It’s never exciting to see Boomerang. How is Spidey surviving this cover? Shouldn’t his face be burned off? I mean, I’ll give it to Sal for considering that his boot jets are far more dangerous than his stupid boomerangs, but… that looks like Spider-Man getting killed. Peter’s in San Deigo for yet another stop on his seemingly endless book tour, and he’s on a morning talk show. But the first guest on said show is there to talk about a 100-year old sailing rivalry between American and Australian yachting clubs, over races the US has won…
The punchline is “The East European election is better-rigged.” This improbably gets a huge, involuntary laugh out of Peter, making the host mad. The lady making an ass of him is one Tama Janowitz, also a New York author. As Peter launches into his now well-rehearsed book pitch, Boomerang smashes a TV he’s watching it on.
Didja get the hint that these blokes’re Australian, mate? Peter is walking out of the studio with Tama, talking about the whole book tour gig, when they run into Baxter again. He advises Peter to learn to be more self-absorbed so he’ll do better on talk shows, then gets in his car and literally leaves them in the dust, coughing. The two authors decide to go get dinner. We jump ahead to that night, with Peter on the phone home to MJ complaining that this trip has been terrible and that he & Tama couldn’t actually get dinner because their hotel’s restaurant was closed due to health code violations. He says he misses her and they hang up, and he says he misses something else.
I can only guess, but this feels like Sal kinda trying to get with the times. All the flashy guys are doing more self-indulgent pages and splash pages. This is totally a McFarlane thing, a pointless pin-up of Spider-Man for no reason other than it looks cool. But… It doesn’t really look cool. This sort of thing isn’t really in Sal’s wheelhouse. Whatever else you can say about him, he’s a storyteller first. Drawing a big picture of Spider-Man just because clearly isn’t speaking to him. At any rate, after an hour of swinging around, Spidey is feeling ok, but then there’s an explosion at the marina, because of all that boat exposition earlier, and he swings down to find Boomerang on the scene.
So.. Boomerang’s plan there was… hope Spidey grabs that flagpole? Great plan. Boomerang flies away, and the cops show up pinning the explosion on Spider-Man, so he just leaves. He tells himself he ran Boomerang off and he doesn’t even like Baxter and he should just go home as planned tomorrow, but he knows he can’t. Speaking of tomorrow…
Now, I’m no lawyer, but… what? Really? Isn’t there, like, a statute of limitations? I actually had to look into this, it was bugging me. I found a site where lawyers answer peoples’ questions (handy) and there was an answer pretty close to this. I read that, in California, at least, there’s no statute of limitations on accessory after the fact to murder. However, the answering lawyer went on to say “That said, under most circumstances an accessory after the fact is not going to be charged 10 years later, especially if he/she cooperates with the police.” And it’s 20 years later for Robbie. Further searching seems to indicate there’s no statute of limitations in NY, either, but I assume the preceding would apply in any state. So, now that I’m an expert after 5 minutes of Googlin’, seems like Robbie would be in the clear here. But I guess, to be fair, Gerry Conway didn’t have Google in 1988. Back in San Diego, Peter skips out on a book signing early to go try to stop Boomerang from blowing up that Baxter guy.
Baxter’s Aussie rival accuses him of paying officials to change the race rules and trying to get his ship impounded, but he vows to expose him. Their argument is cut short when Boomerang comes crashing through the window. He tosses some kinda sonic emitter boomerang that incapacitates most people and hits Crippen in the neck with a regular one. Peter was sure the Aussie boat guy hired the Aussie hit man, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
No one explains Spider-Man’s “pop up out the water” strategy. How’d he get down there without Boomerang seeing him? Why do that at all? He grabs Boomerang’s ankle, and Boomerang shoots up into the air, talking about how a fall from this height would kill Spider-Man. And then…
He legit got hit in the face with a jet! How is he alive??? He’s not even particularly hurt! “Stunned.” Yeah, ok. Back on land, Baxter says he’s sure someone was after him, and Boomerang hit Crippen by mistake. He also tells reporters Crippen was a dear friend, “brothers of the sea,” and he’ll miss him. Spider-Man thinks he has to stick around to see this through, no matter how much he wants to go home.
Sal’s approximation of McFarlane’s Webs cover down there is fascinating to me. Will Boomerang blow up some boats next time? Will Baxter get away with it? Will Spider-Man ever get to go home? I think we can guess the answers, but we’ll see next time.
Tama Janowitz seemed way too specific, and some more Googling reveals she’s a real person. She was promoting a real book on the fictional talk show in this comic. Conway must’ve either known her or just really liked her.
In the letter column, a military dude is upset that “Colonel South” back in the Tarantula story in TAC 137 & 138 seemed to be a derogatory caricature of Oliver North (I totally didn’t catch that). Specialist Frank C. Buzzard, Jr. is very offended that Marvel would malign that great hero. Boy, did that letter age poorly, huh? Kinda funny.