{"id":12985,"date":"2022-05-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=12985"},"modified":"2021-03-16T15:49:04","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T19:49:04","slug":"hooky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/05\/12\/hooky\/","title":{"rendered":"Hooky"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now here\u2019s a mystery. Who is Susan K. Putney? The internet says she wrote a science fiction novel in 1972, and this in 1986, and\u2026 that\u2019s it. How did that happen? She doesn\u2019t even have a Wikipedia page. Maybe she was a friend of the legendary Bernie Wrightson. Known for his work in horror and fantasy, Wrigthson is revered in a few different fields, comics among them. Between his involvement alone and the cover, we know this one\u2019s gonna get weird. Here\u2019s the back cover:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Never read it. Let\u2019s see what happens in Marvel Graphic Novel #22, the 3rd one covered on the blog (2nd chronologically). Michelle Wrightson shares a color credit with Bernie. As things begin, 3 guys are trying to break into a place when Spider-Man appears. It\u2019s not much work for him to deal with them, but while he does, an old guy leans out the window to see what\u2019s going on and sees a camera webbed nearby. He tries to cut it free with a kitchen knife, but it won\u2019t work. Then someone throws a snowball at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now there\u2019s an unusual hook. Spider-Man is pretty freaked out. He calls over to Dr. Strange\u2019s place, but of course, Strange isn\u2019t in, and Wong has no idea who this girl could be. Spidey seems to recall a Norwegian family living nearby before Uncle Ben died. He just happens to have some translation guides from when he was student teaching for exchange students (How fortuitous), and soon learns \u201ctordenkakerlakk\u201d means \u201cthunder cockroach.\u201d That doesn\u2019t make anything clearer, so naturally he has to go meet Mandi as instructed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The door opens to stone steps floating in the air leading to an old door. Spider-Man is taken aback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not your typical Spider-Man story. Mandi loans our hero a poncho like hers, which enables him to fly. As they kinda hover over to the jetstream she mentioned, she talks about how she worried that, if this is really her bane, she\u2019d die and no one would know. So she\u2019s glad to have \u201cPetey\u201d along. As they drift, he has to let her know Uncle Ben died, and she\u2019s sorry about it. Then they\u2019re off into the so-called jetstream, but Spider-Man\u2019s not ready for it, and bounces off a rock to his seeming doom. Mandi opens a portal below him, and he falls through it into some kind of harem. A bit of komedy later, hes back up and sailing through this weird interdimensional space with his new friend. The go through a big weird tunnel and end up in \u201cCloudsea,\u201d and endless sky that feels like the sky did when you were a child. Mandi tells our hero he can fly under his own power here, and he enjoys doing that, but then a big bug appears and begins choking him to death. Can\u2019t have nothin\u2019 when you\u2019re a superhero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Her ship turns out to be a giant, unusual looking thing she calls the Nonesuch in one of this book\u2019s many gorgeous 2-page spreads. They fly up and get onboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our heroes are about to go to sleep to be ready for \u201croach hunting\u201d in the morning when the thing attacks them. It\u2019s a flying bug roughly as big as Spider-Man. Doesn\u2019t seem that bad. Mandi brings up the ship\u2019s sonar, which acts as a sort of ultra-sonic deterrent. She says she can set the ship to track the bug to keep it away. Then she unfurls the ship\u2019s gigantic wings and they take off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They do get some sleep as the ship chases the bug, and then it sets down to roost on the ruins of Elmak\u2019s temple. Mandi reasons this means Elmak cursed her family before her dad killed him. She & Spider-Man disembark and head down to the surface. Spider-Man is able to pretty easily web it down, but that\u2019s only because it stopped to transform into a much bigger and weirder monster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They start flying back up to the ship, but the thing mutates again, becoming something like a bug version of a Chinese-style dragon. But with flying as an option, Spider-Man is able to zoom around and web it to the hull of the ship. It gets tied down so tight its neck snaps. Mandi thinks she\u2019s saved (No reaction from Spider-Man on possibly taking a life). Our hero has enough time to say he\u2019s been thinking, and if this Elmak was a good guy, why would he loose such a terrible creature on anyone, but then the side of the bug starts to form a humanoid face, and now it breaks off of the main corpse,as a monstrous man shouting \u201cDEATH!\u201d over and over. This is definitely a job for Bernie Wrightson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey drives the anchor into the thing\u2019s gut, and it goes down. Mandi thinks maybe it\u2019s really dead this time, but Spidey knows better. He tries to get her to think of where it might\u2019ve come from and how they could beat it. She doesn\u2019t think anything still living in this realm could\u2019ve done it. He asks if maybe she\u2019s crossed someone on Earth, but she says no. While they talk, the big guy begins to mutate again, this time into a pretty gross pile of writhing flesh with a giant maw and various tentacles with smaller ones. Mandi is frozen in fear, and the thing reaches out and grabs Spider-Man with some tendrils. But he manages to plant his feet on its teeth to stop from being eaten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our heroes just decide to fly for it, and almost get away, but a tendril of flesh snakes out and grabs Spider-Man\u2019s ankle. As it drags him back to the ship, the mass begins to change once again, this time taking on a kind of dragon form that lets it speak. It warns Spider-Man to stop interfering. He can tell it\u2019s stalling while it finishes mutating, so he starts spinning up a web shield, noting that his web is the only thing that seems to work against it. He gets a pretty big disc together just as the dragon breathes fire at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He slings his webshield into the thing\u2019s mouth, Captain America style, and webs the maw shut with the last of his webbing. He trunks to flee just before the thing explodes from its fire being forced back down its own throat. Spidey crumples on the deck of the ship, barely able to move. Mandi flies back in, wanting to believe it\u2019s over, but of course it\u2019s not. Spidey can\u2019t even flee anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the thing grows into the mass of claws and teeth on the cover, Spidey psyches Mandi up to try something new, saying she must\u2019ve grown in her power over the years as she learned new things, and saying she can do it. Mandi begins to chant, words in many languages from Earth and beyond, we\u2019re told, and the storm rages around her and the thing, which is now big as a house. Her spell seems to have an effect. Spider-Man thinks he can\u2019t just stand by, but he\u2019s come to think only Mandi can truly beat the thing. And, as she completes her long chant, she does. The creature comes apart, scattering to the wind, and Mandi collapses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, there you go. They sail back to where they started, and the next day, they\u2019re ready to return Spider-Man to Earth.Manid is sorry she dragged him into a kind of false danger, but he says he learned from this that he doesn\u2019t have to solve all the world\u2019s problems. Sometimes someone else can save the day. After some farewells, he leaps back through the door to reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A decidedly off-beat adventure. But self-contained enough that it fits right in, in a way. Wrightson\u2019s Spider-Man reminded me of the 60s cartoon version more than anything. It was interesting how he seemed to draw everything more realistic than Spider-Man, to make him stand out in a magical world. Susan K. Putney. Who are you? Why did you only write one comic? I guess I\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now here\u2019s a mystery. Who is Susan K. Putney? The internet says she wrote a science fiction novel in 1972, and this in 1986, and\u2026 that\u2019s it. How did that happen? She…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[1078,1077,1080,2,1079],"class_list":["post-12985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-bernie-wrightson","tag-hooky","tag-michelle-wrightson","tag-spider-man","tag-susan-k-putney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12985","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=12985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12986,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12985\/revisions\/12986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}