{"id":1486,"date":"2019-08-23T00:00:36","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T04:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2019-05-18T21:04:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-19T01:04:07","slug":"asm-254","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2019\/08\/23\/asm-254\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 254"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A great cover. Such mystery! Rick Leonardi hangs in there for one more issue, joined by new regular inker Joe Rubinstein and new regular colorist Christie Scheele. This story begins by revisiting some loose ends from ASM 251, which we haven\u2019t talked about yet, as the city is hauling The Hobgoblin\u2019s Battevan out of the river. You know what, for once, I have a good reason to show the recap\u2026
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There we go, got it? Due to my jumping around, we haven\u2019t seen The Hobgoblin yet, but we\u2019re sure going to, because the mystery of who he is frankly dragged on way too long. But that\u2019s later. Right now, he\u2019s the coolest new Spidey villain in like 15 years, and it\u2019s been 3 months since he disappeared. Spidey tags the van with a spider tracer just in case and takes off, while a guy in coveralls radios a mysterious man with a pumpkin on his table about where the van is being taken. Spidey swings over to a pay phone to call Aunt May, but one of her boarders answers, and when she\u2019s told Peter is on the phone\u2026
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Leonardi\u2019s extremely bendy Spider-Man heads over to The Bugle\u2026
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He was so ahead of the game, man. We check back in with that Battlevan moving through traffic, as the mystery man\u2019s agents continue to give reports about its location and cause an accident to remove its police escort. Then they distract the drivers with a sexy lady in a convertible while an electromagnetic crane just plucks the van off their trailer, and they never notice. This is a complex gig. Back at The Bugle\u2026
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“Mr. Falcone” is based on Tom DeFalco. That’s fun. As mentioned before, the thing about The Hobgoblin was the book was inviting you to guess who he was, so little bits like Lance Bannon not having checked in for weeks while the Goblin was also missing were very intentional. Is he the Hobgoblin? Maybe! Believe me, a ton of people will be in the running before that one\u2019s resolved. Robbie is kinda driving everyone crazy as the new Editor-in-Chief. Then Peter gets a phone call. It\u2019s Nathan Lubensky, who has snuck away from Aunt May while they\u2019re out to lunch, and who tells Peter both he and May are acting like fools and they need to squash the beef over him dropping out, so he tells Peter where they\u2019re having lunch. Peter really appreciates it, and starts to head down there, but then Wendy Thorton from last issue flags him down and asks if he\u2019s still interested in The Hobgoblin\u2019s van.
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Peter is truly torn between patching things up with May and making sure The Hobgoblin isn\u2019t back, but in the end, this is a superhero comic, you know what he\u2019s gonna do. Some goons are stripping down the van in a junkyard somewhere when Spider-Man shows up. He tangles with the goons for a minute before barely dodging an explosion, only to find\u2026
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Yeah, it\u2019s our old pal, Jack O\u2019Lantern (I think he\u2019s our old pal, have we talked about him yet?), trying to up his game by stealing Hobgoblin\u2019s stuff. Pretty spot-on for a 3rd rate Green Goblin. He wants to lead Spider-Man away from the van so his guys can keep looting it, but Spidey\u2019s not worried since he has a tracer on it, and gives chase. As soon as he\u2019s gone, though, the control console of the van lights up, and it drives off all by itself, leaving Jack\u2019s confused goons behind. Just like last time they fought, Jack is continually impressed by Spider-Man\u2019s powers\u2026
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I like that DeFalco is continuing Stern’s subtle move to Spider-Man’s foes often being in awe of him instead of just jobbing Spidey out to any ol’ lame for faux suspense like they did so often in the 70s. You know, Doc Ock, Electro, Hobgoblin, that’s a dangerous fight for Spider-Man. Being taken down by Rocket Racer twice in one issue, that’s just embarrassing. So it’s nice when the lower tier villains appreciate how badly outclassed they are. As the chase continues, Spidey realizes he was supposed to meet Nathan half an hour ago, but doesn\u2019t see how he can give up on Jack O\u2019Lantern now. Back at the restaurant, Nathan makes it too obvious he\u2019s waiting on someone, and May can guess who it is.
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Aw, that\u2019s rough. Elsewhere, Jack O\u2019Lantern realizes he\u2019s outclassed, and dives into a toy store, hoping the close quarters will give him an advantage. But even endangering civilians to distract Spidey only gets him so far, as Spidey manages to leap in front of him and then\u2026
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Jack is still kicking, so Spidey finally webs his ridiculous \u201cpogo platform\u201d out from under him and takes him down. He wants to know Jack\u2019s connection to Hobgoblin, and Jack says \u201cthe answer will startle you,\u201d but rather than explain, he just zaps an electrical box, causing live wires to explode out around the people trapped in the store, and finally gets the distraction he needs to escape.
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Some days, you just can\u2019t win. Much as I wish he could\u2019ve done this whole run, that\u2019s it for Rick Leonardi. Ron Frenz is back next issue, and with his return, the creative team for ASM is in place all the way into the 280s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the black suit\u2019s real origin is pretty unusual. A fan named Randy Schueller submitted an idea for a comic script, and it included the idea that Spider-Man would get a new costume. Jim Shooter actually bought it off him, but the script never wound up becoming a comic. Eventually, though, the basic idea of Schueller\u2019s suit wound up becoming the black costume. They revised it for print. The biggest change was all the white parts were originally to be red. And while the design was publicly credited to Mike Zeck rather than Schueller (Who didn\u2019t really tell his story publicly until 2007<\/a>), the artist who did the turn around and other sketches to show Marvel artists how to draw the new suit was\u2026 Rick Leonardi. He plays an important role in this even before drawing these two issues. Pretty cool stuff.
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A great cover. Such mystery! Rick Leonardi hangs in there for one more issue, joined by new regular inker Joe Rubinstein and new regular colorist Christie Scheele. This story begins by revisiting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1502,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[9,35,11,332,331,26,278,164,123,2],"class_list":["post-1486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-aunt-may","tag-betty-brant","tag-christie-scheele","tag-jack-olantern","tag-joe-robertson","tag-joe-rubenstein","tag-nathan-lubensky","tag-rick-leonardi","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486","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=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4301,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/4301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}