{"id":13867,"date":"2022-07-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13867"},"modified":"2021-04-28T22:10:27","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T02:10:27","slug":"ssu-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/07\/21\/ssu-1\/","title":{"rendered":"SSU 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Couldn\u2019t let Kaine stay out of the hearts & minds of tough-guy-lovin\u2019 90s audience for too long. But he\u2019s dead, of course. Forever. Certainly not starring in The Return of Kaine starting in TAC 231<\/a> in just 3 months. No, sir. But that\u2019s not really what this issue is about. This issue\u2019s main objective is actually a retcon of a retcon of a retcon, which is\u2026 boy, that\u2019s a lot. We\u2019ll see. One of the few issues of this era I do remember, albeit not in great detail. On deck for this rather absurd bit of business, we got Glenn Herdling writing, Tod Smith penciling, John Nyberg inking and Joe Andreani coloring. Page one, we\u2019re told it\u2019s 3 weeks ago, and the monsters on the cover have found Kaine\u2019s pod thing. Then it\u2019s \u201cnow,\u201d and The Scarlet Spider sees a big commotion happening at the front for The Jackal\u2019s old lab. A commotion that includes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smith is really hewing to the Mark Bagley\/Steven Butler Scarlet Spider. The notion that Raven could sneak past the WHO guys and a superhero with a danger sense couldn\u2019t is so silly. It gets sillier as Raven easily discovers a secret panel leading to Jackal\u2019s lab that no one else managed to see, despite having no particular special insights. He doesn\u2019t even know about The Jackal or know whose lab this is. But he knows Kaine, and when he sees him in the pod, he opens it and just starts shooting at his lifeless form. Ok, dude, get wild. But the monsters accost him while he\u2019s unloading his weapon. Meanwhile, Scarlet heads into the sewer to find an alternate route into the lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This was the beginning of a far-too-long era in comics where colorists found the blur function in photoshop and began ruining pages with it. Usually for motion, but Andreani is super into blurring Raven\u2019s face inside this helmet. But what does that really accomplish, other than making the art muddy? Nothing, that\u2019s what. And it stands out like a sore thumb in the process. We hates it, precious. In the sewer, Scarlet is attacked by \u201cThe Animen,\u201d and that means The High Evolutionary. Of course, when Gerry Conway decided to reverse the original clone story in the 80s, he involved The High Evolutionary, and came up with an even more stupid explanation for the clones of Gwen and Peter than just saying they\u2019re clones, back in TAC Annual 8<\/a>. And, more recently, the current clone mess sought to retcon that retcon. And now it\u2019s time to work on it even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It goes without saying that these guys are chumps. Scarlet whups them all with ease except the bat lady, who manages to bite him on the neck, even, before he kicks loose. He darts into the lab and seals the tunnel behind him with his ever-present impact webbing, locking out the Animen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Scarlet finds Raven and tears him loose, but then the Animen are upon them. Scarlet finally sees Kaine in the pod and realizes why Raven is acting crazy, but Raven is immediately knocked out by the bat one and then The High Evolutionary\u2019s giant head appears in the air, demanding an update.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I mean look at this hideous blur:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Also, why all the colors in Ben\u2019s belt? It\u2019s silver. What is the deal? Scarlet swings away on a page with 2 entirely blurred backgrounds as the various Animen shoot arrows at him and stuff. Eventually, he gets fed up, stops running and starts punching. But there\u2019s a whole lot of Animen in Wundagore Mountain, and soon he\u2019s overwhelmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Deep breaths. Deep breaths. It\u2019s only a comic book. Ben tells them they\u2019re all crazy and The Jackal created clones, not constructs. \u201cAnubia\u201d is willing to at least hear him out, but he asks for her version of the story, first. She recaps The High Evolutionary\u2019s general deal of trying to create a perfect race by evolving animals, but now shoehorning Miles Warren into it. He was eventually banished for trying to make humans instead of Animen, and then The High Evolutionary left for space (Don\u2019t ask), and some of his animal people stayed on Earth to follow Warren\u2019s way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I feel like just reproducing all this is easier than trying to summarize it. Also, it\u2019s stupid and I don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, then TAC Annual 8 is recapped, showing how High Evolutionary proved Warren didn\u2019t create clones, but rather \u201cgenetic constructs,\u201d as if that\u2019s somehow a better explanation. Whatsherface didn\u2019t believe it, so she sent spies out into the world again, and they found Warren\u2019s journal, which confirmed that the Gwen & Peter clones were actually Joyce Delany and Anthony Serba transmogrified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why would anyone do this? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There\u2019s 2 ways to deal with bad, messed up, or overcomplicated comic book history. The smart way is to just never talk about it again. The dumb way is this. Anyway, the animal gang and Scarlet Spider head to High Evolutionary\u2019s old spot, the most misguided and terrible blur in the book happens\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(\u201cI know! I\u2019ll blur everything of value on this page to highlight some schmoes in the foreground! That\u2019ll help!\u201d) …and then it\u2019s on. Several pages of animal-person on animal-person violence with the occasional panel featuring our hero. Who could possibly care? Eventually The High Evolutionary walks into a mostly blurry page to stop the fighting. He devolves Anubia back into a regular animal and then teleports himself and Scarlet away to \u201csettle this man-to-man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s retconnin\u2019 time! Again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ben actually coming out and saying \u201cI\u2019m just standing around being talked to for much of this comic that costs double the price of any regular issue I would be more of a participant in!\u201d is, uh, a great idea! I have always found the image of frumpy college professor Miles Warren chilling with animal people and an over-the-top supervillain so, so funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ugh. So, Herbert says (The High Evolutionary\u2019s name is Herbert. Maybe I\u2019d call myself some big dumb superhero name, too) the guilt of this family killing coupled with the guilt of his killing Anthony Serba drove Warren crazy, and he takes responsibility for that. Ben thinks none of this explains how a middle-aged college professor could be so effective in combat in the 70s stories, which, like, duh, but then totally brushes that off! What!? That\u2019s the most legitimate thing in need of a retcon in this whole issue! Hang on, more retconnin\u2019 ahead:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Much like the wet fart of the later \u201cI know you and Ben did all the tests that prove he\u2019s the real Spider-Man yourselves but, uh, you\u2019re the real one, actually, Peter\u201d retcon, this is terrible. So, Herbert says he realizes the harm he\u2019s caused by lying about the clone thing, and wanted ot tell Ben the truth. And then he goes to tell all his animal pals the truth, as well, re-evolving Anubia back to animal person form. Ben also lets the one who worship Jackal know he murdered a whole town and, like, totally sucks, and Herbert tells everyone they should stop wanting to be human and celebrate that they are equal to humans in every way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And so, the mess is messier than ever, and now, it will finally be dropped. 64 pages wasted trying to justify some of the dumbest comics in Spider-Man history.  But that\u2019s comics, sometimes. Later on, when the Spider-Office makes their most catastrophic decision in 2007, they will face a similar crossroads, where they can just accept that the bad story got them to where they wanted to be and never reference it again, or constantly keep trying to fix it, and they will choose option B. Some people can\u2019t let it go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Couldn\u2019t let Kaine stay out of the hearts & minds of tough-guy-lovin\u2019 90s audience for too long. But he\u2019s dead, of course. Forever. Certainly not starring in The Return of Kaine starting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[455,1237,567,595,453,1221,488,83,599,913],"class_list":["post-13867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ben-reilly","tag-glenn-herdling","tag-high-evolutionary","tag-jacob-raven","tag-joe-andreani","tag-john-nyberg","tag-kaine","tag-miles-warren","tag-scarlet-spider","tag-tod-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13867","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=13867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13895,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13867\/revisions\/13895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}