For example, it's one thing for readers to come across a lying and scheming indigenous queen and her chosen warrior, but it's another thing entirely to see the warrior stride into frame while mounting a massive cicada and wielding a war axe. It's one thing for readers to learn the local roach-people use the mucus of large lion-caterpillars to protect their skin, but it's another thing entirely to see the locals grieve the loss of their partner-beasts, then throw themselves to their death, glimpsing the emerald splendor of this far away planet for a final, sharp, and fleeting moment.
The book's flaws are niggling but not imperceptible. Notably, Marcel's attitude vacillates unpredictably between caustic foolery and optimistic thuggery. The woman knows more about the planet Zarkass and its dangers than anyone around, but constantly berates the locals and draws ire from her allies. Her insults are hilarious (e.g., "snotty vagsack," "holy ovum," "deadballs," "bloody vulva"), but the butch woman's intense love-hate relationship with the universe makes for seesaw storytelling. As for Louis, the woman is a good foil, but her apparent knack for having helpful visions of next-step adventuring feels too contrived to be effective. Louis is funny because she's absolutely the last person one would want to rough it with in the bush; but perhaps that's the point. Nevertheless, TRAPPED ON ZARKASS wrings from its pages a tale of otherworldly sci-fi in which suspiciously opportunistic people from very odd, awkward, and asynchronous points of origin strive for survival.
Now that the first issue of the series has been out for a while and I'm less concerned about spoilers, I felt like now would be the time to say a few things about the start of the series and get some of my opinions out there. There's a lot to say, so I suppose I'll split it up into pros, cons, and general commentary.
Pros
On the positive side, it's genuinely nice to see the Fab 5 + Karen together in a group again! No matter how much time goes on and no matter how many interpersonal issues the group has, they're still my favorite team.
It's nice to see all the different little references to the original series -- from one of their fights being against the Separated Man to the picture of the Flips up on the wall of their base, it does feel pretty nostalgic to someone who is a big fan of Teen Titans vol. 1!
The art is overarchingly pretty nice (although I wish I could hit the colorist over the head and scream at them that Garth's eyes are purple! NOT BLUE!)
Despite my nostalgia for the original series, I am finding myself being more ok with the changed lineup than I originally thought I'd be. Now, this obviously messes with some Titans history that I'm reluctant to give up, but it is nice to see Karen highlighted especially! I also think the inclusion of Golden Eagle was nice! He's probably one of the lesser known Teen Titans, so even seeing him show up was surprisingly pleasant.
Despite the fact that I do also have a slight complaint about it, I do think it's nice that they are leaning into popular slang and what is "cool and hip with the teens." To be honest, I think it could even be dialed up a notch! Bring out your inner Bob Haney!!
The ending to the first issue was also interesting! I like that they are setting up the major conflict but keeping it vague for right now. I'm genuinely excited to see how that progresses!
Cons
On the more negative side, there is also a lot to say. Some of it might be nitpicking, but I feel it's worth putting out there anyways. My biggest issue with the series thus far is that it feels too self aware. I know it's only the first issue, and I know that I just praised the references to the original series in the "pros" section, but in many ways I can't help but feel that the series is superimposing later versions of these characters onto their younger selves despite the story-beats that would cause them to act that way not having happened yet.
Just for example's sake, I think the way Batman is acting is a decent showcase for this. Not to say that he entirely wasn't strict before a certain time, but the extremely controlling and closed off way he's acting is far more in-line with post Death in the Family characterization, and not the time period in which Teen Titans vol. 1 would take place.
Not all of the characterization in that regards is bad -- after all, those traits need a base to develop from -- but in some cases it really feels too aware of how these characters would later become. Because of that, a lot of the dialogue and interactions feel sort of hollow and don't allow for much natural or nuanced progression.
Besides that, this series has really made me confused on the DC comics timeline. With the constant mentions of social media, livestreaming, and modern slang, it reads like it should be something set in present time aka 2023. But considering how this is a flashback, shouldn't this be set in the time of, like... Myspace? Shouldn't the slang be ever so slightly dated, and social media NOT be such a ubiquitous thing? Maybe I'm wrong and the current DC timeline is actually taking place in the future, but still, the over-modern nature of the writing feels a little bit jarring to me.
Speaking of jarring, there are a few details that felt super weird throughout the issue. Roy's comment about Ollie "taking him in from the streets" is jarring since I guess that means they're sticking with the N52 backstory for Roy, which.... ugh. The other things I find jarring are honestly just nitpicks. Without going into it too much, there were just a lot of small details that make my brain go, "hey! That's not how that happened! That's not correct!" Regardless, I need to remember that this isn't a part of the old continuity, so changes can be made whether I like it or not.
General Commentary
All in all I don't think it's a bad start to the series. As it continues, I really hope that things start to feel more authentic so that the series is actually able to develop both its own identity and develop these characters further than they have been before without feeling redactive. I sort of miss the small, homegrown feel of the original series, and how going from smaller missions to world ending events was genuinely a big change for many of the Teen Titans. I'm hoping that there are some more small moments going forward that keep it from getting too big too fast.
I think it's too early to judge the series more heavily, so for now I'm just eagerly awaiting the next issue so we can see how it's going to hold up in the long run.
All of my comic recs from 2022 posted on WWAC and cobbled together in a single post- Jan 11
This was saved to my drafts in January and never posted, but here it is now because I stand by these recs!
Thieves by Lucie Bryon
Thieves is so, so pretty! I’ve been a fan of Lucie’s art for a while, and I was excited to see her use her talents for a full-length graphic novel. The limited color palette, off-white paper, and adorable art style create a dreamy, classy reading experience. It’s also a lovely story about partying, first love, the end of high school, and stealing stuff! Ella has a problem: it’s the day after a party at her crush’s house and her apartment is full of things that do not belong to her. Fortunately, Madeleine not only likes her back, she’s willing to help Ella secretly return all the stolen stuff to its rightful owners... and more. Ella, Madeleine and their friends all feel like such real, believable characters. I love how cheerful and extroverted Ella is and how well that contrasts with Madeleine’s more reserved nature. Thieves is funny, beautiful, and full of heart!
Love and Leashes by Winter
Love and Leashes is the only Webtoon I’ve read this year that made me laugh out loud at every single episode. Ji-u Jeong and Jihu Jeong, coworkers with similar names, enter an unusual arrangement in which Jihu, a submissive who’s been hiding his kinks from everyone around him his whole life, asks Ji-u to be his master. Ji-u, who’s cool and competent on the outside and shy on the inside, considers running away immediately, but instead decides to try this thing out for a bit and see if she likes it. Spoiler: she does! Despite the subject matter, the actual content of this Webtoon is fairly safe for work.
What really makes Love and Leashes stand out is the eccentric cast of characters surrounding the main couple, as well as the couple themselves. They care a lot about each other and prioritize clear communication, trying to figure out how to best make each other happy while not causing problems at work or with their friends and family. And boy, are their friends and family... a lot. Jihu has a group chat of fellow BDSM enthusiasts he met on a forum, Ji-u has a younger brother and work friends, Jihu’s high school friend owns a bar, and they all have so much going on. And whenever all of these people intersect, it is so, so funny. I don’t know how accurate the BDSM stuff is as depicted here, but the characters focus on consent, communication, and mutual enjoyment, and figuring out how to live in a way that makes them happiest.
I spent money on this comic! I can’t think of anything else I straight-up enjoyed, just had fun reading, as much as Love and Leashes this year. I’m going to tell my kids this was 50 Shades of Grey or however that meme goes.
Clown Corps by Joe Chouinard
If you’ve seen that Frasier meets Columbo comic going around on Twitter, you may not be surprised to learn the guy who drew it also does an ongoing webcomic about organized battle clowns. Clown Corps follows the adventures of reformed burglar turned reluctant clown college student Mary McBell and her clowning cohort as they work to stop a shadowy organization bent on destroying the entire Clown system. It’s hysterical, with great stylized action sequences, physical comedy and fourth-wall-bending humor, but also moments of surprising gravity as the characters grapple with the troubled pasts that brought them to clowning in the first place. The art improves quickly for a webcomic, and the characters are both silly and serious (one of the best fighters in the class can only kick ass when he’s asleep!) I caught up in a day and wished I could keep reading.
Pyramid Game by Dalgonyak
I am so obsessed with the Webtoon Pyramid Game right now it is unreal. I made a Youtube video about it. I drew fanart for it. It’s SO GOOD and NO ONE UNDERSTANDS.
Pyramid Game, by Dalgonyak, is a comic about gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing all at once. Suji is the new kid at an elite private school and it turns out her new class has a complicated hierarchical system of bullying, created by the richest and most powerful teenage girl in Korea specifically to get back at the nicest girl in the world who slighted her in some way the readers haven’t learned yet. It’s SO MUCH. It’s got some very messy homoerotic subtext (and text!) It’s got the most toxic friendships I’ve ever seen in a Webtoon. It’s got really appealing character designs and a fun and interesting protagonist who takes no bullshit from anyone ever and is going to beat the billionaire at her own game. Eventually. I believe in her!
I like Pyramid Game because I love this kind of mean girl drama; it’s got all the fun parts of a political intrigue story with none of the confusing world building to go with it. The bullying the girls take part in is creative, high-energy and visceral, but what really makes this comic so hard to put down is how keenly observed every character is, how real and complex and distinct they all feel, even the minor players in this game that act more like pawns for the leads to take turns pushing around. … Maybe I will write a full review about this comic someday.
Suji Seong could beat L in Death Note but Light Yagami could not survive a day in “The Happy Class” of Love High.
What Happens Next by Max Graves
I am at all times thinking about What Happens Next by Max Graves. It’s a pretty dark comic about what happens when some terminally online Tumblr tweens… have to deal with the aftermath of committing a gruesome murder, years after the fact. What I find really fascinating about this comic (besides the fact that I can never remember the title D:) is how accurately it portrays every detail of this hyperspecific internet community I remember so vividly from my own teenage years, and the kinds of people that participated in those spaces. It really captures… something. I don’t know. It does make me want to know What Happens Next.
Black and White: Tough Love at the Office by Sal Jiang
Do you think all yuri manga is too soft and sweet and schoolgirl-ish? You should check out Black and White by Sal Jiang, a workplace lesbian comic that I hesitate to call a romance, given how the two leads resolve their sexual tension by hatefucking in the conference room. Not appropriate for all ages, this yuri. The rivalry between Shirakawa and Kuroda crackles with chemistry, and Jiang draws the two of them fighting and having sex with a specificity that makes the whole thing feel grounded, rather than the ethereal above-it-all purity older yuri comics often have. I also like how they’re both good at their jobs and have good relationships with their coworkers, who see them as reliable and helpful and sweet. The contrast between their public personas and how they beat each other up in private makes Black and White impossible to put down.
Drip Drip by Paru Itagaki
I think Paru Itagaki should be allowed to draw whatever she wants forever. Drip Drip (which I discussed in a past Pubwatch) is incredibly weird, gross, and horny, much like her acclaimed longform series BEASTARS. But it’s also extremely interesting, and definitely a comic I will never forget reading. Drip Drip is about a woman so sensitive to germs that she gets a nosebleed every time she touches anything that isn’t 100% sterilized. She wants to find love and have sex, but every time she tries, her nosebleed scares men off and ruins the mood. When she finally finds a guy she thinks she can be with, it turns out he has dark secrets of his own. The single-volume story follows several of her attempts to rid herself of her curse, with a bonus unrelated one-shot about Santa Claus thrown in at the end.
Itagaki’s imagery and unusual choices of environments and locations make her comics very memorable: I haven’t reread this since October and I can still see the splash pages in my head like I’d read it yesterday. Itagaki and Tatsuki Fujimoto (of Chainsaw Man and Look Back fame) kind of occupy the same space in my head in their commitment to their singular, very specific vision. A kind of boldness I wish I were capable of.
Valentine’s Double Wedding Spectacular Part 1: Aunt May and Otto Octavius (ASM 130-131) (Nominated by WeirdKev27, Selected by Readers Like You)
Hello all you happy lovers, dreamers and me! I”m Jake I review cartoons and comics. Dearly beloved we are gathere here today to get through this thing called life.. specifically by me taking a look at one of the most infamous bits of one of my faviorite superheroes historys. It’s time to webswing to get the private compound full of gangsters on time, i’m taking a look at the wedding of Aunt May and Doc Ock.
As for why, a few weeks back I ran a poll, letting my patreons pick options, and myself picking one or two, as the danny phantom one I did for January was a massive success. And since despite being a longtime superhero fan with a deep and sometimes weird knowledge of superhero comics I hadn’t reviewed a ton of them on here, I decided to do something special to rectify that: superhero weddings. THere’s tons of them, and your decent support means i’ll be doing this again next year. So I picked one, had my patreons pick one each, and that’s not a one off: if you join my patreon you too can pick an option for any poll I do every time. And i’ts not expensive: just one dollar gets the job done and while 5 , if your feeling saucy, gets you a guanteed review a month. So if you want me to review that time spider-man’s car wanted to murder him
SIGN UP HERE
Anyway the results were a tie, a tie I coudln’t break because i’d voted in the poll (Something I won’t be doing again so I can break it in good faith if there’s a tie), and rather than do a coin flip or something arbitrary that would render your votes moot, I simply decided
So your getting Spidey’s aunt nearly marrying a supervillian first and then Gambit literally stealing his friends failed wedding next week for the day itself.
Now we’re clear let’s talk about this story. It’s a weird trivia beat that comes up now and again both with fans and in canon.. particularly that time Peter ended up in ock’s dying body and found a sex memory of him boning his aunt.. excuse me for a moment.
But how did these two crazy kids end up together? How did Peter manage to prevent his at the time doddering aunt from making the biggest mistake of her life? Why is a rejected Dick Tracy villian involved? Why is nuclear power involved? You can find out under the cut as I both summarize the baffling events leading up to this and talk about the two parter surrounding the big day itself!
Previously on Spider-Man:
Thankfully I didn’t have to do research for this one. This is a bit of a story in itself: See long ago I got comxilology unlimted for a bit, basically netflix for digital comics, and for the first time read the classic Night Gwen Stacey died along with a bunch of other great stories from the maestro himself Gerry Conway.
Gerry Conway has a special place in Marvel History as he’s the first writer to take charge of Spidey post stan lee and made the most of it: In addition to, as outlined killing gwendy, he killed the green goblin in the same story, replaced him with my boy harry osborn as the new green goblin, evened out Flash and Peter’s relationship from “Sharing a social circle” to “actual friends”, made Mary Jane Peter’s main love intrest in Gwen’s place, and introduced a bevy of milestone additions to peter’s history: The Punisher (Sigh), Jackal, Hammerhead, Clones and the Spider-Car. Not every milestone is a good thing. The guy was a decent writer, and while he didn’t quite explore the full breath of gwen’s death at times and the death itself is an early example of women in refirgrators, he did give spider-man a life and energy all his own, along side his cohort and underated spidey artist ross andru.
But this was the 70′s so he wasn’t immune to weird shit. Again , spider-car. As such his first storyline, co-written by John Romita was a bit of a weird one, not helped by a big plot point Stan Introduced right before leaving. At the end of Stan’s Run, which was helpfully in the trade I got with the start of Gerrys, Gwen was a bit harsh with aunt may’s coddling of peter. Nothing bad just a bit stern. So May responded like an adult 10 year old and ran away to not be in the way.. which naturally left Gwen feeling guilty she hurt peter’s surrogate mom’s feelings and peter overwhelmed with guilt and worry searching for her. GREAT JOB GETTING OUT OF THE WAY MAY.
So Peter naturally looked for her, and fought a monkey man for a few issues, writers switched over, and Conways first arc, heavily guided by Spidey Legend John Romita SR who stayed on for a bit to help the transition, had peter look for his aunt and encounter HAMMERHEAD.
Hammerhead is one of Spidey’s Rouges that baffles me a bit. He’s an amnesiac thug who saw a poster for an al capone film while beaten in an ally and thus modeled his whole shtick over the style of classic gangsters and the surgery that saved him also gave him an indestructable skull. He also.. looks like this.
He is, for all intenstive purposes, a Dick Tracey villian that got lost and wound up in the pages of Spider-Man. He isn’t the most rediclous rogue in spidey’s gallery: Spidey’s Rogues also contain my boy Stegron, a humanoid stegsaurus that wants to make everyone into dinosaurs. And in case you dont beleive that..
No what baffles me is hammerhead gets used in pretty much every adaptation . Instead of plumbing the depths and using more creative villians they just figure “eh we need spidey to beat someone up get hammerhead”. And look I get it spidey has some rouges that should remain deep in the vault, like bloodshed
Who I didn’t even know existed till I was on the tv tropes page for the Rouges Gallery one day after far from home. But you have so many more intresting and just as insane villians to throw at spidey: If you want muscle try Grizzly, the guy in a bear suit, or Kangaroo, the guy whose not in a kangaroo suit but is australian but incompitent, or mountain man marko.. he’s just a guy.
Or hell try this guy I just found out exists: the walrus!
Is he thorughly rediculous? Yes. Is he any more rediculous than hammerhead no. Or if you want to go even more insane again my boy stegron. Or how about Swarm. He’s only been used about once but he’s a nazi made of bees! You don’t have to use the nazi element but you could’ve been ahving peter fight a guy made of bees a lot. And that’s not even getting into guys like speed demon or hydro man who arne’t used enough despite being neat and not patently rediculous. My point dear readers is that while I don’t hate hammerhead, the spidey cartoons and spidey adjacent films need to embrace how fucking insane his rogues gallery is and unleash the madness. Have Madam Web fight a bunch of nazi bees is what i’m saying. Dakota Johnson vs Nazi Bees 2023.
I.. I had a point to all this. Oh right so Spider-Man fights hammerhead to find aunt may and finds out she’s in Doctor Octopus’ mob mansion.
Yeah earlier in his career Doctor Octopus took over the mob a lot because that’s what Stan Lee and Gerry Conway thought you do if your a supervillian: take over organized crime. I mean it worked with the big man, but after that it was just diminishing returns every time i’ve read a story like this.
So Spider-Man finds aunt man.. only for her to clonk him on a head with a pot because she hated him back then.. and she later POINTS A GUN AT HIM BECAUSE SHE’S AFRAID OF HIM. You may notice Aunt May is just a.. touch diffrent back then. Yeah early on.. Aunt May sucked. I love her as a character now but early on she was basically just a plot device so Peter couldn’t be revealed as spider-man or the heart attack would kill her. Why he coudln’t tell his friends who aren’t old ladies with a heart condition?
The silver age man, it hates revealing secret identites more than the Miraculous Lady Bug. Also if your wondering why I haven’t watched that show.. that’s why.
Anyways point is she was more comic relief and didn’t do much, to the point she’s largely absent from Conways run and the Lein Wein run following. She’ll pop in once in a while to remind readers she exist but that’s it. Thankfully by the 80′s writers started giving her stuff to do: having her move to a retirement home where she made friends, having her move out of it and start a boarding house while starting up a romance with Nathan Lubensky (Wonderful forgotten spidey charcter). She did end up dying, came back, and under JMS found out peter was spider-man in one of the best spidey stories. She got a new vibracncy, one taken from the ultimate universe where she was a touch younger if still old and far more onrey. This vibrancy would keep and since then she’s remarried (and her new husband sadly died.. and was also J Jonah Jamesons father. It’s a whole wonderful thign and one of Dan Slotts best ideas from the time before he lost his damn mind) and runs the FEAST charity shelter, something that’s been adapted both into the mcu and the insomniac games.. granted both also killed her but still, she at least gets to be a character first.
But Dodering old may stays with Doc Ock because she wants to stay out of peter’s life and he’s worried about her because she’s with a fucking supervillian in his goon squads mansion while said villian is in jail. NICE JOB MAY. So as I said she mostly disappeared. Since Peter couldn’t visit her in either identity and could only call breifly, she was out of his life and life moved on. Though after hearing about an inhertence she had from a letter he snatched from a goon peter did go to canada to find the guy who sent it. How did a struggling college student get to canada, you may ask? Simple... he agreed to photograph the hulk. Spidey FOUGHT THE HULK. Again.
Reviews that somehow involve a hulk count: 2
I’ve only needed this twice this week but it’s weird it happened twice. So that’s where the plot sat because as soon as peter returned.. something big happened
Again I fully intend to cover this story sometime this year, the good and bad of it, but needless to say peter was preoccupied. I do feel Conway Missed an opportunity as due to Gwen having accidently shooed may away, May could feel guilty for having not been there and having let herself get pushed out or been so senstive. Instead it just never comes up and she arrives with hired goons to the funeral. But yeah this got shoved aside for a few issues as peter dealt with grief, helped MJ fight a vulture man, met the jackal.. he had a lot on his plate. But eventually we arrived here, as the story concluded.. and given how nuts it’s been so far you’d think it couldn’t get any more insane..
Well you’ll see.
The Amazing Spider-Man 130:
You may be asking “Jake what does the guy you just gave out about, a weirdo meditaing at the foot of george washington and spider-man suddenly having a car for some reason have to do with Aunt May and Doc Ock” It’ll become clear as we go.
We open with spider-man fighting some thugs in hazmat suits.. suprisingly i’ts not AIM this time but a bunch of theives with high tech gear. Now you’d probably expect these guys are Doc Ock’s boys.. but NO. These are HAMMERHEAD’S goons. Hammerhead, the guy who need I remind you likes to think i’ts the 30′s.. made his men dress up in beastie boys cosplay with high tech science weapons he pulled directly from his ass. HAMMERHEAD. The guy whose power.. is having a thick skull.
HAMMERHEAD
Who can MAKE A GUYS BRAIN SHORT OUT, as the poor schmoe peter interrogates finds out the hard way
I honestly forgot this story was this nuts from the get go. I thought it at least took a few pages you know eased you into being bonkers. But nope Hammerhead is suddenly a technical genius on par with reed richards who can wire people’s brains to short out if they say his name. Also how fucking awkward would that be in meetings
Henchman; Sorry i’m late ha-hammer..ha.... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (Drops coffee everywhere)
Hammerhead: noes my premiums roast! CURSE YOU SPIDER-MAN!
Henchman 2: But hamm. but hammm AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Hammerhead: CURSE. YOU. SPIDER-MAN!
So meanwhile Hammerhead is meeting with the Jackal. Those familiar with the clone saga might be saying
While many of you are just wondering who this guy is. The Jackal was Conway’s replacement for the Green Goblin after Norman’s death. Like GG he started out as a mystery villian, a diabolical mastermind with a mystery identity though unlike Green Goblin who wanted to take over organized crime because again, Stan Lee thought all criminals wanted to take over the mob, Jackal clearly had it out for spider-man and most of his schemes fucked with him in some way.
As it’d turn out and spoilers for a 40 years old comic, the Jackal was Miles Warren, a minor supporting character who started in Lee’s run. He was a creepy old man who realized he “loved” gwen after her death. Keep in mind warren is drawn as a mustachoied old man and Gwen was 19 at MOST.
So before the big reveal he spent most of Conway’s run showing up ocasinally to take a dump on spidey’s life with some sort of scheme before deciding to get into clones and seemingly dying only to return for the clone saga.. which is a mess all in itself.
Here he’s just here for a breif cameo for a plan that makes little sense: He talks about how great he is for an entire page to piss Hammerhead off into trying to kill him... which somehow goads hammerhead into going after doc ock. Even though given Doc Ock’s the biggest crimelord in nyc right now and Hammerhead has buisness with him while Hammerhead’s old gang was broken up by spidey, he likely would without any taunting. So in short Jackal showed up to do nothing of consiequence and leave and it’s somehow played as some “genius masterstroke of strategic genius” When instead he comes off as
How did it take peter about a year in story to beat this guy?
So we move from one subplot to another as Spidey visits his best buddy, Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four. And this is where we get to the car. See a few issues back Stan Lee had a tie in with a toy company and wanted to work their spider-car into the issue despite the fact it made zero sense for a new york based superhero who could travel of his own power anyway to have a batmobile of sorts. So Gerry decided to just lean into it and made the subplot pure farce: Two add execs asked Spidey, who at this time is wanted for questioning in TWO different murders. It’d be like if they made a naked gun spinoff starring OJ WHILE he was running away in the white bronco. The only diffrence is Spidey is actually innocent, though he’s thoughly aware this idea is stupid on so many levels.. but agrees because he’s got to pay rent since Harry’s too busy plotting his death to do so these days. So not having any car knowledge he went to Johnny, who is a big gear head and gladly agreed for part of the money since he
wouldn’t have his rap side hustle for that till the 90′s.
Pure. Art.
And thus Spidey wakes johnny up who unveils his abomination to the world
No no not that one, again 90′s.. but it’s only MARGINALLY more dignified.
As I said, Conway was in on the joke and clearly so was artist ross Andru who made it look neat for a kid to play with but still wonderfullyr ediculous. Johnny did trick it out though: Ejector seats (because as Johnny himself says, superhero cars gotta have ejector seats), Web cannons anda the headlights can project a massive version of that spider projection thing spidey sometimes does but hasn’t in any other media that often for no reason.
The New Yorker thing though comes up as when Spidey tries driving it... it goes about as well as you’d expect
Like I said Conway was in on the joke and milked it for all it was worth. It’s hard making jokes in this half when Conway’s doing all the heavy lifting for me.
So Doc Ock notices the spider car as he’s leaving jail and gets a plan... he then gets to his helepad where he berates a henchman for his “excuses”.. his excuse being he didn’t know where to pick up his boss. Then he does this
He just sorta leaves the guy there on the helipad and takes off because he knows nothing. but like.. he coudl still go to the police with the fact your breaking what’s clearly your parole. And they arrested you in front of it. And they can call the avengers on your ass so... yeah. Maybe kill him at least. Like i’m not for killing people as a rule but if their going to lead the police, the avengers, the fantastic four and I dunno the defenders? were they a team yet?
(checks)
Yes yes they were. Point is someone’s going to stomp your elton john impersonator ass if you don’t snap that mans neck.
Anyways Peter swings back home and talks to Aunt May on the phone breifely before letting her go because MJ called.. despite the fact you know, his aunt’s in terrible danger and he could try talking her out of being with doc ock or.. anything instead of making time with his love intrest. But MJ’s here for higher reasons as Peter keeps missing class because spider-man and MJ wants to help him reach it. His response to MJ clearly making an effort with him and helping him stay in school during a trying time.. is to whine about not being able to change into spidey is easy, even though it’s never stopped him before.
Okay so anyway that evening Hammerhead’s goons do another robbery.. with .. Jet Lifts, full on JETPACKS and spider-man stops them with his super powered car.
So he then fights hammerhead because why not at this point and they scuffle, with spidey eventaully loosing because Hammerhead has been practicing ramming guys with his head so he can do it faster. I just.. I just want an issue or two of shonen style training in italy or wherever hammerhead was, Jackal says he was overseas, training to ram guys SLIGHTLY faster. Can we get hammerhead carrying milk jugs or wearing a turtle shell or putting himself in a gravity chamber or wrestling an ox or wrestling ox from the enforcers or wrestling ox from the enforcers wearing an ox costume for once? Please marvel, please?
Peter then has to wrestle his nitro burning funny car from the police but finally gets a break: a letter with aunt may’s name on it and with this mail fraud, peter can FINALLY find out why straight tentacle hentai elton john banged his aunt!
So Peter goes to Betty Brant, his ex and now close friend’s, christmas party. After getting a christmas cigar from Jonah because back then marvel characters could smoke em if they got em, Peter spirits himself away despite mj trying to missletoe him. He points out in solemn monologue...
That he’s not ready to move on yet. Which given it’s been a few weeks, a month or two at most, is fair and a nice bit of reminding us he’s still not over that pain. I do like how Conway let’s that pain linger as much as he could in a mostly episodic comic book.
But Peter distracts himself by reading the letter and knowing the truth now he has to go find aunt may and ditches the party, swining out to go find her... only to find
Lady’s, gents, and those inbetween and outside it entirely the moment you’ve been waiting for has arrived. ANd i’ts as rediculous as you hoped. I have so many things to pick apart about this.. entire situation here and everything about this.
1) Gerry Conway had to go to marvel editorial, say “I want to have Doc Ock try and marry aunt may” and Stan Lee went “excelsior!”
2) Aunt May has no objectoin to the wedding being in his house, without her nephew (aka her only family left0 and the rest of the party ONLY being hired goons.
3) Aunt may’s old fashioned wedding dress that looks like the kind a haunted corpse wears. Which she basically is but still.
4) The fact Doc Ock has a chappel in his house
5) The fact either someone went into this chappel and helped furnish it and saw NOTHING supscious here, or one of Doc Ock’s gangster goons is a hell of a decotrator.
6) Finally the fact the preist also came here and saw nothing supscious about ANY of this. I get Aunt May is basically brain dead in this era but I didn’t know Stan Lee and Gerry Conway thought EVERY eldery person was.
Okay moving on
Amazing Spider-Man 131
I just love this cover: aunt may looking so happy, the goofy expressoins on the gangsters, the fact spiderman thought it was prudent to web up the bible.. it’s wonderfully ludicrous.
So the next issue picks up where we left off.. and Petey DOSEN’T get to wonderfully dash in while his aunt looks as braindead as ever. For valid reasons too: he points out, while talking to himself because again, style at the time, that if he does, she could get hurt because she has the constituion and bone density of paper mache.
Thankfully Hammerhead makes it a non issue as he charges in and the preist asks...
(clears throat) Dude... you are officating a wedding between salt water supervillian and a skellington surronded by mobster sterotypes in the middle of a a supervillian’s mountain fortress... and you only have questions NOW. I know i already made a joke about this guy but jesus christ he might be the dumbest person in the marvel universe. And that is a hard title to win let me tell you.
Tony stark hadn’t even started his first civil war yet. He has not begun to fuckup but you sir give him a run for his money
So a fracas insues with sleep inducing bullets... i’m numb to it at this point.. .and Doc Ock taking Aunt may out to his secret helicopter via his secret exit secretly. Spidey TRIES to intercept but Doc plays hero and swats him away so Spidey decides to play dead and wait for a moment to strike and hope his aunt dosne’t blow away in the wind while he does. He gets his chance after ock escapes, stowing away on the botton of Hammerhead’s hellicopter
We get a brief break from the madness as MJ realizes she’s been ditched and talks to Betty and her fiance Ned. She talks over peter ditching her with Betty saying he just needs time and Ned calling her a flake behind her back because he’s that level of dipshit while Betty accuratley points out she’s just scared: MJ dosen’t knokw how to deal with grief or to approach this and Joe Robertson silences more bs from ned by pointing out Peter can make up his own mind.
We then get this VERY odd speech
Okay so two things here. First Joe is happily married with a college aged son. So he clearly knows quite a bit about romance to have a succesful stable marriage this long I don’t know why he assumes two people he works with who’d know he’s married and a kid. He knwos a lot. And secondly ther’es him calling himself a city editor. If you wonder what that is it’s a secondary editor tha tmainly covers stuff happening in the city. I bring this up because I had to look it up after EVERY GODAMN APPEARNCE IN CONWAYS RUN AND STAN’S BEFORE IT THAT I’VE SEEN HAS HIM MENTOIN IT. I get it was probably to establish this was a black man in a position of authority at a time that was rarely seen in media, and that was noble as was Stan creating him in the first place. But in modern times it just comes off as this weird tick, like Robbie HAS to either be called city editor or mention he’s the city editor or he’ll melt into goo. And given this is the marvel universe that’s probably exactly what’s going on.
Anyways back to the madness as we find out why dear readers Doc Ock is trying to marry Aunt May.
First off, owning a candian island is dope. Second you did not misread that. AUNT MAY INHERETED A NUCLEAR REACTOR
You know when people think of this story they focus on one of Peter’s arch enemy’s trying to vacay to bonetown with his aunt. Which is fair, it’s objectively weird and as I haven’t mentioned they play this pretty straight. There’s a few jokes about Ock putting on an heir of chivalry for may’s sake, and later stories imply it wasn’t all bs, which are fucking great especailly this one righ tafter this reveal.
That’s objectively funny. But for the most part it’s just played for the drama of Doc Ock marrying his aunt instead of being treated as the most insane thing that’s ever happened to peter.. at this point. It dosen’t harm the story , in fact it makes it more hilarous that they try to play DOC OCK marring peter’s aunt for her nuclear reactor seriously
But seriously.. WHY DOESN’T THE FACT AUNT MAY INHERTED A NUCLEAR REACTOR COME UP MORE. Someone thought “Gee i’m dying soon I better give my WORLD CLASS NUCLEAR REACTOR ON AN ASS-TON OF UNRANIUM to someone. I know that old lady who gave me a caramel once who will crumble into dust if you speak too loud! She’s perfect to manage such a massive responsiblity!” Even in the 70′s this thing would have investors, people who would despute her owning the land. People would’ve TRIED contacting aunt may with more than just mail and while yes Doc Ock DID keep her in an isolated mansion likely for that reason... he stole the mail months ago when staying at her house. Both the US and CA goverments would not only know but they’d’ be SCRAMBLING to get that reactor and get her to sell and away from the bad tentacle man. Under President Nixon? I get this was just before watergate happened but still, even then I think people knew Nixon was far to the right. And this is in a universe with SHIELD? I get sometimes you have to isolate things for a shared universe to work but Stan didn’t mind Shiled popping up everywhere else. It’s telling when the most unrealistic part of this story isn’t a younger man swindling an old woman out of a fortune, that happens destressingly often and were aunt may more of a character and less of a halloween store prop at this point in history it’d be geninely tragic, but that the fourtune is a NUCLEAR REACTOR SHE DOSEN’T KNOW ABOUT.
Okay so moving on before I loose what very little’s left of my mind. We do get a fun action scene after as Hammerhea’ds solution.. is to RAM THE BITCH and rams into ock’s plain, a huge fight insues and Peter ends up one on one with octavius in the ruckus giving him a very satisfying beatdown that helps ground this incredibly stupid situation for a second.
It does hammer home the fact that this man tried to swindle, and possibly murder, his aunt. He may be doing so for a nuclear reactor and may only be able to do so not because of charm but because the plot says so (I mean even aunt may would notice all the hired goons. ), but this does work.
Peter spirits Aunt May away and steals a plane, finally saving her. She also passed out in case you were wondering. And then.. well you have to see for yourselves true beliviers. Because the story is about to reach peak insanity. Yes NOW.
Okay so breaking this down point by point
1) AUNT MAY AND DOC OCK’S NEAR WEDDING ENDED IN A NUCLEAR EXPLOSION AND NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THIS PART. THE FUCK?!
2) Again you use the guy who is so stupid he BLEW UP AN ISLAND IN NUCLEAR HELLFIRE BY HIS OWN STUPIDITY often but not the dinosaur?
3) Spidey making a clever quip after about 20 diffrnet people just died in a nuclear explosion. Jesus peter I get they were criminals but that’s still a lot to just shrug off with a joke.
But yeah ONE MUSHROOM CLOUD LATER, May awakes and faints from shock, Peter likely explains later as himself, and MJ shrugs off her feelings for peter.
And you may be thinking “wait... Doc Ock returns dosen’t he? HOW?!” And that itself is a story for another time.. that i’ll add to my next patreon tier (i.le. goals set for each time I have a person join) or do fully on comission, first comment who wants it. But in short it involves Doc Ock on the street for a while and the ATOMIC GHOST OF HAMMERHEAD. I’m not kidding.
Final Thoughts:
This is not a good story. Even with so many real life cases of vunerable old people being swindled this story defies logic with how trusting aunt may is, as the armed goons and hammerhead of all thing should’ve clued her in at some point. It’s mostly two idiots fighting over an old woman while spider-man’s in the middle. It has good moments: the fight scenes are gorgeous, Ross Andru is a genius and deserves more credit, and the scenes for the subplots aside from Jackal who did absolutely nothing of note are great. MJ trying to hide her feelings under a veneer of Peter being a downer and Spidey’s antics with the spider-mobile still hold up.
That being said while objectively this isn’t a good story.. it’s so bad it’s good gold.
Aunt May’s stupidity, Doc Ock’s goofy tux, the fact Hammerhead’s involved, spidey hyjacking a plane, “sleeping guns” , hammerhead suddenly being a technical wizard and of course a mushroom cloud ot cap it off.. it’s fucking hilarous. This is far from Gerry Conway’s best story.. but it’s still a massively entertainingly weird part of spidey’s history that you just got to see. I honestly wish other blunders in long runs were this entertaingly stupid instead of just sad.
So that does it for this review. Once again consider
JOINING MY PATREON
And join me in 5 days for some Nuptials of x as one of the most illconcived weddigns in marvel history, yes even more than Aunt May’s nuclear near wedding, is turned into one of it’s best as Gambit and Rogue tie the knot.
I love you all, see ya real soon and thanks for reading
Moon Knight #5
Marvel Comics 2021
Written by Jed MacKay
Illustrated by Alessandro Cappuccio
Coloured by Rachelle Rosenberg
Lettered by VC’s Cory Petit
Moon Knight’s hidden enemy is revealed — but revealed is not the same as caught, and he soon finds masks beneath masks as he hunts his way after his new nemesis. At the same time, Dr. Andrea Sterman pierces Moon Knight’s own mask and, for the first time, gets some honest answers.
This is one of those powerful issues that really lets us inside Marc’s mind and lets us know what he’s thinking. I love that after the whole deal with him taking out the Avengers has led to him needing to see a qualified superhero therapist, yes there are those in this world. I also love that I had to look up what D.I.D.(dissociative Identity Disorder) was because I’m used to seeing MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) and that Jed presents this as casually as he does and engages the reader as he did with me here is a wonderful thing to see. Plus she’s hard-as-nails too and isn’t going to let him skate with glib or flowery answers. He’s there for a reason and should he not follow her guidelines for treatment or just assess that he’s handling things okay then who knows what’ll happen unless is shipped off to somewhere like Ravencroft.
I’m such a huge geeky fanboy of the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does this utterly phenomenal job with their ever changing and evolving personalities. The pacing is excellent and it takes us through the pages revealing the dual stories happening side by side as we are taken on such a strong and powerful journey.
I am completely thrilled by the way that we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen. I’m also very much liking the way that the layers are opening up new avenues to be explored. The ending opens up one and it’s a doozy! Explored or not they all add this sensational depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are exceptionally well handled.
The interiors here just get better and better with each issue. That scene with Marc and the statues behind him is for me a new iconic vision! I mean the chair, the lights and the plants there just resonate completely. The linework is clean, crisp and sharp and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail within the work we see is nicely rendered. We see some really strong use of backgrounds throughout and they enhance and expand the moments beautifully while also working within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show an extremely talented eye for storytelling. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work are beautifully rendered. The whites that we see are amazing in how luminescent they are.
This is a great issue in terms of personal growth and interest as well as how it sets up the next, or continuing, arc we’re going to see. As Marc’s world has been thrown for a loop in more ways than one I look forward to seeing what else life is going to throw at him, and yes MORE TIGRA! The writing here is phenomenal and the characterisation is raw and powerful while the interiors create the mood, tone and feel for every single moment making this the book that it is.
