I have absolutely no idea where I got a coverless copy of Web of Spider-Man 24. None. How could I have gotten then? When? Where? I guess I’ll never remember. I wonder what the cover looks like. Looked it up, here it is:
Alrighty. This should be interesting, a Michelinie story with both The Vulture and Nathan in it. Will they know each other? Seems unlikely! Del Barras is in on pencils, Bob Sharen on colors.
I will never understand why Michelinie had it in for Nathan. He was such a cool guy as portrayed by Stern. Feisty, loyal, smart, funny. Now he’s “that old grouch.”
A little warning about the ills of gambling from your friend, Peter Parker. He catches up with the others and suggest an ice cream and a walk on the boardwalk, but only May is interested. Then we shift our focus to casino owner Owen Briosky, playing tennis when The Vulture shows up. He’s used his electrical know how to create remote controlled cheating dice.
The Vulture looks, like, half his age in this comic. He looks like Lex Luthor. Also, his wings aren’t attached properly. I’m not familiar with Del Barras, and I wonder how familiar he is with this character. Peter tries to ignore the broken window even as a chair falls out. He thinks he’s going to quit being Spider-Man soon, anyway, he’s got to get used to it. But then he sees someone being forced out the window, and can’t stop himself from making a lame excuse and running off “to the men’s room.” May thinks he’ needs to learn to relax. Hey, why’s he dressed like Saturday Night Fever, anyway?
That’s right, it’s the rrrrrather absurd technical 2nd appearance of Venom. I mean, this is pretty out of the way, and he just happened to be in that window? The subway attack was a lot more plausible. Anyway, Peter returns to May, saying it took so long because he wanted to go get his camera and get some pictures of their trip. Meanwhile, not too far away, The Vulture is talking up a storm to himself in the home of a recently deceased associate. He’s talking about how he has to get a ton of money to pay for an extravagant funeral, and also to be illegally taxidermied, and also tha his preserved body should be displayed in a museum. He’s really spitballing. He says he has to secure a “nest-egg,” and cracks himself up, which is a delightfully human little thing. Later that night, Peter & the gang are sitting through a magic act that he is not enjoying. But he probably won’t have to worry about that too much longer…
Back at the magic show, Peter’s Spider Sense starts going off, and he decides the easiest way to slip away is to… volunteer to disappear in a magic act, and then actually disappear. That’s a choice, alright. As Spider-Man swings into action, Vulture is terrorizing the casino floor and demanding to know where Briosky is. He found him pretty easily before…?
They mix it up in the usual style, and Spider-Man winds up stuck to a wall holding a giant slot machine up so people can run to safety. He has to stand there and get clobbered to let the people get away, but as Vulture dives at his dazed foe, quite literally the last thing I expected happens: A pumpkin bomb is chucked into frame.
Hobby almost never appears outside of ASM! And his story is about to be locked up tight over there, too! That is very surprising. Also, what on Earth is supposed to be happening in panel 1? But before Hobby can kill Spider-Man, Rose’s right-and-left-hand men show up and tell him they need to go back to New York. So, Hobby settles for a few parting zaps and takes off. Spider-Man is tremendously confused.
Indeed. The end of this issue is setting up the big final Hobgoblin story in ASM, which started just a few weeks later. But… as we’ve seen… This comic has been making it really, really hard for the others to happen at all, so it doesn’t line up like that. In the letter column, they run an apology for forgetting the credits to Web 22, and run them here… but what about Web 20? I’ve been noticing that Vince Colletta has a particular look for the black Spider-Man costume. Much like his women all tend to look like “Colletta women” no matter who’s drawing, I’ve seen him ink several people’s take on the black suit, and the way he does the black, and how much of it he doesn’t spot at all, is very consistent. Inkers had a whole lot of power.