It’s another annual, this one by Denny O’Neil, Frank Miller & Klaus Janson. So, Miller & Janson are currently doing Daredevil monthly, for editor Denny O’Neil. But Miller and sometimes Janson are also doing at least one, sometimes 3 covers a month for the Spider-Man office, Miller drew the 1980 ASM annual, and he wrote the 1981 Marvel Team-Up annual. He’s like an honorary member of the Spidey team. And now he’s back!
This issue is broken into chapters, with a shot of a Daily Bugle front page starting each one, which is a fun little gimmick. Miller presaging Venom there.That thing is being watched by The Punisher! That thing is… a show where a dude is demonstrating “the Dim Mak Death Touch.” Uh, ok?
Well, that’s a death touch of a different kind. Peter Parker rushes off to do his thing, and within moments, Spider-Man is face to face with his old frenemy, The Punisher.
What if Spidey hadn’t missed? No way Frank woulda survived that! But Punisher’s move at the bottom is maybe the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen him do. Punisher says he’s studied Spider-Man, like he does anyone he might have to fight, and he could kill him, but doesn’t want to. Spidey dives back into the fray, and Punisher finally manages to shoot him. Spidey freaks out and yells “I’m gonna die!” before Punisher says it was just one of his “mercy bullets,” as usual. Spidey kinda overreacted. I mean, I would think the difference between this and the real thing is something you could feel. Not that I wanna know. Anyway, Punisher then tosses a gas bomb at Spider-Man and escapes. Then Spider-Man remembers the dude said he had to reverse the death touch in 3 days, or the young woman would die. And Punisher killed that guy, so as she’s loaded into an ambulance, Spidey rushes off to try to find a solution. And while he does that, Ben Urich calls in his story…
Tell ’em, Pete! Meanwhile, at the coroner’s office, an employee tries to steal the ring off the dead man’s finger, pricks himself on it, and collapses. That’s what you get, dude. The Punisher has snuck in there, too, and thinks this confirms his suspicions. He’s about to just cut the whole finger off to get the ring, but there’s some menacing tentacles creeping up behind him.
That’s a rough beating for ol’ Frank. Meanwhile:
Miller & Janson are fully Miller & Janson, at this point. Miller’s previous appearances on this blog didn’t quite feel like the guy who drew Daredevil, but this sure is. The fake monk tells Spidey about the drugged ring, so he swings off to see if it’s still at the morgue, just in time to see a press conference about the body being stolen. And Ben Urich has also gone to the morgue, so…
The next day, the fake monk’s brother is at the docks, where he was instructed to drop the his canister of the drug from the ring in the ocean. Punisher shows up, and dives into the water just in time to see some familiar metal tentacles pulling the canister into a hatch on a submarine. The same one from last time? Doesn’t look like it, but who knows? Inside, Doc Ock has called the mayor (Very much Ed Koch), and announced his intention to poison millions of New Yorkers. As Punisher creeps up on him from behind, Ock dispatches him without even acknowledging his presence, still on the phone.
This is a much more intimidating Doc Ock than last time we saw him. He tells Punisher he’ll be dead soon, and then Spider-Man comes crashing through the wall. Ock simply tells him Punisher is poisoned and dying, knowing Spidey will try to save him instead of giving chase, and leaves. There follows a fun sequence where the drug-addled Punisher wakes up and attacks Spider-Man, with a surprising result…
Everyone’s stunting on Punisher this issue. Spidey saves him, and then calls in his story to The Bugle. Not often Peter has a story, but…
Having gotten the word out, Spidey then saves the girl from the demonstration, too. And swinging away from her hospital room, he realizes just how Doc Ock will poison 5 million people. Even as JJJ is at the Bugle, watching the presses, contemplating how his paper keeps 5 million people informed. Well. There you go. Guess who shows up?
Spidey battles Ock through the press room as JJJ says he’ll see him hanged. Spidey makes a point…
…and the battle continues. JJJ inevitably gets pulled into the fray, Doc Ock rips through tomorrow’s Bugles (And Klaus Janson tosses in this random headline about fellow star inker Terry Austin: “Terry Austin arrainged! Posts bail”), and then…
Then he knocks him right out. Elsewhere, the Punisher wakes up webbed to a post at the docks, and breaks the post to escape. But he only gets a couple steps before the cops find him. He gives up immediately, of course. This was back when Punisher was still as much of a novelty that, having been introduced as a sort-of-villain, you couldn’t be sure what he might do, so there’s a tense moment, but it passes, and he lets himself be arrested.
Cheese amighty! Fun story! Too bad no one told us how Doc Ock survived his death last time we saw him, but it probably would’ve been lame, anyway. Really tightly plotted issue. You can really feel how innovative Frank Miller’s pages were comparing this to… the vast majority of the comics we’ve seen here recently. His layouts were dynamic and different. Like a lot of his peers, he was changing the look and language of modern superhero comics, permanently.
The rest of the issue is bonus material, starting with the one mentioned on the cover, Spider-Man rating the power levels of the Marvel heroes. I’ve actually seen this passed around tumblr many times, maybe you have, too. It’s brought to us by Mark Gruenwald & Bob Layton. And by having it be Spider-Man’s opinion, not Mark’s, they can sidestep the inevitable fan complaints that characters are rated wrong (Although if I trust anyone at Marvel to have studied this topic enough to give a definitive answer, it’s continuity guru Mark Gruenwald). The ranks are Super-heavyweights, Heavyweights, Super-mediumweights, Mediumweights, and regular people, from Hulk to Captain America. Even some of the characters disagree.
Then there’s a floor plan of Peter’s apartment, saying the one in last year’s annual was wrong, and this one is the correction, and then a continuation of the 70s super-villain gallery from the Spectacular annual. Good stuff.