{"id":20860,"date":"2024-04-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=20860"},"modified":"2022-09-06T20:49:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T00:49:22","slug":"smu-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/04\/10\/smu-20\/","title":{"rendered":"SMU 20"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, that\u2019s a cover. Writer Christopher Golden takes over for, I think, the remainder of this title. I mostly know him for his frequent collaborations with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. He seems to specialize in horror type stuff, so the spooky turn on this title is perhaps not surprising. Certainly makes it stand out. The rest of the regular team of Joe Bennett, Joe Pimentel and John Kalisz hangs in there. This issue is flowing out of some Blade comic\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Simon Garth is the original \u201cMarvel Zombie.\u201d In the  70s, when the Comics Code loosened up and they could do zombies again, it only made sense to make the term for loyal Marvel fans a literal character. We saw him in SM Annual \u201897<\/a>. And here he comes now\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Very horror-y. Meanwhile, uptown, Peter & Mary Jane are enjoying a nice evening together, the firs tin months not interrupted by Spider-Business. They exposit that some kids have been going missing, and then an ambulance speeds by, and MJ tells Peter not to stay out too late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Blade movie is still many months from release at this point, but its conception of vampirism in the 90s was clearly just something going around at the time. We cut away to one Dr. Jacob Weisenthal, who, we\u2019re told, is an old friend of Michael Morbius who\u2019s been researching a cure for vampirism since he found out his friend had become one. Ok! Unfortunately for him, he\u2019s visited by Lilith, the daughter of Dracula. She grabs him by the throat and asks if he is who she thinks he and if he\u2019s really friends with Morbius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This woman is like 70% legs. She\u2019s like Stilt-Man without the stilts. While she\u2019s wrecking that guy\u2019s set, Spider-Man is rescuing a woman from a burning building. In a well staged bit of heroing, he runs her through a collapsing floor and uses his web to keep glass from cutting them up as they smash out through a window, then bounds her down to the ground and the waiting firefighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NOW is a tabloid now? Did anyone tell Jonah? Meanwhile, Hannibal King is at The Voodoo Lounge, a place where sorcerers and such hang out, allegedly, and he\u2019s asking the bosslady there about the amulet that controls Simon Garth. She brings him to a woman named Collette with a hokey New Orleans accent and an \u201cUncle Jericho,\u201d meaning Brother Voodoo, who who knows where the amulet is and will tell him for a price. Quick cut to Simon bringing Lilith another victim, against his will, but unable to disobey anyone holding the amulet. And then, back at the club Hannibal started at\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lilith and Hannibal go all fangs out on each other and get to scrapping, but then Spider-Man butts in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some pretty good Spider-Man from Golden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spider-Man\u2019s back, his costume\u2019s torn in a few places, and he\u2019s not laughing anymore. As he battles some of her underlings, Lilith vanishes, taking the amulet with her. Lilith, back in her lair, exposits about the various vampire shenanigans going on in Marvel at the time before telling us she\u2019d meant to make Morbius her \u201cconcubine and general\u201d as she seeks to take up the title of Lord of Vampires, but has decided on Hannibal, instead. Meanwhile, more exposition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They\u2019ve broken into somewheres to look at blueprints to get an idea of where Lilith is. They split up, and Spider-Man is STILL talking to himself about how he doesn\u2019t believe in vampires, like he did in MTU Vol. 2 #7<\/a>. How?? He\u2019s met Frankenstein\u2019s actual monster, TWO werewolves, aliens, subterranean monsters, Atlanteans, gods, and is himself a man who can stick to walls! He draws the line at vampires?? Well, anyway, he sees on a TV that Simon\u2019s on a rampage to draw out King, and King is being stalked by Lilith\u2019s goons. As Spider-Man is knocked out surprisingly easily by the zombie, Hannibal is being led to Lilith\u2019s lair as he chases the vampire goons, and when he gets there, he finds Spidey chained to a pillar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It WAS a pretty dumb question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This escalated very quickly. It\u2019s almost like we\u2019re running out of pages. Spidey saves Hannibal from Lilith, but before they can mix it up much, the now free Simon Garth grabs her by the skull and begins to squeeze. She turns to mist to escape, and then Spider-Man throws one of her goons through a boarded up window, letting in sunlight. When Lilith won\u2019t give up, Spidey threatens to just start knocking down walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why on Earth did Spidey make him reach into the sunlight?? That\u2019s so rude!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m willing to let slide the fact that Peter has met Dracula since he didn\u2019t know it at the time, but come on, man. I don\u2019t know about Hannibal, but Lilith will not have her revenge on Spider-Man. She only appears in 9 more comics, none of them costarring him. Ah, well. Whether Peter believes in them or not, it\u2019s better to keep such supernatural things out of Spider-Man\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, that\u2019s a cover. Writer Christopher Golden takes over for, I think, the remainder of this title. I mostly know him for his frequent collaborations with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. He seems…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[1780,1781,621,950,442,1782,21,2,439,1283],"class_list":["post-20860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-christopher-golden","tag-hannibal-king","tag-joe-bennett","tag-joe-pimentel","tag-john-kalisz","tag-lilth","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-spider-man","tag-spider-man-unlimited","tag-the-marvel-zombie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20860","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=20860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21247,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20860\/revisions\/21247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}