{"id":23937,"date":"2024-12-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=23937"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:41:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:41:05","slug":"asm-v2-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/12\/06\/asm-v2-45\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM V2 45"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This month, what is more or less the stable cover treatment for Marvel Comics for the foreseeable future is in place. The little red rectangle with (Pretty arbitrary) content rating, issue number, legacy issue number, and credits. Taking up as little real estate as possible. Steve Ditko invented the corner box on ASM, an innovation that helped when books were on top of each other, fighting for newsstand space, but it\u2019s a different world in 2002, and they\u2019re not strictly necessary anymore, so they\u2019re more or less over. Sometimes there will be a more complex trade dress, and once in awhile, someone will try to bring the corner box back, but it\u2019s basically dead at Marvel. DC will continue to have them, then drop them, then sort of bring them back sometimes. Image still has them, at least in some cases, but it\u2019s just the transparent \u201ci\u201d logo. End of an era. This is also the last issue of this 3-issue stint of Romita doing his own covers. He\u2019ll still get a few in before he leaves the book, but most of the time, it\u2019s someone else. We pick things up with a reporter outside the collapsed hotel, saying there\u2019s no word yet on whether Spider-Man got out. He did not, and he\u2019s scrambling to escape while trying not to black out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Looks bad! Meanwhile, MJ and Lobster-Man are up for their screentests, with JMS doing a lot of inside baseball about the movie industry (And writers\u2019 place in it) and once angina making it clear MJ is just a piece of meat here. Which is a bit awkward after reading JMS\u2019s silent issue scripts about how sexy and barely clothed she had to be. Perhaps those in glass houses shouldn\u2019t throw et ceteras. The writer bursts in and says the studio doesn\u2019t like Lobster-Man\u2019s origin. MJ asks what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A little too meta there, J. Michael! Back in the wreckage, Spider-Man weighs his options. He can\u2019t stay where he is or he\u2019ll be crushed, and he can\u2019t leave because he has no idea how to get out. But then he remembers Carlyle was going to the studio for hostages, and it\u2019s time for the JMS version of Spider-Man Must Lift A Heavy Thing. At the studio, May has found her way to the set to pointedly tell MJ that Peter had to go, and then a security guard is thrown through the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back at the wreckage\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cHey, Johnny, you did Spider-Man Must Lift A Heavy Thing in SM 87<\/a>, and you did it again in SM 98<\/a>, and you mighta done it once more for good measure since, I don\u2019t even remember, but you wanna take at least a 3rd run at it in the last 4 years?\u201d \u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He did it. At the studio, Carlyle is ranting that he wants a guaranteed car out of here and no pursuit, but the authorities won\u2019t take him seriously unless someone dies. And you\u2019ll never guess, but he selects Aunt May to be the unlucky victim. And then someone smashes the wall open shouting \u201cLeave that woman alone!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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EVERY time Ock and May\u2019s history together comes up, I am delighted. Every time. An intense 2-page battle of the multi-armed crazy people ensues, and Carlyle is slowly getting the upper, uh, tentacle thanks to his extra modifications when Ock gets a claw right in his foe\u2019s power pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Taking Doc\u2019s hint, Spidey leaps onto Carlyle\u2019s back and starts ripping the power pack open. As tentacles snake around Spidey\u2019s head and he\u2019s about to pass out, he gets in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MJ assures Aunt May Peter is ok. Ock has disappeared in the chaos. And everyone looks pretty shaken up as Spider-Man realizes he shouldn\u2019t have come here. I\u2019m not so sure about that. He can\u2019t blame himself his way out of the 2 Ocks fighting either way. But that\u2019s Spider-Man. Then we jump ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Really astute critique of MJ\u2019s place in the books from the mid-90s til she \u201cdied.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Great ending! I just love May being in on it, I really do. Been a long time since either book had a letter page. That\u2019s weird. But more common as things progress. And that\u2019s where we leave it this block. Next post, we return to the world of Ultimate Spider-Man. Ya know, when I did the first USM block, it was a thrill and a relief from the drudgery of the main titles, but now I kinda don\u2019t want to switch. What a difference 16 or so issues of ASM can make\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month, what is more or less the stable cover treatment for Marvel Comics for the foreseeable future is in place. The little red rectangle with (Pretty arbitrary) content rating, issue number,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[1863,35,1982,25,1981,118,21,417,2],"class_list":["post-23937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-amazing-spider-man-vol-2","tag-aunt-may","tag-dan-kemp","tag-doctor-octopus","tag-j-michael-straczynski","tag-john-romita-jr","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-scott-hanna","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23937","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=23937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23938,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23937\/revisions\/23938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}