{"id":14823,"date":"2022-10-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=14823"},"modified":"2021-08-01T01:29:20","modified_gmt":"2021-08-01T05:29:20","slug":"af-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/10\/07\/af-18\/","title":{"rendered":"AF 18"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, that escalated quickly. Paul Lee flies solo again to wrap this story up. We begin with Peter telling himself he\u2019s not a superhero in his narration, even as Flash talks about how great Spider-Man is to some of his classmates. Peter quickly recaps his origin and the last few issues, sheesh, but he says all the things he\u2019s done since becoming Spider-Man don\u2019t make him a hero, it\u2019s just helping out. We then cut to him leaping out of a burning building with a child in his arms, classic style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He says his \u201cSomething extra\u201d isn\u2019t enough because he finds Aunt May trying to figure out the household budget without Ben\u2019s income, and it\u2019s not good. Again\u2026 The TV career would fix this. Is May & Peter starving to death really what Uncle Ben would\u2019ve wanted? Then we get to maybe the biggest anachronism of this series: Peter goes up to his room to study, and he has a TV in there! These people are supposed to be 1960s-poor and they have 2 TVs?? Does May have one, too? Shoulda thought about this, fellas. Tonight on \u201cIt\u2019s Amazing,\u201d Thor is helping the government test a missile defense system. Peter thinks that\u2019s a real hero, one who doesn\u2019t have a frail aunt or money troubles or homework. Right on all counts! Peter finally decides he can do something about the money, he just doesn\u2019t want to. So the next day, he\u2019s swallowed his pride and shown up at Maxie\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Giving Jameson additional beef with Spider-Man seems kind of unnecessary, but at least it\u2019s tied around the familiar theme that people should be more impressed by his astronaut son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I do like that JJJ\u2019s technical first encounter with Spider-Man is watching him try to convince people he\u2019s no hero. Certainly no the gloryhound JJJ is already painting him as. That\u2019s fun. Hang on, one more page\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This guy doesn\u2019t fit at all. Like, at all. I know it\u2019s the 90s, but some consideration should\u2019ve been taken, here. Try to make him look at least a little like a Ditko design. Many years from now, a miniseries called Learning To Crawl will be inserted into Spider-Man\u2019s early days. It takes place in direction contradiction to this series, beginning right after the last panel of AF 15. That\u2019s annoying, and it\u2019s worse than this, so I don\u2019t really care about it, but it will introduce a new villain that fits in perfectly with the early Spidey villains thanks to the great artist Ramon Perez, named Clash. This guy looks exactly like the times he was created in. At any rate, our man\u2019s getting a low level buzz from his danger sense for the first time, and isn\u2019t sure what\u2019s causing it. He muses that maybe letting this TV thing happen, and the money from it, could actually help him help people, as Supercharger says he has some things to do before the show. As the show gets closer to starting, we see JJJ still fuming in the audience, and see John, gracious as ever, saying they\u2019re just giving the people what they want and it\u2019s no big deal. He asks a random kid in the next row who happens to be Flash whether he\u2019d prefer Spider-Man or an astronaut, and gets the obvious answer. Then the show begins, as the host introduces a segment about a new hero called Iron Man\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So not only is this guy way out of place, he\u2019s just proto-Electro on top of that. Spider-Man thinks this guy must\u2019ve been setting of his Spider Sense, since he\u2019s an actual supervillain \u201clike that Dr. Doom guy!\u201d SC says he\u2019s going to tell everyone why he\u2019s killing them, making sure this all gets filmed and assuring everyone all the exits are sealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alrighty. So he\u2019s sort of the anti-Peter Parker. Speaking of who, Spider-Man has scrambled back stage, thinking this supervillain requires a real superhero. He tries to call The Baxter Building, but of course, the phone lines have been cut. So he tosses a filing cabinet through a window, intent on just going to get the FF personally, when he hears a scream and looks back to see Supercharger holding a woman by the throat, saying he regrets having to do this, but that the world has to see the horror that comes from superbeings. Suddenly our man is out of options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SC suddenly glows really bright and finally tags Spidey with a zap that sends him crashing into the stage. He\u2019s really out of it, but Flash Thompson cheering for him makes him remember people are counting on him, and he\u2019s back up. He tells a nearby stagehand he\u2019s got a plan, but he needs help while SC is recharging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They\u2019ve hooked the villain to the TV antenna, and his energy is channeled into it, lighting the night sky and draining him completely. Most of the crowd goes wild, but some think he\u2019s no better than Supercharger. The usual for Spider-Man, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And that\u2019s the game. Extra motivation for JJJ\u2019s crusade has been provided, Spider-Man\u2019s no closer to figuring out his money problems, and we\u2019re out. Not the most essential story, but they did a good job with it, overall. This is not the last of Supercharger, but strangely, he never encountered Spider-Man again. Busiek reused him in a couple issues of Thunderbolts, and he somehow managed to appear in the final issues of 2 different X-Titles, X-Men Legacy and a Gambit solo series. But no rematch with the guy who first put him away. Well, with these out of the way, we can move on to Spider-Man\u2019s actual 2nd appearance. I must say, this feels awkward to me. I thought I\u2019d prefer running these issues chronologically, but they\u2019re all so different from the originals that I\u2019m not, actually. I dunno. They gotta go somewhere…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that escalated quickly. Paul Lee flies solo again to wrap this story up. We begin with Peter telling himself he\u2019s not a superhero in his narration, even as Flash talks about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[1291,35,12,13,1298,27,1003,172,1293,1292,1299,2,1301,1300],"class_list":["post-14823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-amazing-fantasy","tag-aunt-may","tag-flash-thompson","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-jason-ionello","tag-john-jameson","tag-kurt-busiek","tag-liz-allen","tag-maxie-shiffman","tag-paul-lee","tag-sally-avril","tag-spider-man","tag-supercharger","tag-tiny-mckeever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14823","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=14823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14840,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14823\/revisions\/14840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}