Well, that escalated quickly. Paul Lee flies solo again to wrap this story up. We begin with Peter telling himself he’s not a superhero in his narration, even as Flash talks about how great Spider-Man is to some of his classmates. Peter quickly recaps his origin and the last few issues, sheesh, but he says all the things he’s done since becoming Spider-Man don’t make him a hero, it’s just helping out. We then cut to him leaping out of a burning building with a child in his arms, classic style.
He says his “Something extra” isn’t enough because he finds Aunt May trying to figure out the household budget without Ben’s income, and it’s not good. Again… The TV career would fix this. Is May & Peter starving to death really what Uncle Ben would’ve wanted? Then we get to maybe the biggest anachronism of this series: Peter goes up to his room to study, and he has a TV in there! These people are supposed to be 1960s-poor and they have 2 TVs?? Does May have one, too? Shoulda thought about this, fellas. Tonight on “It’s Amazing,” Thor is helping the government test a missile defense system. Peter thinks that’s a real hero, one who doesn’t have a frail aunt or money troubles or homework. Right on all counts! Peter finally decides he can do something about the money, he just doesn’t want to. So the next day, he’s swallowed his pride and shown up at Maxie’s office.
Giving Jameson additional beef with Spider-Man seems kind of unnecessary, but at least it’s tied around the familiar theme that people should be more impressed by his astronaut son.
I do like that JJJ’s technical first encounter with Spider-Man is watching him try to convince people he’s no hero. Certainly no the gloryhound JJJ is already painting him as. That’s fun. Hang on, one more page…
This guy doesn’t fit at all. Like, at all. I know it’s the 90s, but some consideration should’ve been taken, here. Try to make him look at least a little like a Ditko design. Many years from now, a miniseries called Learning To Crawl will be inserted into Spider-Man’s early days. It takes place in direction contradiction to this series, beginning right after the last panel of AF 15. That’s annoying, and it’s worse than this, so I don’t really care about it, but it will introduce a new villain that fits in perfectly with the early Spidey villains thanks to the great artist Ramon Perez, named Clash. This guy looks exactly like the times he was created in. At any rate, our man’s getting a low level buzz from his danger sense for the first time, and isn’t sure what’s causing it. He muses that maybe letting this TV thing happen, and the money from it, could actually help him help people, as Supercharger says he has some things to do before the show. As the show gets closer to starting, we see JJJ still fuming in the audience, and see John, gracious as ever, saying they’re just giving the people what they want and it’s no big deal. He asks a random kid in the next row who happens to be Flash whether he’d prefer Spider-Man or an astronaut, and gets the obvious answer. Then the show begins, as the host introduces a segment about a new hero called Iron Man…
So not only is this guy way out of place, he’s just proto-Electro on top of that. Spider-Man thinks this guy must’ve been setting of his Spider Sense, since he’s an actual supervillain “like that Dr. Doom guy!” SC says he’s going to tell everyone why he’s killing them, making sure this all gets filmed and assuring everyone all the exits are sealed.
Alrighty. So he’s sort of the anti-Peter Parker. Speaking of who, Spider-Man has scrambled back stage, thinking this supervillain requires a real superhero. He tries to call The Baxter Building, but of course, the phone lines have been cut. So he tosses a filing cabinet through a window, intent on just going to get the FF personally, when he hears a scream and looks back to see Supercharger holding a woman by the throat, saying he regrets having to do this, but that the world has to see the horror that comes from superbeings. Suddenly our man is out of options.
SC suddenly glows really bright and finally tags Spidey with a zap that sends him crashing into the stage. He’s really out of it, but Flash Thompson cheering for him makes him remember people are counting on him, and he’s back up. He tells a nearby stagehand he’s got a plan, but he needs help while SC is recharging.
They’ve hooked the villain to the TV antenna, and his energy is channeled into it, lighting the night sky and draining him completely. Most of the crowd goes wild, but some think he’s no better than Supercharger. The usual for Spider-Man, really.
And that’s the game. Extra motivation for JJJ’s crusade has been provided, Spider-Man’s no closer to figuring out his money problems, and we’re out. Not the most essential story, but they did a good job with it, overall. This is not the last of Supercharger, but strangely, he never encountered Spider-Man again. Busiek reused him in a couple issues of Thunderbolts, and he somehow managed to appear in the final issues of 2 different X-Titles, X-Men Legacy and a Gambit solo series. But no rematch with the guy who first put him away. Well, with these out of the way, we can move on to Spider-Man’s actual 2nd appearance. I must say, this feels awkward to me. I thought I’d prefer running these issues chronologically, but they’re all so different from the originals that I’m not, actually. I dunno. They gotta go somewhere…