{"id":14590,"date":"2022-09-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=14590"},"modified":"2022-08-13T23:21:20","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T03:21:20","slug":"sm-annual-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/09\/21\/sm-annual-1997\/","title":{"rendered":"SM Annual ’97"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oh boy. I think this is Calypso\u2019s first appearance since McFarlane\u2019s first arc, some 7 years later? That seems almost impossible. And\u2026 The Marvel Zombie. In the 70s, when The Comics Code loosened its restrictions and comics could publish the word \u201czombie\u201d again (Really), since Marvel already tended to call its fans \u201cMarvel Zombies,\u201d it was a no brainer to introduce a literal zombie who was, then, The Marvel Zombie. He appeared in one of their more mature, black & white magazines. And that\u2019s literally all I know about him. It\u2019s Glenn Herdling writing, Shawn McManus drawing & inking, and John Kalisz coloring. We begin with Spider-Man encountering a bunch of dudes fighting another dude in a back alley, speaking French. He tries to save the lone guy, but is told the lone guy attacked the others. He is obviously skeptical until the ol\u2019 Spider Sense kicks in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Next day, Peter, Robbie and an unnamed woman who may well be Ann MacIntosh are talking about the pictures his belt somehow took that were good enough to bring in. He says Spider-Man told him the guy didn\u2019t struggle when he woke up in the hospital. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Glory Grant, freshly returned from a week\u2019s vacation and ready to show her vacation pix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These guys are all pretty well-versed on this topic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nice work, Pete-o. Ramon is in Ravencroft, of course, laying on the floor of a padded cell, not doubt just in after getting the tour of \u201cten best escape spots\u201d when Peter & Glory arrive. Dr. Kafka shows them in, like she\u2019s the only person who works here. She rattles off a bunch of info about believing he\u2019s hopped on up a powerful narcotic. Glory tries to speak to him, and he recoils in non-verbal horror. Kafka says she thinks he believes himself to be dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How was fighting those dudes NOT endangering his secret??<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shotgun! The perhaps not-so-creatively-named tough guy created by Ann Nocenti & John Romita, Jr. in their seminal Daredevil run. Not the last we\u2019ll see of him around here, either. And Peter just lets that be that, as we find him in a video store looking for a rental with MJ, telling her Shotgun shut Glory\u2019s front door in his face. Didn\u2019t come back as Spider-Man or anything. He asks if she wants to watch Night of the Living Dead. She does not, and wonders what inspired him to think about that as we cut to a zombie hand coming up out of the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You might\u2019ve thought Ramon was The Marvel Zombie, but it\u2019s this guy. He brutally kills all 3 mob guys and shuffles on his way. Back at Glory\u2019s, Shotgun\u2019s helping put it back together after those guys ransacked it, and she\u2019s made him some coffee. He\u2019s curious about the big snake charm she\u2019s wearing around her neck. She says someone gave it to her last night on the cruise, and suddenly remembers he was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And she didn\u2019t think to mention any of this to Peter & Robbie??? She says she doesn\u2019t remember anything after that. Shotgun informs her he was there on behalf of the CIA, having been told that drugs were being smuggled into the country on that Hatian refugee boat, but that he saw her sink it. He\u2019s here to arrest her. Well, that\u2019s awkward. As he says so, we see The Zombie\u2019s hand on the balcony outside. In Queens, MJ has fallen asleep watching their movie, so Peter slips away as Spider-Man to check up on Glory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey is chucked right in Glory\u2019s window, and she is not happy about it. I guess she\u2019s still got beef with him for, like, daring to oppose her werewolf boyfriend back in the day, I never really considered that before. Shotgun sees the Zombie outside and shoots it right off the balcony. Spidey is furious, believing he\u2019s just witnessed a murder, and glory staerts chanting into her medallion in French as they fight a lil\u2019. Then The Zombie climbs back up the balcony, to the shock of both men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not the most accurate appraisal of WEB 55<\/a>, but sure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here\u2019s the thing, tho:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So it\u2019s Glory on the cover. I know this\u2019ll be a shock, but I remember nothing about this comic. I\u2019m surprised I even bought it. Maybe it was the implication of Calypso being in it. I looked it up, between Spider-Man 5<\/a> and this, she appeared in 3 issues of Daredevil and 2 issues of Web of Spider-Man not yet covered on the blog. Daredevil, huh? Weird, weird place for her to pop up next after the Spider-Man story. While Glory obviously possessed by Calypso does things she\u2019ll probably regret later, Spider-Man has gone back to Ravencroft to report to Kafka he\u2019s run into someone acting just like Ramon who can survive a shotgun to the head twice. He says it was a walking corpse. Kafka dismisses that as impossible. She says Ramon is no doubt suffering from a dose of tetrodotoxin. Spidey says that\u2019s what Kraven used to bury him alive (McManus drawing the wrong suit for the flashbacks), and he knows the difference. Kafka finally admits she\u2019s done a lot of research on zombies, but wonders why a real one would be in New York if they exist. The next day, Shotty and Glory go diving for the wreck. Before they go, Shotgun references what happened last night, which Glory does not recall at all. This is gross. He says if she\u2019s prone to sleepwalking, he\u2019s got a lot of explaining to do, but says he\u2019ll explain when they get back, and they dive in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Man, this guy gets around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Uh-oh. Meanwhile, Spider-Man has returned to Ravencroft to find Dr. Kafka\u2019s office in shambles. She says Glory showed up, dressed weird, looking for Spider-Man. When she couldn\u2019t find him, she freed Ramon and left. She also blamed Spidey for the death of her boyfriend, \u201cSergei,\u201d just in case the reader hadn\u2019t connected the dots yet. In some cemetery, Calypso-Glory is making Ramon dig up her body, which is just fine, and says when the talisman is placed around its neck, she\u2019ll be whole again. But The Zombie shows up to oppose her, for some reason, and she sics Ramon on it. Zombie fight!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aaaalrighty. Spidey webs the talisman away from The Zombie and tosses it to Calypso-Glory, saying if anything goes wrong, she\u2019ll wish she stayed dead. Then he keeps the zombies busy while she does her thing. It doesn\u2019t go so well, and The Marvel Zombie is about to crush him with a tombstone when he\u2019s commanded to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Weird ending! To have Calypso spend the whole issue trying to get her body back and then not even pay it off is weird. And the Glory\/Shotgun thing is mad weird! Yikes! Like so many things in this era, I don\u2019t think that romance goes anywhere. I know when Shotgun next appears in the books, but I don\u2019t remember any mention of Glory. I guess we\u2019ll see. Weird issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oh boy. I think this is Calypso\u2019s first appearance since McFarlane\u2019s first arc, some 7 years later? That seems almost impossible. And\u2026 The Marvel Zombie. In the 70s, when The Comics Code…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[427,220,1237,308,13,26,442,21,944,1282,2,1283],"class_list":["post-14590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ashley-kafka","tag-calypso","tag-glenn-herdling","tag-glory-grant","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-joe-robertson","tag-john-kalisz","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-shawn-mcmanus","tag-shotgun","tag-spider-man","tag-the-marvel-zombie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14590","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=14590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20861,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14590\/revisions\/20861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}