{"id":19886,"date":"2024-01-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=19886"},"modified":"2022-07-06T21:36:55","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T01:36:55","slug":"asm-034","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/01\/29\/asm-034\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 034"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Another Heroes Con 2019 acquisition. I think I paid the full $35 for this one. The splash for this issue says \u201cfeaturing the somewhat magnificent menace of Kraven the Hunter!\u201d That sort of silly, partially self-deprecating language isn\u2019t uncommon for Stan in this period, but any shade, even unintentional, thrown at Kraven is right by me. On said splash, he\u2019s looking at all his hunting trophies, ruminating on not being able to get \u201cthe greatest prize of all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Having wrestled the lion, Kraven lets it go. Then we jump ahead several days to him at the Nairobi airport, loading a bunch of animals onto a boat to deliver them to US zoos, after which he plans to hunt Spider-Man. Hasn\u2019t he been deported twice already? How\u2019s he keep getting back into the country? He shows up at customs and says \u201cHello, it\u2019s me, Kraven the Hunter, I\u2019m back to hunt human beings in the street again.\u201d \u201cAh yes, your prison cell is waiting for you, sir.\u201d Meanwhile, Peter Parker is revealing he\u2019s Spider-Man to a horrified Betty Brant.  Just kidding, it\u2019s a dream. Betty\u2019s dream, surprisingly. She has accidentally stumbled on the actual secret he keeps from her, but tells herself it can\u2019t actually be that when she jolts awake. Cut to Peter up late studying and feeling great about life now that May\u2019s recovering, then cut to him and Anna Watson visiting her in the hospital the next morning, all in one page. Her doctor appears to announce that she will be discharged today, and will be fine after a few days\u2019 rest. So now Peter can head off to the entire school he seems to have managed to alienate over the last few issues\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All men fawning over Gwen is laying it on a bit thick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It seems strange to write Liz Allan out of the book and then just create a new one. A pretty blonde popular girl inexplicably interested in a standoffish nerd. What\u2019s the difference, at this point? Meanwhile, \u201cI don\u2019t care what happened to him!\u201d I wonder how much of that is Stan being really honest about his own opinion. Especially when you consider how incredibly long it takes ol\u2019 Chammy to reappear. Kraven tells himself he\u2019s gotta catch Spider-Man quick since he\u2019s not allowed in the US\u2026 so how\u2019d he bring them animals?… He tells himself he\u2019s thought of the perfect bait to lure his prey into a fight, but then we hop over to Queens to see May doting on Peter, trying to make up for not being able to spoil him for a few days while she was dying. It\u2019s a fun bit for them. Suddenly, Spider-Man is lying in wait as JJJ leaves The Bugle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How would Spider-Man know who to go after? Kraven is really the worst. And look at him getting into the whole \u201cdressing up as Spider-Man\u201d gig early.  Peter isn\u2019t taking the bait just yet. He doesn\u2019t want to leave May\u2019s side yet, and figures it\u2019s probably just someone playing a prank. But over the coming days, Kraven keeps harassing JJJ as Spider-Man, and the public hatred for our hero grows and grows until he can\u2019t take it anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Man, I hate Kraven. \u201cI happen to have some \u2018scent\u2019 that will cancel out your danger sense!\u201d He\u2019s also planted traps all over this building, which he darts into, leaving Spider-Man to stumble into a few. Meanwhile, that gang of hoods also comes inside, intent on fighting Spider-Man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hopping out the window, Spidey spots 4 more goons down in the alley, and simply drops a big web net on them, no problem. But as he goes back inside, his Spider Sense goes off, dulled and late, allowing Kraven to grab him up in a bear hug. For all the good that does him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The random goons are an unusual element, at least. Spider-Man and Kraven easily defeat the remaining goons, but do so while heading in different directions, and now neither one really knows where the other is. Eventually, Kraven spots our hero once more hanging outside the building, and, dropping a chunk of masonry as a distraction, jumps on him like on the cover. Ditko is a real stickler for recreating the cover inside the books. Kraven tackles Spidey in mid-air and swings him back inside the building, but Spidey manages to get loose as soon as they hit the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another dumb Kraven story comes to a dumb end. It really does kind of read like Stan didn\u2019t care much for Kraven. Me, either, buddy. This month\u2019s Bullpen Bulletins has 2 famous bits in it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stan\u2019s not exaggerating when he says other companies had begun to shamelessly ape the Marvel style. Even at DC, where the in-house opinion was that the Marvel comics had \u201cugly art,\u201d their success had not gone unnoticed. But the whole \u201csell them our old scripts\u201d bit falls pretty flat when you know they don\u2019t exist. And then he goes on to talk about \u201cMarvel Method\u201d plotting for a sec. His not mentioning Ditko seems very intentional. Steve\u2019s almost had enough, they couldn\u2019t be on worse terms, and while Jack Kirby might be too nice to make a fuss when Stan takes any credit for his plots, Ditko sure won\u2019t by this stage. Meanwhile, in the letters, Richard Pini, who will one day go on to do the long-running and beloved fantasy comic ElfQuest with his future wife Wendy, writes to tell them they better not kill Aunt May, or \u201cI shall personally sic the Destroyer, the Juggernaut and Irving Forbush on every one of you.\u201d I\u2019m glad Richard could rest easy after reading #33.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another Heroes Con 2019 acquisition. I think I paid the full $35 for this one. The splash for this issue says \u201cfeaturing the somewhat magnificent menace of Kraven the Hunter!\u201d That sort…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[9,36,35,11,12,16,22,13,45,2,6,8],"class_list":["post-19886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1960s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-aunt-anna","tag-aunt-may","tag-betty-brant","tag-flash-thompson","tag-gwen-stacy","tag-harry-osborn","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-kraven-the-hunter","tag-spider-man","tag-stan-lee","tag-steve-ditko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886","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=19886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19892,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19886\/revisions\/19892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}