I had a very tiring day and I don’t know if I have the strength to deal with one of these, but here I am. Mysterio. 2nd worst classic villain in my opinion. A gag that only works once, maybe twice. I bet this is bad. The great Christie Scheele tags in to color this month, and JJJ is meeting Mysterio on page one, which means we’re starting on page 9 of ASM 13.
Byrne’s going for the weirder, creeper Mysterio of that first appearance, and I certainly approve of that. Certainly feels like a character that kind of only worked when Ditko drew him. Back at the scene of last issue’s cliffhanger, a woman with short blonde hair at the police cordon tells a “chief” on the phone that Jameson was wrong again, and Electro isn’t Spider-Man. Is this meant to be a young Kate Cushing? Who knows, she is not named and doesn’t appear again. What was that? Elsewhere, Johnny gets free of Spider-Man’s web, since we’re continuing both ASM 9 and ST Annual 2 after having started ASM 13, already in progress. Sheesh.
The prisoners choose this moment to start attacking Spider-Man again, allowing Electro to just… walk away, no powers or anything, but then the Torch shows up to put a wall of flame between Spidey and the cons. Torch says Spidey can go get Electro and he’ll take care of the cons. This gets us to the actual end of the Electro/Spidey fight from ASM 9, complete with a worse version of Stan’s unmasking gag.
A joke really is all in the telling.
Peter & Betty have literally not spoken in this comic. Betty’s not been NAMED in this comic. And now they’re ready to date? Could there be more damning of just how wrongheaded and focused on the wrong things this series is? Well, suddenly it’s 2 days later, and the beginning of ASM 13 has happened after the middle, with Spider-Man caught on camera robbing a place, JJJ delighted, a Robbie who shouldn’t even be here mad about it, and Peter instantly assuming he really did that robbery even tho he doesn’t remember it. Again, a chance to try to improve a dumb plot point, and no attempt is made.
At least May gets to talk for a change. So, in Ditko’s version, Mysterio faked Spider-Man’s robbery then showed up at JJJ’s with his note to print in the Bugle. In this, he gives JJJ the note first, telling him not to open it for 2 days, THEN fakes the robbery, and then has JJJ find out he knew the robbery would happen in advance. And JJJ isn’t suspicious at all! This is SO MUCH WORSE! I guess this is all so Robbie can point out how wrong JJJ is, to establish the relationship they shouldn’t have yet. So bad! Spider-Man goes to the bridge, meets Mysty, the battle in the smoke cloud, more or less the original. Except instead of realizing he has to escape that cloud to survive and leaping off the bridge, Spider-Man is utterly bamboozled and punched off the bridge.
JJJ introduces Peter to Mysterio, then we skip the 2nd fight scene in ASM 13 and get right to the third, with Spidey following the tracer he put on Mysterio to a movie studio. Yeah, he’s got tracers now, and he doesn’t need a receiver to follow them. Where’d the tracers come from? I guess it doesn’t matter!
Earlier, Peter mentioned it’s been almost a year since he got bit by the spider. Here, it’s been “months” since issue 2. And yet, every issue combos right into the next one. This whole series to date seems more like it happened in one very busy week. Because of the idiotic decision to cut every issue in half, it doesn’t feel like time is passing at all! Man I can’t wait to be done with this…