{"id":13330,"date":"2022-06-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13330"},"modified":"2021-04-11T01:11:16","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T05:11:16","slug":"sm-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/06\/06\/sm-13\/","title":{"rendered":"SM 13"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, now you see why Todd\u2019s half of that one pin-up in ASM 350 was the black suit. They say he was the one who pushed to get Spidey back in the red & blues. And here\u2019s out 2nd homage to Spider-Man #1 on the blog, tho it was 1st chronologically. Only a 2-parter this time, but don\u2019t worry, Todd\u2019ll make sure to pack in all the misery you\u2019ve come to expect from his superhero stories. This issue is significant in his evolution, in that it\u2019s the first appearance of a bit further abstraction of his style, especially where it comes to hair, but it\u2019s more than that. Also this month, Todd takes a shot at lettering his own comics. Greg Wright still handles the colors. Even the most self-contained comics auteurs usually let someone else letter. It\u2019s such a different kind of discipline. Todd\u2019s flirtation with lettering would not last, and I don\u2019t blame him. Todd credits Editor-In-Chief Tom DeFalco with \u201c?\u201d this issue. A dig? An honest question? Who knows? This one opens with a big guy crawling up out of the sewer to get \u201ca bad one\u201d for \u201cleader.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yeah, nonstop fun and laughs here in Todd McFarlane\u2019s Spider-Man. While whatever that is is going on, Mary Jane tells Peter she\u2019s bored. She wants to maybe go out with Flash, Felicia, Harry & Liz, but instead, this happens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yeah. MJ\u2019s \u201ckinky new hairdo\u201d is just how Todd\u2019s decided to draw long hair now, seemingly on a whim. And that\u2019s not all. It\u2019s kind of an intangible, but despite his trademark layers of hatching and detail, things are simpler this issue, somehow. Look at this page, from the next day, as Peter Parker overhears JJJ refusing a story about some local homeless guys disappearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s just looser. Leaner. And probably saving some time. I must say, tho, he\u2019s a surprisingly adept letterer. Between the lettering being so professional and also often not fitting in the word balloons, I almost wonder if what he turned in was unacceptable and Rick Parker did an uncredited paste up on this. I guess I\u2019ll never know. Anyway, we soon find Spider-Man, eating donuts and waiting for something to happen in the area of the disappearances. He banters to himself for a whole page and leaves people like me who were bemoaning the lack of levity in this series wondering if maybe we were better off with the endless sadness. But then a guy comes running down the alley, yelling for help. And when our hero drops down to offer said help, someone starts throwing trash at him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The big guy somehow disappears down a manhole between pages so fast Spider-Man doesn\u2019t know where he went, which is\u2026 hard to believe. Our hero dives in after, regretting that he didn\u2019t bring film that would shoot in the dark. But it turns out to be pitch black down there, and his Spider Sense warns him a whole mob of unseen figures is after him immediately, so he just leaps back out. Then, in a jarring cut with no transition, he\u2019s apparently made a strategic decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The further I get into this issue, the more convinced I am that McFarlane is only lettering the big bad guy\u2019s speech. His text is never misaligned or too small to fit a balloon, but all the traditional lettering is. I sure hope Rick got paid for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This whole \u201cI have to wear black to not be seen by people who can see in the dark\u201d rationale seems really flimsy. But then, a bit of dialogue I forgot over the years that\u2019s very important:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now, I don\u2019t know how (Or why) he got the FF to make him a black suit, or why he didn\u2019t leave out the Venom logo if both him and MJ don\u2019t want to look at it, or the answer to any other obvious question this brings up. But I did forget he ordered this suit, and I have been making snide comments about how everyone forgot he burned this costume as it\u2019s come back over the years, and I have been in the wrong, as it turns out. My bad, various people who brought back the black costume. I feel like the change in style I\u2019m having trouble describing is very obvious on this Spider-Man figure. Less hatching. It feels like \u201cwet,\u201d which is the word I\u2019ve always wound up at trying to describe Todd\u2019s inking style. It\u2019s just different. Anyway, that night, the big guy kidnaps yet another poor man and drags him down to \u201cthe leader,\u201d who is revealed to be\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why yes, it is another classic villain suddenly sporting some kind of messiah complex out of nowhere! AND it\u2019s yet another gang of deformed outcasts living in the sewers of New York! It\u2019s crowded down there! These aren\u2019t mutants, tho. Here\u2019s the completely bizarre explanation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I mean, what to even say about that. Why have a group of homeless people been down here inbreeding since 1962? What??? I\u2019m not even gonna engage with it. Eventually, Spider-Man appears, back down the manhole from before. After being down there half an hour, he encounters the various weirdoes. So he\u2019s completely overwhelmed. Boy, that black costume sure as worth waiting 2 days for. I wonder if Todd just wanted a break from the web pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Just gonna let that casual racism roll on over ya, huh Mike? I mean, we know what \u201ca black one\u201d means, but he doesn\u2019t. Anyway. Next month: more of this crap. As I recall from my youth, a lot of whining and \u201cwoe is me\u201d from Morbius. We\u2019ll see. The letter page only has 3 missives, but it is a four-alarm fire of nonsense. One guy takes issue with the subject matter of the previous storyline, which, you know, so did I, but does a tired old \u201cthink of the children!\u201d bit, somehow manages to blame slasher movies, and even goes so far as to say today\u2019s comic creators are dark and twisted because they live in New York City (Todd McFarlane is Canadian). I mean\u2026 Yeesh. Then there\u2019s a guy who says Spider-Man constantly mentioning how much he loves Mary Jane \u201cdemasculates\u201d him and that Spider-Man seemed \u201cwhipped.\u201d The mind reels. And finally, a guy writes to say how bad Todd is at anatomy (No argument there), but his letter quickly reveals he\u2019s just a wannabe comics artist mad that someone he doesn\u2019t like got the big break he wanted. Dude actually says \u201cI will not rest until this book is canceled.\u201d I guess he didn\u2019t rest until 1998, when it was relaunched with Vol. 2! What a bunch of crazies. Even Salicrup notes how weird is it that he\u2019s disagreeing with all the complaints for once. This relationship seems terrible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, now you see why Todd\u2019s half of that one pin-up in ASM 350 was the black suit. They say he was the one who pushed to get Spidey back in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[275,21,42,2,274],"class_list":["post-13330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-gregory-wright","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-morbius","tag-spider-man","tag-todd-mcfarlane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330","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=13330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13344,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13330\/revisions\/13344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}