{"id":16284,"date":"2023-03-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=16284"},"modified":"2021-11-28T18:07:16","modified_gmt":"2021-11-28T22:07:16","slug":"sm-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/03\/06\/sm-25\/","title":{"rendered":"SM 25"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Issue 25 and they still don\u2019t know what to do with this title following McFarlane\u2019s abrupt departure almost 10 months prior. No regular creative team, no direction. And now this wacky bit of business. Have we seen Excalibur before? I don\u2019t\u2026 think so\u2026 Spidey\u2019s old pal Captain Britain (Recently seen here in MTU 65<\/a> & 66<\/a>, now sporting a much better costume) leads a team of mutants in the UK, including Spidey\u2019s old pal Nightcrawler (Since ASM 161<\/a> & 162<\/a>, among others), Spidey\u2019s old acquaintance Kitty Pryde (Met in MTU 118<\/a>), Phoenix, aka Rachel Summers, the daughter of Jean Grey and Cyclops from the future (MTU 150<\/a>), and Meggan, who I\u2019m pretty sure he doesn\u2019t know yet. Spider-Man sure has met almost everybody. This month\u2019s random team of pinch hitters is Terry Kavanagh, Chris Marrinan, Mark Stegbauer and Kevin Tinsley. We open on Joe Robertson paying Peter Parker a bonus for getting exclusive pre-publicity photos from the movie MJ turned down in SM 23<\/a>. Not sure how she had that kinda pull since she didn\u2019t take the part, but she did, and Peter is very grateful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our man sure is doing a lot of traveling lately. I don\u2019t know what happened with Captain Britain\u2019s lil magic stick, but I never saw him use it in a comic before reading MTU 65 just recently, so he must\u2019ve abandoned it before I came on the scene. But, at any rate, Spider-Man is now in London, his just-paid bonus is gone, and he\u2019s trying to find Baker Street because of the \u201cSherlock\u201d reference in CB\u2019s note. When he stops on a roof, he\u2019s attacked by a gargoyle, \u2018cuz, why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s been a little while since Spidey was handily defeated by his true archnemesis. Spider-Man is spit out of those tubes onto the streets of Paris, where he\u2019s attacked by The Juggernaut. Who not only smashes the Arch De Triumphe, but also starts flying. A thoroughly confused Spider-Man manages to run him to ground, where he\u2019s met by Exclaibur (Minus Captain Britain), who do not seem happy to see him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I forgot Excalibur also includes some kinda weird dude named Kylun and a Shi\u2019ar named Cerise at this time. Well, it\u2019s everybody vs. those 2 baddies. Spider-Man swoops down to rescue the unconscious Phoenix as the Eiffel Tower comes to life and grabs everyone else. As Spidey tries to resuscitate Phoenix, the tower seems to kill everyone else by Captain Britain, who flies int oa rage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that\u2019s gross. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spider-Man uses his new-found cosmic power to blow up the villains, revealed to be androids, but then loses his strength and almost passes out, forcing Captain Britain to fly to his rescue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The boys are then attacked by an array of classic Spider-Man villains, and a caption mentions how Brian & Peter were briefly roommates, so maybe that\u2019s how I knew that. Spider-Man points out that most of their foes are either in prison or dead, so there\u2019s no reason to go easy on them as they\u2019re, of course, revealed to be robots, as Marrinan\u2019s faux-Erik Larsen vibe really kicks up a notch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How is the grin a clue?? Unless it’s The Joker…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I mentioned how Spider-Man and Arcade don\u2019t meet again until the 90s back in MTU 66\u2026 But it being direct sequel is pretty weird. Did Arcade just forget he was mad at Spidey and CB all these years? Even if we apply the \u201c5 year\u201d rule from the clone saga, it\u2019s been 2 or 3 years since MTU 66, at this point. Funny, too, that I read this first, as a lad. I just had to take all the references to comics as old as me at face value. The online comics world is a funny thing. Certain sectors will tell you this is \u201cthe first appearance of Spider-Phoenix!\u201d Like that\u2019s a thing. I know a young guy who bought this comic in the late 2010s, believing that was something of value and not meaningless sales jabber. I felt bad for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Issue 25 and they still don\u2019t know what to do with this title following McFarlane\u2019s abrupt departure almost 10 months prior. No regular creative team, no direction. And now this wacky bit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[1043,1443,1451,13,26,418,1475,2,423],"class_list":["post-16284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-arcade","tag-captain-britain","tag-chris-marrinan","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-joe-robertson","tag-kevin-tinsley","tag-mark-stegbaur","tag-spider-man","tag-terry-kavanagh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16284","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=16284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16342,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16284\/revisions\/16342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}