{"id":12870,"date":"2022-05-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=12870"},"modified":"2021-03-16T13:49:11","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T17:49:11","slug":"asm-275","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/05\/03\/asm-275\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 275"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just 25 issues after that passive-aggressive-seeming \u201cspecial normal-sized 250th issue\u201d blurb, an extra-sized 275. I have always thought it was funny when old comics called an issue \u201cbook length\u201d and it\u2019s, for example, 37 pages. People used to read some short books, I guess. It\u2019s been a rather surprising 14 issues since Hobgoblin\u2019s last appearance in ASM 261<\/a>. As mentioned before, Roger Stern\u2019s original plan was to have the mystery run about as long as the original Green Goblin mystery did. GG made his debut in ASM 14, and his identity was revealed in ASM 39. 25 issues. We\u2019re now 37 issues into The Hobgoblin story, and no closer to a resolution. It\u2019s weird how there\u2019s patterns over the decades. The original Hobgoblin story and the 90s Clone Saga have so many parallels, not least being dragged out far too long. Anyway. This month, the art team is back to just being Ron Frenz, Joe Rubinstein & Nel Yomtov instead of like 12 people, and Hobby is back on page one, talking about how it\u2019s the perfect time to attack Spider-Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have never understood this. He says the button fires random bursts, but they come out of his finger. Is the button moving his entire arm for him? Look at him aiming in various directions down there. Is he saying he\u2019s not controlling that? Silly. Unlike most supervillain monologues of this nature, this one is actually being told to a person, The Rose, who says he didn\u2019t subsidize all Hobgoblin\u2019s improved gear for a petty vendetta with Spider-Man. Hobby assures him he won\u2019t mix business with pleasure, and soon their empire will rival The Kinpgin\u2019s. At which time, Rose thinks, it\u2019ll be time to get rid of Hobgoblin. Villains upgrading other villains to be more deadly while planning to doublecross them is another recurring theme. Why make someone you plan to betray more dangerous? While Rose fails to consider that, Aunt May, Peter & Mary Jane bring Nathan home from the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I really love the \u201cI know I\u2019ve quit before, but I\u2019m REALLY quitting now!\u201d bit. Who do you think you\u2019re fooling, Tom? While Peter reveals a shocking rehash of the worst recurring Spider-Man plot, we catch Hobgoblin harassing some goons for protection money, like he was doing last time he showed up (In ASM 258-261). Hasn\u2019t progressed at all since then, seems like. Then there\u2019s this sorry bit of business\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Seems a far cry from the Flash we saw in Web awhile ago. A lot of characterizations in that issue felt weird for this period. It\u2019s kinda funny that they currently have Ned upset that Betty is cheating on him with Flash and Flash upset that Sha Shan is cheating on him with Peter, to varying degrees of correctness. How messy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Christopher Priest, known at this time as Spider-Man Group Editor James Owlsey, has written at length about this period, and the unfortunate events that went down behind the scenes. One thing he mentioned is he was begging Ron Frenz to stop drawing the top of Peter\u2019s head so flat. It wasn\u2019t until way later, after their relationship had soured, that he learned Joe Rubistein was flattening the top of Peter\u2019s head in the inking stage. That\u2019s a shame. From here, the book reprints the origin from Amazing Fantasy 15 in full, as promised, with new, more modern (by 1986 standards) colors from Andy Yanchus before returning to the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Us? So there\u2019s an \u201cus\u201d now, is there? Shouldn\u2019t someone define this relationship at some point? After taking over from Stern, DeFalco set out to start narrowing the reader\u2019s idea of who The Hobgoblin might be to 3 suspects: Ned Leeds, Flash Thompson and Lance Bannon. All of whom seem pretty unlikely, but that\u2019s where he\u2019s pointing. In service of that, our next scene takes us to The Daily Bugle, where a distraught Betty can\u2019t get Ned or Flash on the phone at the same time an intern walks by wondering where Lance Bannon is. Any of them could be out Hobgoblin-ing right now! But Betty\u2019s not thinking about that, she\u2019s thinking about how messed up her life is right now due to her relationships with Ned & Flash. Joe Robertson comes by and sees her turmoil, and asks her to come in his office. He says he can\u2019t help but notice when there\u2019s trouble, and asks if there\u2019s anything he can do. Betty says she feels terrible that her problems have come into the office, and that Ned is too dedicated to his job to leave time for her. If he can do anything, she says, he can stop giving Ned undercover assignments that keep him busy for weeks at a time. But Robbie thinks to himself that he doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s talking about. Ah ha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, if Ned is The Hobgoblin, I guess he\u2019s not doing it right this moment. Poor Sha Shan. Bringing her back wasn\u2019t the best idea, and then she never got the chance to be a full-fledged character. She was just Flash\u2019s girlfriend who rarely spoke and now this. We bop over to see the guys Hobgoblin shook down earlier trying to warn The Kingpin that Hobby\u2019s trying to muscle in on his turf, but he knows, of course. He\u2019s still electing not to do anything, but he thinks if the man under The Rose\u2019s mask is who he thinks, he dreads their coming confrontation. And that\u2019s an interesting bit, considering who DeFalco wanted The Rose to be and who he actually wound up being (Not the same character). So many secrets, and none with answers that would actually see print as planned. Like The Clone Saga. Meanwhile, Flash is walking home, brooding about how is life is falling apart when he runs into Ned on the street. Is either of them The Hobgoblin? Ned warns Flash to stay away from Betty, but Flash says she\u2019s an adult and can make her own decisions, and it\u2019s Ned\u2019s fault if he\u2019s lost her. Ned starts to make a threat, but\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sure seems like we\u2019re narrowing Lance Bannon out of the running, hm? That was pretty aggressive. Hobby is looking for a way to draw Spider-Man out, and decides to\u2026 harass The Port Authority Bus Terminal. Ah yes, the most likely target. But, after he throws a smoke bomb directly into the face of a cop who says he\u2019s been itching to \u201ctake on one of these costumed jerks\u201d (har har), we see why he\u2019s at the bus terminal, at least for storytelling purposes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Is it Flash? If it\u2019s not Flash, this sure is a lazy way to make you think so! I remain fascinated by how Frenz hews to Romita, Jr\u2019s depiction of Hobgoblin, right down to his penchant for drawing Hobby flying away from us at that angle. At Peter\u2019s place, MJ tells him he\u2019s making a mistake. That he can do a lot of good with his powers, and he\u2019s letting himself down if he doesn\u2019t, but he\u2019s increasingly angry and irrational, saying he\u2019ll \u201clive his life through the boob tube\u201d like everyone else from now on as he turns on the TV\u2026 just in time for a news bulletin about Hobgoblin and his hostage. MJ says he\u2019s got to do something. He says why can\u2019t some other hero do it. She asks him where his sense of responsibility is now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that\u2019s rude. Is it Flash trying to throw her off? Ned being honest? Amusingly to me, this page of dialogue rather perfectly fits Roger Stern\u2019s original choice for the man behind the mask, despite DeFalco not agreeing. In a splash page that features Tom, Ron, Joe and Priest looking on in the crowd, Spider-Man appears. He tells Hobby to let Sha Shan go now that he\u2019s got who he wants, but Hobby says as long has he has a hostage, he\u2019s got Spidey where he wants him. Spidey suddenly notices it\u2019s Sha Shan, and briefly wonders if that\u2019s a coincidence. Hobby, meanwhile, realizes he\u2019s messed up yet again, and can\u2019t operate his dumb new zapper holding a hostage. So he tosses Ye Old Pumpkin Bomb. Spider-Man dodges effortlessly before realizing it\u2019s going down into the crowd. Refusing to relive his Sin-Eater experience, he ignores the Goblin to save the onlookers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Boy, a fight like this, I\u2019m not rooting for either guy. Spidey\u2019s being a real jerk and Hobby is being dumb as ever. It\u2019s weird that he never gets competent. Like, Stern\u2019s Hobgoblin being a newbie to the game and sucking at it was kinda refreshing. He was clearly meant to be learning and improving. But DeFalco just decided screwing up as a villain is part of his kit. Anyway, jamming the finger gun somehow seems to both cause a huge explosion and also not blow up Hobgoblin or even just his hand, so that made no sense. He finally gets tired of the hostage gig and throws Sha Shan toward the ground. Spidey, naturally, thinks this is just like Gwen Stacy (Is it?), and dives down to save her. As he so often has in situations he thinks are just like Gwen Stacy, he saves her this time, wrenching his shoulder out of the socket in the process. Then he rushes off to catch the Goblin, who fffffinally gets to use his much-teased new targeting system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aaaand it sucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We\u2019ve already seen a mask come off The Hobgoblin before. Can we trust it this time? In the letter column, it\u2019s noted that this is the first Spider-Man comic published in 1986. That\u2019s odd to me. By the time I got into comics, Web was out at the beginning of the month, ASM in the middle, Tac came 3rd. Adjectiveless Spider-Man later got the 4th week of the month. I assumed it was already like that when Web first debuted. Maybe not. Ah, well. Come back next time for the grand unmasking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just 25 issues after that passive-aggressive-seeming \u201cspecial normal-sized 250th issue\u201d blurb, an extra-sized 275. I have always thought it was funny when old comics called an issue \u201cbook length\u201d and it\u2019s, for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[9,53,35,11,12,163,26,100,21,164,55,872,321,348,2,325,124],"class_list":["post-12870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-andy-yanchus","tag-aunt-may","tag-betty-brant","tag-flash-thompson","tag-hobgoblin","tag-joe-robertson","tag-kingpin","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-nathan-lubensky","tag-ned-leeds","tag-nel-yomtov","tag-ron-frenz","tag-sha-shan-nguyen","tag-spider-man","tag-the-rose","tag-tom-defalco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12870","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=12870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12884,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12870\/revisions\/12884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}