{"id":13452,"date":"2022-06-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13452"},"modified":"2021-04-11T01:39:04","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T05:39:04","slug":"tac-178","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/06\/15\/tac-178\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC 178"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019ve gone this whole block without seeing any Spectacular, and that\u2019s because ol\u2019 JM DeMatteis has a 6-part story kicking off this issue. Can\u2019t say I\u2019ve been looking forward to it, and the reason\u2019s right on the cover. Time for Sad Times Spider-Man, and this one sets up one of DeMatteis\u2019 worst decisions ever on the title. But that\u2019s getting ahead of myself. I\u2019ve never read this story, so let\u2019s see how it goes. It\u2019s still Sal Buscema inking himself and Bob Sharen on art duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And we\u2019re off. Whatever that was, it appears to be in the past, as the next page is Vermin running through the sewers internal monologuing about how he\u2019s free and they can\u2019t keep him trapped behind walls and also he hates the light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I am largely with Vermin, visa ve light. Kind of a nocturnal guy, myself. I don\u2019t think that kid\u2019s seen enough horror movies. Or\u2026 has any common sense. Smash cut to a table full of gruesome photos of the various staff Vermin killed escaping wherever he was on page one, and then the reveal of one Dr. Ashley Kafka\u2019s first appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oh yeah, we\u2019re in for a real no-fun time. I wonder what Sal thinks. I wonder what Sal thinks in general. Sal\u2019s drawn so many Spider-Man comics for so many writers. Probably worked with more writers per capita on the character than any artist ever. I wonder what his feelings are on the different kinds of stories he drew over the decades. In the oft-referenced Comic Creators On Spider-Man, he briefly discusses working with Len Wein, Gerry Conway, Bill Mantlo & JM DeMatteis, and had nothing but good things to say about all but Mantlo, who he said asked for unreasonable things and tried to dictate too much what the layouts should be. He said he had a ball working with JM, so I take his word for it. But did he really think Spider-Man should be all sad and angry all the time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey swings off, thinking Dr. Kafka didn\u2019t deserve that, and thinking his own guilt about turning Vermin over to Reed in the first place is what made him act so mean. He thinks about being in the grave again, and then thinks he\u2019s made his peace with that (With a note saying he did so in the as-yet-unpublished Soul of the Hunter, ya see, which prompted me to read that after this), and doesn\u2019t want to think about these things anymore. He sure didn\u2019t stay healed very long! He hopes Vermin will just disappear, and as he thinks that, Vermin pops up out of the sewer with that boy in his arms. He says he needs to feed, but the boy reminds him he said he\u2019d take him home. Vermin wants to know why the boy trusts him, to which the boy replies, \u201cI dunno. I just do,\u201d which, you know, way to address the obvious nonsense of your plot head on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fun fun. But hang on, the other thing that needs setting up is here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gonna be a real smorgasbord of despair, this one! I choose to enjoy the fact that Normie is dressed like a wee Bruce Banner, because ain\u2019t much else gonna be enjoyable about any of this. To whit, MJ is home, watching a movie she loved as a kid and finding it terrible now, when she hears a \u201ckreeeek\u201d of the skylight, but finds Peter isn\u2019t home. Spider-Man is swinging away, thinking he was so close to just heading home to his wife, but couldn\u2019t rest with Vermin out there. He promises the Dr. Kafka in his head that he\u2019ll remember Vermin is a man and not a monster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr. Kafka sure got a makeover later. Out in the night, Spider-Man hears a woman get yanked into an alley, and thinks he\u2019s got Vermin now, but it turns out to be just your regulation mugging. Spidey\u2019s so unhinged that the mugger is terrified, and Spidey swings off, worrying if he doesn\u2019t find Vermin before he kills someone, that death will be on his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Too late! While you worry that Vermin\u2019s killed that boy, it turns out he has not, and rather comically, he packs the kid into his newly stolen truck and drives off. We see Peter and Harry in parallel, neither one able to sleep, and then\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5 more issues of this. Probably far worse than this. McFarlane talks in his letter columns about how his dark and depressing Spider-Man is him trying to be different from the other titles, but\u2026 Whoops! A more competent writer is beating you to it, buddy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve gone this whole block without seeing any Spectacular, and that\u2019s because ol\u2019 JM DeMatteis has a 6-part story kicking off this issue. Can\u2019t say I\u2019ve been looking forward to it, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[427,253,22,125,21,545,37,121,2,165],"class_list":["post-13452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ashley-kafka","tag-bob-sharen","tag-harry-osborn","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-normie-osborn","tag-sal-buscema","tag-spectacular-spider-man","tag-spider-man","tag-vermin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13452","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=13452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13465,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13452\/revisions\/13465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}