{"id":21471,"date":"2024-05-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=21471"},"modified":"2022-09-08T23:20:27","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T03:20:27","slug":"chapter-one-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/05\/30\/chapter-one-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter One 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As if things weren\u2019t weird enough, it appears Byrne is just gonna skip ASM 4? Well, last issue, we left Spider-Man broken and defeated in the grass outside a compound Doc Ock had taken hostage, so naturally, this issue opens with Flash Thompson yelling at Peter Parker. Not jarring at all. Also, Flash has an earring, which is just so funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He\u2019s tried to update the kids\u2019 looks, and yet Peter still dresses like it\u2019s 1963. For those scoring at home, Flash didn\u2019t break Peter\u2019s glasses until ASM 8<\/a>, but that\u2019s the Living Brain issue, and given what\u2019s happened so far, I assume Byrne\u2019s gonna skip it, so here we are. Peter slinks away, thinking all he could do when he woke up after Ock threw him through that window was go home. He tries to put his glasses on and realizes he doesn\u2019t need them. But says it doesn\u2019t matter, because Spider-Man is finished. Then, we get to an undebatable mistake:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Joe Robertson, not hired by JJJ until issue 50<\/a>, is here. And Byrne has reverse the graying pattern of his hair for some reason. You don\u2019t think anything of Robbie\u2019s hair being lighter on top until you see him next to JJJ like this and realize they basically have the same hair now. Well, Flash is getting into his Spider-Man costume to go teach Peter a lesson, as he did in ASM 5<\/a>, and all the girls have Farah Fawcett hair. VERY 1998.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Instead of rolling up on Flash like he did in the original, Doom beams him up into his spaceship. THEN we \u2018re back in ASM 3<\/a>, where Johnny Storm gives a speech at Peter\u2019s school to inspire him to get back out there and fight Doc Ock. So, soon, Spider-Man\u2019s off to do just that, sneaking into Ock\u2019s compound, which he had by the end of the original. Ock deploys various evil machines and robots, but they\u2019re no match for the rejuvenated Spider-Man, who then crawls on the ceiling so Ock\u2019s security cameras won\u2019t see him, forcing the villain into the open. In the original, Spider-Man ducked into a room in this advanced scientific facility to make an adhesive that would help in the fight. While that was perhaps a bit much, it made more sense than him already having this stuff on him when he arrives. Where\u2019d he get it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, our hero webs up his foe and leaves him for some cops to find, instead of the national guard as in the original. Then he swings by to tell Johnny \u201cthank you\u201d for the inspiration, as in the original. But then he goes home and sees Dr. Doom broadcasting footage of his prisoner, Spider-Man, on TV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All these massive changes to the cannon and he couldn\u2019t come up with a better plot for Doom. Ditko & Lee\u2019s Liz calling Peter made more sense, as she had appeared in more than 4 panels and already had conflicting feelings about Peter. Here, Byrne just gives up. \u201cI don\u2019t know why I\u2019m telling you this\u2026\u201d Me, either, Liz, this comic sucks. Byrne then has the FF cameo, on their way to go save the day. Not as funny as the original. But maybe they should, because Spider-Man can\u2019t find Doom in this version. And instead of just swinging around and getting lucky, he swings up on top of the World Trade Center to do this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026which is objectively worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And we\u2019re once again cutting off in the middle of a comic, which will be the insane status quo of this series from here on out.\u00a0 Every issue of Chapter One ends on a cliffhanger somewhere in the middle of an issue of ASM. Then, next issue, page one shows you Spider-Man in some predicament from the FOLLOWING issue of ASM, only to flashback to show you how he got out of the previous cliffhanger and then run up to the NEW cliffhanger you already saw on page one! It\u2019s NUTS. Unnecessarily convoluted, and with each issue, only more tedious. Insane, insane decision. Ending every issue on a cliffhanger whose resolution is SKIPPED when you open the next book!! Who would do this!? I guess I know. Bonkers. This issue has some letters, 2 positive, 1 negative, about issue 1. The negative one comes from a guy who\u2019s been buying comics since ASM 78, and can\u2019t handle all the teens in \u201cmodern clothes\u201d and Peter getting a \u201cpersonal computer.\u201d Yeesh. But he makes a good point about the original origin. He says something is lost with the big dumb explosion origin, because there was some poetry in something as insignificant as a spider bite changing Peter\u2019s life, and how things only got more and more exciting from that moment. How starting with a big explosion is the opposite. Good point, old timer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As if things weren\u2019t weird enough, it appears Byrne is just gonna skip ASM 4? Well, last issue, we left Spider-Man broken and defeated in the grass outside a compound Doc Ock…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[35,1859,25,106,288,12,72,26,180,442,172,247,2,1710,663],"class_list":["post-21471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-aunt-may","tag-chapter-one","tag-doctor-octopus","tag-dr-doom","tag-fantastic-four","tag-flash-thompson","tag-human-torch","tag-joe-robertson","tag-john-byrne","tag-john-kalisz","tag-liz-allen","tag-reed-richards","tag-spider-man","tag-sue-storm","tag-the-thing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471","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=21471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21472,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471\/revisions\/21472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}