{"id":1050,"date":"2019-07-16T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T04:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=1050"},"modified":"2019-05-18T01:51:46","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T05:51:46","slug":"mtu-114","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2019\/07\/16\/mtu-114\/","title":{"rendered":"MTU 114"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here we drop into a rough patch for MTU. I\u2019ve been reading it, but due to the chopped up chronology of this blog, this is the first issue I\u2019ll be talking about. I know the guy has fans, but I cannot deal with the art of Herb Trimpe. It\u2019s just\u2026 not good, man. It\u2019s bad. I can\u2019t be polite about it, at this point, because I have already suffered through 8 issues of Team-Up drawn by him and seemingly written by whoever happened to be available (Tom Defalco, JM Dematteis, David Michelinie, Mark Gruenwald), and he draws 6 more after this. And most of them have covers by someone else, like Frank Miller or John Romita, Jr. or Bob Layton, or this beauty by Mike Zeck, and that makes it all the more crushing to open the book and be greeted by Trimpe\u2019s crude, awkward drawings. But I gotta do this, so let\u2019s get on with it. Mike Esposito continues as inker as JM DeMatteis puts an end to the revolving door on the writer\u2019s credit for awhile. Things are wild from page one.
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I mean, look at that. What is the appeal? Anyway, this dude barely avoids knocking Aunt May down, and then 3 guys in matching red, white & blue cowboy costumes come chasing after him, and one of them does bump into Aunt May. They identify themselves as \u201cThe Young Watchers,\u201d a group of kids who\u2019ve set themselves up as a vigilante group Peter has heard of. And the one who bumped Aunt May stole her purse! Peter takes May & Nathan back to the nursing home, and then goes to The Daily Bugle to pitch an article about the Young Watchers to JJJ. He\u2019s already written his own, though, and it\u2019s glowing praise. Peter is baffled that JJJ of all people would condone a gang of vigilantes, so JJJ starts reciting his article at him.
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That is one shakey argument, Spidey. Like, Hawkeye doesn\u2019t even meet your standard* for who\u2019s allowed to be vigilantes. You\u2019re on thin ice here, Mr. DeMatteis. As Spidey swings around deciding who gets to break the law to stop law breakers, we shift our scene to the office of Sam Wilson, social worker, finishing up with a client. He sees Spider-Man swing by outside and cuts the meeting short, assuming if Spider-Man is ins his part of town, there\u2019s trouble, and deciding to become The Falcon to investigate. Not far away, Spidey has reached a brownstone that The Young Watchers are based out of. He thinks to us that The Bugle got a tip an some anonymous rich guy is funding their operation, then drops in for a visit.
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The assembled dudes don\u2019t like being called thieves and rush Spider-Man, but, I mean, he\u2019s Spider-Man, so that doesn\u2019t accomplish much, and then The Falcon swoops in the open window.
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Thiiiiin ice, Mr. DeMatteis. Spidey leaves in a huff, and then we meet the mysterious benefactor of The Young Watchers, who is chastising their leader for letting that kid steal Aunt May\u2019s purse and bringing unwanted attention from superheroes. But whoever he is, his identity will have to wait, as we catch back up with The Falcon.
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Well, then. Later that night, Spider-Man is once again spying on the Watchers, grumbling about Falcon\u2019s interference, as Falcon appears. In a rare moment, the two heroes apologize for being mean to each other earlier instead of fighting for a couple of pages. Then Falcon says he\u2019s looking into The Watchers now\u2026
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Thiiiiiiiiin ice. A montage tells us the two heroes shadow The Watchers for the next few nights, never catching them doing anything untoward. But after, both of them still feel like something is up. Spidey puts forth his indefensible position that vigilantes like him & Falcon are ok while these kids are not, but then a limo pulls up with their benefactor in it. And instead of seeing who it is or seeing what he does, the heroes\u2026 just leave. Just decide \u201cnot to make another scene,\u201d as Falcon puts it, and leave. What? Why? \u201cHey, I think something\u2019s up.\u201d \u201cMe, too.\u201d \u201cCould probably get some answers now.\u201d \u201cYep.\u201d \u201cWell, see ya!\u201d Spidey is lost in thought and almost swings into a helicopter\u2026
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As Spidey swings away, we see one of The Watchers has some stolen jewelry in his pocket, then we switch scenes to finally reveal who\u2019s backing them: Guys, it’s our pal Stone-Face! From Cap 138! He’s back and more stone-faced than ever! He apparently fled to Nigeria after Cap 138 to set up a new criminal racket, only to get shut down by Falcon, Cap & Black Panther in Cap 171. He went to prison in Nigeria, and now he\u2019s out, faking crimes so his Young Watchers can \u201cfoil\u201d them, and hating The Falcon really bad.
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At that moment, Falcon is discovering things have taken a grim turn, as his nephew Jim from earlier has been kidnapped out of his wrecked apartment. One of the other Watchers clued him in. But Spider-Man shows up, too, having seen Redwing outside, with news that he actually did see the jewelry in that kid\u2019s pocket at the store, and also, that he put a tracer on the limo before, so now the two heroes can go find Jim and save the day. At The Watchers\u2019 headquarters, Stone-Face is about to have Jim\u2019s throat slit in front of the gang for causing trouble when the cavalry dives in.
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Stone-Face tries to take Jim hostage, but Redwing disarms him, and after a bit of business with a swinging hook, Stone-Face is done.
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But the bad Watchers are stopped by the good Watchers outside, so no one escapes. \u201cSometime later,\u201d Spidey is reading the new Daily Bugle, and lets Falcon & Jim know JJJ has retracted his support of The Young Watchers. But Jim says he and the good ones will keep on protecting the neighborhood.
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Wah wah. Discussing the merits of vigilantism in superhero comics is never a good idea, because realistically, of course vigilantes are bad, including superheroes. We only know we can trust Spider-Man because we\u2019re reading his comics. We know he\u2019s a good person under that mask trying to help people. But how would the public at large really feel about some creepy weirdo swinging down out of the sky to beat up people who may or may not deserve it? At least a gang of teens meting out justice in the neighborhood are people their neighbors know, who the hell is Spider-Man? Part of the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy superheroes is not pulling that thread, and when writers do, it\u2019s always awkward. And what about Aunt May\u2019s purse, with \u201cover twenty dollars\u201d and precious photos of baby Peter in it? We\u2019ll never know what happened to it.
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Here we drop into a rough patch for MTU. I\u2019ve been reading it, but due to the chopped up chronology of this blog, this is the first issue I\u2019ll be talking about….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[35,263,262,13,125,71,52,164,2,264],"class_list":["post-1050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-aunt-may","tag-falcon","tag-herb-trimpe","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-marvel-team-up","tag-mike-esposito","tag-nathan-lubensky","tag-spider-man","tag-stoneface"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4290,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions\/4290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}