Skip to content
Menu
  • Secret Origin!
Menu

TAC 037

Posted on March 1, 2022January 27, 2021 by spiderdewey

That Mike Nasser cover feels so different. Guys like him were doing stuff that seems much more contemporary now. Inside, Pablo Marcoss waps in on inks, but otherwise, same team. Spider-Man is in in deadly combat with Swarm, and it’s not going well!

Are spiders and bees natural enemies? I don’t feel like looking it up. Seems fishy (Especially coming from Bill Mantlo). Spidey gets stung by a whole lot more bees and is eventually knocked unconscious and falls into vat of stuff, which turns out to be Super Insect Repellent, and that’s what saves his life. Lucky him!

Wow, it’s the two dumbest police officers in the history of fiction! And look, it’s that creepy dude from last issue having a good time in the background. Swarm wanders off to do Swarm things (Find a place for his queen to “mutate,” as mentioned last issue). Spidey barely avoids Dr. Sloan, Steve & Phil as they come in to see the damage now that Swarm and Spider-Man are gone. Dr. Sloan doesn’t have a mustache and it’s weird. Peter meanwhile enters his lab and manages to switch into his civilian identity just in time to fall through a door and be found by those guys and pass out again.

That giant bee hive is RIDICULOUS. Oh man, oh man, are we doing this? Marcy Kane was working on a “super bug repellent,” which is what Spidey fell into earlier that saved his life, and she and the boys get to work on a new batch. as the bee situation only gets worse outside.

Hey, where’d his costume come from if he’s not wearing it under that shirt? He also douses his web fluid with the stuff, saying it’s lucky the 2 are chemically compatible. Sure is! Seems CRAZY lucky to me! So armed, Spidey heads out. And good thing, too, because the bees attack his classmates and instantly destroy their canisters of repellent. As usual, it’s up to our man. Spider-Man enters the hive, only to find that the bees have “mutated a queen” so that she is way bigger than a human being! Even bigger than the one in the flashback last issue! But the other bees are all still bee-sized, so like, how is this going to work, biologically? I am not a bee man, I don’t have the answers, but it’s my gut feeling that this is some exceptionally psuedo-science, man.

Spider-Man flips Swarm over him by the goofy white gloves he wears and then douses the giant queen in more of the bug spray, and it finally begins to work on Swarm himself, causing the bees to flee from his skeleton…

So, like, is that murder? I mean, technially Swarm was just a skeleton earlier, and now he’s just a skeleton again, but… Man, what a silly story. What an ignoble introduction to the ESU supporting cast. Bill Mantlo has his name on a lot of really silly stories, and this is surely one. But also: What happens in the next 10 minutes? Do all the regular human people slowly find out the evil skeleton made a giant queen bee in there? Does this not shake their understanding of reality to its core, forever? Does everyone agree to just never speak of this again? Regular people in superhero universes can really shrug things off, I guess.

  • Bill Mantlo
  • Dr. Sloan
  • Jim Mooney
  • Marcy Kane
  • Mike Esposito
  • Phil Chang
  • Spectacular Spider-Man
  • Spider-Man
  • Steve Hopkins
  • Swarm
  • Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Recent Posts

    • TAC 245
    • TAC 244
    • TAC 243
    • TAC 242
    • Final Adventure 4

    Archives

    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • May 2022
    • April 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • April 223

    Categories

    • 1960s
    • 1970s
    • 1980s
    • 1990s
    • Uncategorized

    Tags

    Alex Saviuk Al Milgrom Amazing Spider-Man Aunt Anna Aunt May Ben Reilly Ben Urich Betty Brant Bill Mantlo Black Cat Bob Sharen David Michelinie Doctor Octopus Flash Thompson Frank Giacoia Gerry Conway Glory Grant Gwen Stacy Harry Osborn J. Jonah Jameson Jim Mooney JM DeMatteis Joe Robertson John Romita John Romita Jr Keith Williams Kevin Tinsley Kingpin Len Wein Liz Allen Marvel Team-Up Mary Jane Watson Mike Esposito Nathan Lubensky Ned Leeds Roger Stern Ross Andru Sal Buscema Scarlet Spider Spectacular Spider-Man Spider-Man Stan Lee Todd McFarlane Tom DeFalco Web of Spider-Man

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org
    ©2022 | Design: Newspaperly WordPress Theme