If yer gonna do a retro comic like this, Mike Allred is pretty natural choice of artist. His whole thing is a kind of kitchy, 60s-influenced style that he’s used to great effect in several things over the years. Why not bring in him on this?
It’s an interesting thing, because you can see that classic comic influence, but you’d never mistake his art for being from that period. It’s wearing its influences on its sleeve, but it’s very much his own thing. No easy feat. And here, he’s being inked by the legend, Joe Sinnott, who inked Fantastic Four through much of Kirby’s time and many of his successors, so this is gonna look far more at home mixed in with the ASMs than the usual. Kurt Busiek still writes, Steve Mattson still colors. We skip ahead to evening, where Reed Richards his being pretty rude to Sue because he’s doing science, which, while pretty authentic to the period, is something Kurt could’ve updated. She storms out of his lab to find Johnny and Ben engaged in their typical hijinks. They try to cheer her up, but then Spider-Man appears at the window.
Now that’s an unusual hook! As always, I don’t remember this at all. In fact, I was so sure I didn’t own this issue that I bought one off the internet, only to find I already had one. Oops. Anyway, the boys can’t believe Sue would really go out with Spider-Man, and she reminds them of the wacky story in ASM 8, when he left her a valentine. She thinks maybe he’ll be more attentive than SOME people. The next day, Peter Parker can’t focus on school at all, because he’s got a date with The Invisible Girl. He gets home in time to catch Aunt May answering the phone for Betty. She’s decided to give Peter another chance tonight, but of course, he can’t go, so she hangs up mad. The usual.
This is both pretty amusing and totally the kind of goofy story they might’ve done in the 60s. This is the most on-brand Untold Tales has been in awhile. Meanwhile, at the pizza place, instead of kindling their own romance, Sue & Spidey are complaining about the problems in their real relationships when one of Sue’s problems comes smashing through the window. He “rescues” Sue by picking her up out of their booth, and when Spidey objects, he gets punched right through a wall. So it’s time for a real goofy Two Heroes Fight Over A Misunderstanding.
Sue shoots the FF’s “4” signal into the air, and while she waits for her team to show up, the battle continues raging across the city. As Spider-Man does his best to avoid Namor’s wrath, he keeps trying to find out why they’re fighting, to no avail. He begins think someone else is behind this…
The stars in Spidey’s eyes are a nice touch. Namor’s so furious he doesn’t see the big hunk of wall he threw is headed for, you guessed it, Betty & JJJ. Spider-Man’s pretty wrecked, but he drops all his defenses to web the rubble and save them. Namor finally sees that he’s been deceived, but now Spider-Man’s so angry about Betty almost getting hurt, he’s ready to start the fight all over again, until an invisible force field separates them.
A pretty fun romp! You really can’t get away with this kind of thing by the 90s and beyond (Tho some guys try, and it sucks!), but doing this throwback thing gives you an out. Why not indulge? Next up for the annual, they do “A gallery of Spider-Man’s most famous foes!” like they have tended to do over the years, only this one’s totally made up of characters created for this series (And Busiek’s Amazing Fantasy 16-18). So you get folks like Sal Buscema and Jim Mooney drawing The Undertaker and Joey Pulaski from AF 16 & 17, Gil Kane himself drawing Supercharger from #18…
Pat Olliffe inked by the great Klaus Janson doing Scorcher, a Mike Weiringo & Cam Smith Batwing, Mark Bagley & Mark Farmer’s take on The Spacemen, and then this odd final one…
…which kinda blows up the whole thing. The Wizard wasn’t created for this series. Kind of confusing. Torch recreating a bit from the 60s Spider-Man cartoon back there is funny, tho. The next feature is another throwback bit.
Kurt & Pat follow In the tradition of the wild, obviously fake strips Stan, Jack & Steve used to do showing how they made the comics. They do a short, but pretty good one. Then, the regular team (With Pam Eklund back on inks in place of Al Williamson) present…
Spider-Man takes you through the book’s cast and locations, while Kurt casually adds photographer Phil Sheldon from his legendary Marvels series with Alex Ross to The Bugle staff despite him not appearing in ASM or UTS, for that matter. But he technically is supposed to have been there, so that’s fun. The book ends on this:
Pretty funny. A very enjoyable issue overall. Maybe not quite good enough to accidentally buy twice, but still, pretty fun!