{"id":18634,"date":"2023-10-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-11T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=18634"},"modified":"2022-04-04T20:07:13","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T00:07:13","slug":"tac-202","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/10\/11\/tac-202\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC 202"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I had had various ups and downs in my nascent comic collecting career by this point. We\u2019re in about year 5, I think. But it was this mega-crossover that made me realize, \u201cOh. Comics can be, like, really bad sometimes.\u201d I mean, here I am, 15 years old. Trying to keep up with comics on a  meager allowance. Marvel tells me I have to buy into all 4 Spider-Man titles plus a new 5th one for 14 issues  to know what\u2019s going on when I usually buy between 1-2 each month. And I do. And I get\u2026 this. A smarter kid would\u2019ve learned a lesson. I just began a long standing tradition of buying every issue, not liking most of them, and hoping the next one would be good. Foolish child. Little did I know Spider-Man would maybe improve a little from time to time in some titles sometimes during the coming years, but not really get good until 2001. Years and years of dreck, and me with a front row seat. Well. Anyway. Let\u2019s check out the latest installment of \u201cthe good guys fight the bad guys until they run away and the good guys just let them.\u201d As with most issues of this event, if not all, we go from page one into a 2-page splash, this one of everyone facing off with everyone from last issue except Deathlok & Iron Fist, who still haven\u2019t managed to join up with Hero Team. Carnage reiterates that he can\u2019t die, a claim that is really gonna be put to use in future terrible comics. Then it\u2019s more pointless fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not for the last time, this is a big event that puts the heroes in position to make a moral choice where the correct, realistic answer is bad for the comic. Which should lead the people developing the story to go, \u201cHey, wait, this is a bad idea,\u201d but it somehow never does. No one wants Spider-Man to be a brutal killer (I guess dopey edgelords not included). But there\u2019s no other solution for Carnage. It would be better to just not have a character like Carnage in Spider-Man. Instead, we get \u201cmoral debates\u201d where allowing a guy whose only joy in life is killing people to live is the \u201cright thing to do.\u201d Anyway, fight fight fight, now with JM DeMatteis pseudo-psychology narration. Meanwhile, MJ and her overflowing ashtray wait for word of her husband\u2019s fate. Alternately angry and scared. Then, back to the fight. Cloak and Shriek face off yet again, his cloak doesn\u2019t affect her yet again. She begins overpowering him with her sonic power yet again. Literally just going in circles. Ho hum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hard to imagine the kick actually being anywhere near that guy in the last panel. An unusual error for Sal. But at least someone bothers to explain why people are fighting in the streets, finally. Black Cat waffling on being all tuff, yet again. She gets whacked in the head with a trash can lid, and Morbius is so busy being concerned he doesn\u2019t notice Demogoblin throwing bombs at him, which seem to mess him up pretty bad. Spider-Man fights Carnage for a page since it\u2019s ostensibly his comic, then Firestar zaps Carnage, and everyone discovers he\u2019s vulnerable to her fire, yet again. She says it\u2019s no use since he just reforms when she lets up, and Venom makes the obvious suggestion that she shouldn\u2019t let up. Surrounded by innocent people beating the hell out of each other and by murderous super killers, Spider-Man continues to take his moral stand. Venom, of all people, is the voice of reason, saying this can\u2019t truly end any other way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is stupid, but that\u2019s good acting from Sal.\u00a0Venom is hilarious, tho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Venom punches Spider-Man off into the distance like a cartoon, then Carnage and Shriek come after him. Shriek\u2019s sonic powers do the number on Venom they should, which begs the question, how did it take 9 whole issues for this to happen? Eddie\u2019s symbiote is reduced to a trail of goo on the ground, and then Carnage & Shriek are upon him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ridiculous. We don\u2019t see the other villains leave, but presumably, they do. All the heroes lay battered on the ground, Spider-Man trying to get up, when someone off-panel asks if he needs a hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And so, an actual A-List hero gets dragged into this sorry mess. You\u2019d think they\u2019d happily throw some chapters of this to the Captain America title, but they don\u2019t. 5 issues to go. I bet the heroes and villains fight and the villains get away next issue!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had had various ups and downs in my nascent comic collecting career by this point. We\u2019re in about year 5, I think. But it was this mega-crossover that made me realize,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[156,253,458,196,315,791,419,1627,625,125,21,42,37,433,121,2,409],"class_list":["post-18634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-black-cat","tag-bob-sharen","tag-carnage","tag-carrion","tag-cloak-dagger","tag-deathlok","tag-demogoblin","tag-doppelganger","tag-iron-fist","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-morbius","tag-sal-buscema","tag-shriek","tag-spectacular-spider-man","tag-spider-man","tag-venom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18634","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=18634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18635,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18634\/revisions\/18635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}