In a real trend recently, I’ve had this one a long time, but don’t know where it came from. Obviously, it predates my beginning to collect comics by several years. Where’d it come from? No idea. That is one lovingly rendered butt shot by Bob Hall. I was sure I’d covered this already when we saw Spider-Man guest star in Avengers West Coast, but I guess better late than never. Would that Hall was involved with interiors, but instead, it’s the not-exactly-dream-team of Danny Fingroth, Jim Mooney, Vince Colletta & Art Nichols, and Bob Sharen. Despite Vince having a, ahem, complicated reputation, to put it mildly, he was a part of the classic Marvel Bullpen still kicking, and by all accounts, Jim Shooter loved the guy, and would encourage his editors to hire him. Which is why he pops up on all these one-offs and fill-ins. I think it’s kind of funny, the idea of an overpowering inker like Mooney having his pencils inked by another overpowering inker. One wonders what he thought of that. Anyway. Let’s get this show on the road.
Assuming they have something to do with each other is pretty reasonable…
…on the other hand, “They’re obviously in cahoots, they’re obviously dating” is a wild thing to say about people who demonstrably live on opposite sides of the country. Seems more like you’d assume Spider-Woman is a copycat. And be wrong, since Spider-Man copied her. I think maybe they covered how Julia was working with “Freedom Force,” The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants rebranded and forced to work for Uncle Sam, in those Avengers West Coast issues, but I don’t remember. Anyway. Not quite how Jonah portrays it, but largely correct. Meanwhile, across the country, Spider-Woman has broken into “The computer disk storage room at Dextron Labs” to steal something for Clemson, still her government handler in the much later Avengers West Coast 84, 85, 86, but is having trouble finding it, when a wrecking ball comes smashing through the door.
The amount of Thunderball cropping up on this blog is shocking to me. Sure, it’s only 3 issues so far (After ASM 247 & 248 and that crazy Round Robin thing ending in ASM 358),, but that’s 3 more than you’d expect him to tangle with Spider-Man. Or Spider-Woman, I guess, at this point. Thunderball, the only member of The Wrecking Crew who’d not an idiot, finds his way to the very same disc Julia is here to steal, imagine that. Once he has it in hand and she realizes, she swoops down and steals it from him.
One imagines Bulldozer must have inspired Ram Man from the He-Man toys. Same gimmick, similar helmets.
Julia flashes back to her life to let us know she has a daughter and ex-husband, which we more or less covered in Avengers West Coast 84, but curiously not back to how she got her powers, then jumps forward (in the past) to Secret Wars and what she’s been up to since.
For a character who’s appeared in 6 stories spanning 12 comics in 3 years, Julia Carpenter has a remarkable amount of baggage. Back in New York, Peter is jarred from sleep by Mrs. Muggins nailing an eviction notice to his door, then saying he has til the end of the week to pay his back rent, which… I don’t think that’s how eviction works. But she makes her point, and Peter prepares to go out west looking for Spider-Woman. Time for some exposition… Again…
This issue is now half over, Peter Parker has appeared on 2 pages, and most of it has been glorified wikipedia entries for Spider-Woman and The Wrecking Crew. Sheesh! Then things get even MORE ridiculous as we jump ahead 3 days and find out all that took place before the Avengers Under Siege story, which tracks, since that’s what Wrecker was talking about, joining Zemo, but which means The Wrecking Crew have all been defeated and captured now. Did Peter go to Denver? Julia is now in Manhattan, looking for her disc, and learns of The Wrecking Crew’s apprehension, minus Wrecker, who escaped. This story is a mess! She calls Clemson, who is as much an evil and manipulative jerk here as he is in the later Avengers West Coast story, telling her she still has to find the disc (They keep saying “disc,” but it’s 1987, they were “disks” at this time).
Hey, we can actually feel bad for Wrecker, that’s unusual. Why did Julia bring her purse? She doesn’t seem to know, either, as she abandons it on a roof to follow Wrecker as he leaves for his hotel. Julia sees the disK in his bag through the window, and seems weirdly concerned that he could beat up to a pulp considering she did pretty good against all 4 of them and now it’s just Wrecker, but she dives in, anyway. And gets tossed right back out.
With 6 pages left in this issue, we check in on Peter Parker again, who didn’t make it to Denver due to “everything that’s been happening,” and now only has 1 day to pay his rent. He’s in a cab for the airport when he hears on the radio that Spider-Woman is in Manhattan, bails out the window, and Spider-Man finally puts in an appearance in his own book, headed for the fight. Back at said fight, Julia goes on the offensive again.
Spider-Man sure does encounter Spider-Women who have been framed for or coerced into supervillainy a lot. Like, more than you’d expect, anyway. Wrecker whacks the barely conscious Spider-Man in the head, and then starts wrecking. In the 60s Thor comics in which Wrecker was created, Jack Kirby rendered these completely insane images of him demolishing walls with a swig of his crowbar, doing way more damage than he really could, with all the power and intensity Kirby could muster. It made for some truly striking visuals, and really sold the preposterous idea that some guy with a crowbar (Empowered by The Norn Queen) could fight Thor. A similar kind of destruction follows in this book, but lacking 100% of Kirby’s power. In fact, as Wrecker destroys a wall, it looks like some rocks just fell out of the ceiling or something. He’s whupping both Spiders with ease when the cops show up outside. So Wrecker smashes down a big chunk of exterior wall.
Seems like next issue is gonna be a bruiser. I don’t know why Peter couldn’t just keep the unmasked photo to himself and use the others, but oh well. I remain kind of fascinated by how Colletta is normalizing Spider-Man across various pencilers. Mooney here, Del Barras in Web 24, Jim Fern in Web 23, Larry Leiber in Web 21. Even, to a lesser extent, John Romita, Jr. in the later ASM 291. Colletta decided how the black suit should look and made it look that way.