{"id":19955,"date":"2024-02-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=19955"},"modified":"2022-07-07T21:38:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-08T01:38:41","slug":"asm-037","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/02\/05\/asm-037\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 037"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There are 2 robots, tho. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the most eventful prison release in Marvel history! Good grief! All this on the first page??? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Love Spidey in the hat. Ditko is doing the \u201cJJJ can\u2019t keep a secretary\u201d bit Len Wein would later recycle on the next page, as a 2nd replacement for Betty is about to give up, and Peter remarks on how it\u2019s a new secretary every time he comes up here. Even the most obscure thing has been done before, it seems. Then Foswell runs in to say he\u2019s after the story about Stromm, without ever saying what the story is. Peter yet again places a spider tracer in Foswell\u2019s hat so he can find out what\u2019s going on later, then departs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Boy oh boy. The so-called love of his life, and this is how it starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That has to be one of the weirdest robot designs of all time. \u201cIt\u2019s a sticky green amoeba. You know, a robot.\u201d In short order, Stromm sends his bizarre bot to the business of his as yet unnamed enemy, where it scares off a guard and then begins trashing the place, to \u201chit him where it hurts the most\u2013 in his wallet!\u201d As smoke begins to bellow out of the building and a crowd gathers outside, Spider-Man swings in a window. He\u2019s shocked by the thing at first, as it grabs him with a tentacle and slings him across the room, and then somehow identifies it as a robot and not some kind of alien monster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And so, Norman Osborn storms into the scene, and purely by accident, he\u2019s 100% in character as the guy he\u2019ll be molded into in the future: a ruthless, lying, terrible dad. JJJ shows up on the scene, making it clear he & Norman share the same club. I wonder if Ditko pointed this out to Stan or if he just remembered seeing him in past issues. Jonah is, of course, fully sold on the idea that Spider-Man\u2019s behind all this. Speaking of whom, he goes to try to follow Foswell around to get a lead on Stromm, but Foswell has just become \u201cPatch,\u201d leaving his hat at home. Spider-Man once again casually breaks into Foswell\u2019s home like it\u2019s a public space, wondering if he somehow knew the tracer was in the hat, then leaves. But he spots Patch walking down the street, not just aware that\u2019s Foswell, but knowing he\u2019s a stoolie, and decides to follow him. Cut to Stromm finishing his 2nd robot and trying out its laser again, then back to Spidey following Patch. He\u2019s paid out some money to real goons and learned the general area Stromm is holed up in. Then a hidden door swings out of a wall, and Stromm\u2019s man Max comes out, wanting to know what \u201cPatch\u201d is up to. The robot exits behind him, off on its revenge mission, but Stromm wants Patch brought in for questioning. Spider-Man is unsure what to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Norman\u2019s walking a fine line with regards to his eventual revelation as The Goblin. Spider-Man tries to fight the robot, but his webbing doesn\u2019t do much, and it begins backing him down a stairwell into some kind of factory. He chucks a big piece of equipment at it, but the robot just catched it and keeps firing its beam. Then\u2026 Norman leaps out from behind a door and punches Spider-Man in the back of the head!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Would anyone believe some regular old man could knock out Spider-Man? Is there any doubt that both Stan Lee and Steve Ditko know Norman is The Green Goblin? Is there any way to claim one of them was on board and the other wasn\u2019t, after this? I don\u2019t think so. Spider-Man kicks the robot into Stromm\u2019s hideout as he comes in, and gets in close with it, managed to flip it into Stromm\u2019s controls. Meanwhile, Max has decided to run for it, freeing Foswell by accident in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At this point, it would be plainly obvious to anyone that Osborn is a villain. Just not which villain. It\u2019s funny how all this gets spoken of, years later. People say the Goblin turning out to be the dad of Peter Parker\u2019s best friend was a shocking twist. Like Harry\u2019s dad wasn\u2019t introduced as a villain. Like we don\u2019t know way more about him than Harry at this point. The pathos of it all was largely manufactured after the fact. In the letter col, one missive wants to know what happened to Peter\u2019s parents, and specifically, if he had any sisters. Which is oddly specific, especially in light of one truly bizarre story from the 2010s. Then a missive attributed to \u201cThe Page House Mob\u201d is outraged that Peter Parker\u2019s not going to Cal Tech, and has a list of demands as to why and how Peter should get there. And, you know, he could\u2019ve. There\u2019s not much keeping him in NY. It\u2019s over with Betty, they wrote Liz out of the book, he literally has no friends, he could sell photos anywhere. If they\u2019d had the urge, Ditko and Lee could\u2019ve turned Spidey into Marvel\u2019s first hero outside New York with relative ease. That sure would\u2019ve been different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are 2 robots, tho.  This is the most eventful prison release in Marvel history! Good grief! All this on the first page???  Love Spidey in the hat. Ditko is doing the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[9,35,11,12,16,22,13,312,39,2,6,8],"class_list":["post-19955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1960s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-aunt-may","tag-betty-brant","tag-flash-thompson","tag-gwen-stacy","tag-harry-osborn","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-mendel-stromm","tag-norman-osborn","tag-spider-man","tag-stan-lee","tag-steve-ditko"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19955","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=19955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19969,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19955\/revisions\/19969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}