{"id":20591,"date":"2024-03-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=20591"},"modified":"2022-07-27T22:25:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T02:25:41","slug":"tac-annual-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/03\/22\/tac-annual-14\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC Annual 14"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was kind of annoyed that this block and this whole era was going to end on something as crappy as SMU 5. But then I opened this to read it, having long forgotten what happens in it, and was surprised to find it takes place after Pursuit. This should make for a better ending. It\u2019s kind of embarrassing to admit, but I think I bought this just because of the cover. It was a Green Goblin thing, and it has that early Joe Maduriera art. The fact that he doesn\u2019t do the interiors makes this purchase a little stupider. But, ultimately, anything Green Goblin related felt important and worth seeing, so I had to have it. Still. Probably the cover. Joe Mad is credited with bringing a manga influence to American comics in the 90s, but his earliest stuff is very different, more of a piece with Art Adams than Masamune Shirow. I liked it this way. His later stuff is fine, too, but this was maybe more unique. Anyway, we got a wild, wacky show for you behind this cover. The lead feature in this comic has FOUR credited writers! How? Why? How can it take that many people to write 30 pages!? But who they are makes it even weirder. The plot is credited to JM DeMatties and Tom Lyle who I don\u2019t think actually collaborated on anything as writer & artist. Supposition: I recall reading that the clone crap was planned at a summit of writers & editors at which Tom Lyle was the only artist present. Maybe he & JM cooked this up there? The timeline works out.  But they don\u2019t script it. That falls to Ann Nocenti and \u201cD. Blaise.\u201d DeMatties and Nocenti on the same thing?? Marvel\u2019s 2 most prominent writers who like to dig into their characters\u2019 psychology teamed up! You kinda wish it was just them, and that they came up with the plot together, to really see how their different approaches would mesh. Don\u2019t know who D. Blaise is. On art duties, you have breakdowns by Sal Buscema, finishes by Jerry Bingham and colors by Joe Andreani. A Buscema\/Bingham mashup seems like it\u2019ll be interesting. To start, Spider-Man\u2019s found himself swinging by Liz Osborn\u2019s place subconsciously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Man, there\u2019s no artform like comics. You could point to movies & TV requiring a lot of people to produce the finished piece, sure, but just look at this page. DeMatteis, Nocenti, Buscema and Bingham are all completely present. You can find ample evidence of each creator in just these 6 panels. I just find that so cool. A truly collaborative medium. Liz saying Peter must\u2019ve just been friends with her husband should REALLY sting, given their longer history together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ouch. That last page hits a lot harder than most superhero pages. As Spider-Man swings away, he happens on a drug deal gone wrong between some suited businessy guys and some goon types. Spidey just takes them all down, with a surprising amount of banter. When everyone\u2019s webbed up, he takes off, only to find he\u2019s wound up somewhere else familiar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A YEAR of dust and cobwebs, you say? A year. Which presumably means DeMatteis, very much about the \u201cit\u2019s been 5 years since the 70s\u201d thing, has given himself the previous year in real time. So, 1975-1993, 4 years, 1993-1994, one year. Insane. Upon entering that room, Spider-Man is suddenly beset by a bunch of long cables with pads on the end that attach to his head, as a video of Harry pops up saying he\u2019ll be your guide through the eyes of the Osborn family. Peter suddenly finds himself experiencing Norman\u2019s childhood as Norman. How much of this would Harry really know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No missing the DeMatteis-ness here! His mission to get more drunk dads slapping their wives into superhero comics marches on! And if you like that, on the next page, Spider-Man has to live through Norman running outside and clubbing his dog to death! Yaaaaaaay! Spider-Man tears the thing off his head before he\u2019s forced to see anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bingham is a great embellisher for Sal. He doesn\u2019t hang him out to dry like Mike Esposito or try to obliterate him like some of the other guys, he just firms things up. Spider-Man smashes his way through every door he can find on his way out of the building, having an argument with his dead friend in his head the whole way, not knowing that the stuff he destroyed has sent an electrical current racing toward a gas main. He\u2019s about to swing away when his Spider Sense goes off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that seems bad. Spider-Man returns to the real world to find people on the roof of a nearby building, trapped by flames. As he swings into action, he thinks that knowing Norman was abusive to Harry and experiencing it are 2 different things. He makes a big net for people to fall down into, but then there\u2019s a little boy hanging off a window ledge, and then falling. Spidey gets him with a web, but is suddenly warped back to Harry\u2019s memories of Norman always apologizing after his outbursts, then resenting himself for his own weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And here comes a pretty annoying retcon:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Harry being responsible for The Green Goblin just sucks for me. Sorry. I also find Harry admitting his dad had faults or that The Green Goblin was a villain to be at odds with the version of Harry JM was writing. His whole deal was refusing to admit any of that. Spidey snaps out of it long enough to find the boy trapped under a beam with his dog, but as he tries to lift it, he gets pulled back into dreamworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey brings the boy down to safety and then helps put out the fire to make it up to the firemen for being so whacked out, which is nice. Then he goes home and tells all this to MJ. He wonders why no one ever stepped in, a relative, why no one took responsibility and broke the Osborn cycle of violence. MJ says he\u2019s done enough and she\u2019s proud of him, but then she plays him Liz\u2019s message from earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It would be really nice if it all ended there. Peter doing his best to ensure the cycle is over. But instead, of course, Norman came back, and eventually Dan Slott\u2026 well\u2026 maybe we\u2019ll talk about one of the most heinous decisions anyone\u2019s ever made in Spider-Man some day. It\u2019s not a comic I own, but who knows? The DeMatteis\/Nocenti team-up worked pretty well. I wonder if they were\/are pals. Seems like they had some common interests as writers, if nothing else. And man, when Sal slowed down a few years from this, they should\u2019ve seen if Bingham wanted to ink his final couple years. They made a great team. Collaborating seems like such an interesting and potentially rewarding way to make stuff. With a few very rare exceptions, I\u2019ve only ever done my creative thing on my own. I must say, tho, this doesn\u2019t square AT ALL with where DeMatteis picks Peter up in ASM 390, so full of rage he can barely think. You\u2019d think he was over the parents thing already by the end of this issue, and boy, would you be wrong. I\u2019m not surprised his fellow writers didn\u2019t go as ragey and depressing as he did, but he himself not doing it seems very strange. Next up is a Foreigner short that reveals it was Iron Man villain and occasional Spidey antagonist Justin Hammer who was behind Forry\u2019s woes in TAC 209 & 210. Oddly, Steven Grant doesn\u2019t write this. I guess someone felt like that loose end needed tying up. Forry gets revenge by blowing up a whole lot of Hammer\u2019s stuff. That\u2019s followed by a Shroud story which presumably leads into the solo series they announced. Maybe it even came out. I\u2019m still grumbling about them not publishing the Ann Nocenti one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was kind of annoyed that this block and this whole era was going to end on something as crappy as SMU 5. But then I opened this to read it, having…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[399,225,231,125,453,172,21,545,37,121,416],"class_list":["post-20591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ann-nocenti","tag-annual","tag-jerry-bingham","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-joe-andreani","tag-liz-allen","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-normie-osborn","tag-sal-buscema","tag-spectacular-spider-man","tag-tom-lyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20591","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=20591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20608,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20591\/revisions\/20608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}