I wasn’t sure how to handle this, so this entire series is getting a block. Spider-Man’s Tangled Web was yet another attempt at a Spider-Man anthology title, like Webspinners only a few years prior. But this book is launched under Jemas/Quesada, and so will showcase all sorts of unusual and surprising people as it tries to give you some truly different Spider-Man stories. It ran for 22 issues, and given the nature of the series, the stories take place all over the timeline. It didn’t really fit or make sense merged with the other titles. It started publication the same month as ASM 30, the same month everything changed, and wrapped alongside ASM 49 and PPSM 52. Anthologies are notoriously a hardsell in comics, for whatever reason. Almost 2 years is pretty respectable, really.
The series kicks off with a story by several guys who are known for working together at DC & DC’s Vertigo imprint: Writer Garth Ennis, penciler John McCrea and cover painter Glenn Fabry. Ennis rose to fame largely on the back of Preacher, co-created with Steve Dillion and featuring covers every issue by Fabry. Remember the 1993 Marvel annuals all debuting “great” new characters like Annex and Nocturne? DC did the same thing the same year, and the only thing to come out of either company’s crop with any legs was Hitman, who starred in a surprisingly long-running series by Garth Ennis and John McCrea that even got its own spinoff. So all these guys have a long history together, and new Spider-Man Group editor Axel Alonso spent a long time at DC/Vertigo, so launching with them makes a lot of sense in that way. However, it doesn’t make a lot of sense in that Garth Ennis was pretty widely known for hating superheroes. Hitman was an anti-hero used to make fun of superheroes. Quesada brought Ennis & Dillon over to do Punisher for Marvel Knights, and he sometimes used that book to make fun of Daredevil, Spider-Man and others (One memorable story featured a straight up Looney Tunes fight with Wolverine, really taking advantage of how nothing can kill him). As this is published, he’s 2 or 3 years away from launching The Boys, which, obviously, is all about how awful superheroes are. Why, exactly, you would ask him to do 3 issues of Spider-Man, and why he would say yes, are hard to fathom. But it happened, and here it is, with inks by James Hodgkins and colors by Steve Buccellato.
Well, that’s a weird start, right?
Spidey tricks Rhino into throwing that truck miles away, but it’s got along webline attached to it, which sproings it right back at him. Spidey does his meanest comedy since the 70s as he stalls for the truck. That guy in the diner complains about how everyone loves Spider-Man (Uh, since when?) as the cops come and take Rhino away, again complaining it should have been him. McRea gets to draw a splash of Spidey fighting the Sinister Six as this guy details all that he feels he deserves from Spider-Man’s life, and how he’s gonna take it.
Garth Ennis is probably the only person who’d note it was Irish linen.
Ennis is known for writing insane, violent, gory, shocking comics, and he’s good at that. So good I think people forget he’s really good at writing just normal people when he’s in the mood. Like, that’s a really sweet Aunt May moment, and you’re getting it from the Preacher guy. Meanwhile, we learn that guy with the hat, Carl, was a bully to Peter Parker earlier in his life, before Flash, and far worse, far more in keeping with Ennis’ mean streak. In the present, he’s looking at the Daily Bugle, where a rampaging JJJ rejects photos of Spider-Man’s battle with the Rhino as “old hat,” and makes some references to Bill Gates and Dick Cheney that suggest this story is happening “now,” but then, why is Peter working at the Bugle? JJJ storms into his office and a “Jess Patton,” his secretary, offers to try to convince him to take the photos after Peter leaves. Pete is so grateful he doesn’t notice “Ms. Patton” is into him. Very 1970s Spider-Man. Can’t meet a woman that doesn’t want him. After hours, Ms. Patton is working late when Carl appears in the office and begins to attack her.
Ennis’ history in horror comics comes right to the fore all of a sudden. Well. This should be a weird one. I remember buying this, but don’t really remember reading it. In lieu of a letter page, Axel Alonso explains the premise of the book:
Oh, hey, thanks for the placement in time, Axel! Ok. Peter turning around and dating a model as soon as MJ leaves him feels weird, and I’m pretty sure he never got his job at the Bugle back, but whatever. It’s Jemas/Quesada-era Marvel, these sorts of things are the price of doing business.