Man, is this gonna be the same thing as last issue but with superhero comics? It’s Tom DeFalco, Joe Bennett, Bud LaRosa and Bob Sharen, the usual gang from ASM in 1997, and…
I wonder if Stan ever even saw any of these, let alone had a hand in his portrayal. I’d bet not.
Good catch with the monster comics reference. Not that I’m keen to post every page of this issue or anything, but the next page has some exposition…
That’s longstanding Daily Bugle reporter Jacob Conover chatting with Phil Sheldon, the photojournalist protagonist of the wildly successful Marvels series from a few years prior. And that guy being through out of the bar is Prince Namor himself, wandering the surface world with amnesia, waiting to accidentally be restored to his former glory by Johnny Storm in an early issue of Fantastic Four. A lot going on for a single page. Continuing in this vein, the next page is a meeting between the aforementioned “boss of bosses,” Don Rigoletto, recently created in Frank Miller & John Romita, Jr.’s Daredevil origin miniseries The Man Without Fear as the guy Kingpin replaced, and Fortunato, the mob boss from the present day comics of 1997. Fortunato is worried that Rigoletto is in danger of an mutiny, but he says he’s quite safe, especially with the big bruiser of a bodyguard he’s got, which is naturally Wilson Fisk. Tying all kinds of things together. Meanwhile, back at the Parker home, Peter’s thinking about how great it would be to be a hero like Captain America, idol of millions, and imaging himself as Cap, the original Human Torch, The Angel, and other Golden Age Marvel heroes from the 40s until Uncle Ben reminds him they’re gonna play catch. But we cut to…
Interesting to see that bit of backstory. I wonder how Jonah & Robbie met. I wonder if it’s ever been shown. We cut back to the mobsters for a shot-for-shot remake of a scene from Man Without Fear in which Fisk snaps Rigoletto’s neck and assumes control of his mob! Wut? Why? DeFalco spreads the original page across 2 and adds this big panel on the 2nd:
Weird.
Aw, Ben. He tried. Meanwhile, Conover has just started interviewing Fortunato, which seems rather odd, when goons show up to hit him. Conover knocks some crates over to create a diversion, allowing Fortunato to shoot all his would be assassins. This is cut with Peter Parker once again daydreaming about being Captain America. Fortunato tells Conover he owes him a debt for saving his life. He’s leaving town, and says he’ll return when Kingpin is out of power, and that when he does, he’ll square things with Jacob. I guess that’s gonna play into Conover being down on his luck in the current books of 1997. DeFalco seems a little too eager to use this to just setup and reference plot points in his current books instead of trying to do something more evergreen. Kind of a shame.
Ouch. Back at The Bugle, we see Phil Sheldon checking in with a shellshocked Jacob Conover, who jump at the chance to do a boring flower show assignment, having lost his nerve. Maybe for the best.
Well, there you go. The idea that Peter was working on his webs 3 years before he became Spider-Man is a bit much, but I guess it helps explain how he seemed to invent and manufacture them in like 2 minutes in his actual origin, so I see the reasoning. There follows a bizarre 3-pager by DeFalco, Pat Olliffe, Al Williamson and Bob Sharen called “The Secrets of Peter Parker.” Written in the style of 60s features that would highlight a characters various powers and gimmicks, it just shows you Peter was basically the most pathetic human being who ever lived prior to becoming Spider-Man, making sure to show obviously contradictory things like being unusually weak for his age and afraid of heights. Kind of dumb, really, but I get what they were going for. And that’s the ballgame.