{"id":65,"date":"2020-10-16T00:00:32","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T04:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=65"},"modified":"2019-10-31T00:09:04","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T04:09:04","slug":"asm-134","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2020\/10\/16\/asm-134\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 134"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here we go. The introduction of The Tarantula. As we will see, on covers, The Tarantula only attacks Spider-Man from the left, on a yellow background. It\u2019s in his contract. A polarizing figure, from what I understand. Kind of a lame villain, and yet one of the most recognizable Spidey villains of the 70s. And, as an aside, the antagonist of my very first Spider-Man comic, so I have a fascination with him dating back to before I could read (We\u2019re on our way to that one). My copy appears to have \u201c.10 p\u201d written under the logo in ink. What does this cryptic scrawl mean? Was this comic sold in Britain at some point? We\u2019ll never know. The usual gang of Gerry Conway, Ross Andru, Frank Giacoia & Dave Hunt get things going with Spidey late to a cruise he\u2019s taking with MJ, Flash & the recently returned Liz Allen. Captions indicate Gerry Conway thought kids in New York were playing stickball in 1974. Surely this isn\u2019t true. I dunno, I wasn\u2019t born yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Super-Giant Spider-Man. They changed plans so fast they didn\u2019t even fix that caption. Hey, look, Peter makes it to the boat in time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Peter spends a page recapping the last 4 issues, adding a bit about taking Aunt May to Anna Watson\u2019s place, still in her wedding dress. I still really wanna see this. How Spider-Man and\/or Peter explained this situation to Aunt May and\/or Aunt Anna. Then a fight breaks out on the upper decks where Peter saw the evil lookin\u2019 types, and MJ goes insane for a panel\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ross Andru\u2019s facial expressions are impossible to explain sometimes. She looks deranged. Flash rushes up to to try to help, but he backs down real quick when he sees\u2026 this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Is that really intimidating? I guess in the world of super-heroes it is. He just looks kinda silly to me. Hidalgo, Juan and Tarantula. His lil\u2019 homies don\u2019t deserve names? They couldn\u2019t be, like, Trapdoor Spider and Daddy Long Legs? Oh, man, what if there was a villain named Daddy Long Legs? You know, Stilt Man should change his bit. ANYWAY some sailors try to fight back and Spider-Man shows up, can you believe it???<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In a rather convoluted rescue, Spidey webs onto a bridge as they pass under it, swings down, snags the dude, and then swings him all the way back up to the bridge. MJ thinks he\u2019s abandoned them. Flash thinks\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maybe Flash is smarter than he looks! Holy crap, what a debacle! There follows a bit of business where Spidey tries to hitch a ride home for more webfluid, but everyone hates him. Then he hops on top of a truck and starts thinking about how everyone hates him. Peter wallows in self-pity all the way home, while reloading his webshooters, and even as he\u2019s swinging away\u2026 seen by Harry Osborn, still clearly nuts and who now knows what he suspected: his roommate is the guy he blames for killing his dad. Now that\u2019s drama. Meanwhile, at the Daily Bugle, Jonah gets a call from the mayor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Mayor says the Bugle has to pay the ransom or he\u2019ll have the city council review the paper\u2019s charter and they\u2019ll go out of business. WHAT. How does anything I just said make any sense?? WHAT. Back on the cruise ship, the Spider-Gang are getting around to robbing all the passengers. Flash can\u2019t take it anymore and jumps up to get beat down, but I guess you gotta admit, he\u2019s courageous. Before he can get hurt too badly, though…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Santa Maria! No man can avoid the Tarantula\u2019s thrust!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey\u2019s doing pretty well against Mr. Tula and then Hidalgo jumps in, distracting our man long enough for him to get a dainty touch on the leg from Tarantula\u2019s boot. Every time he spikes someone, it doesn\u2019t look like much. Observe, for example, as stupid ol\u2019 Flash charges back in at just the wrong moment: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like if he kicked the crap out of Spidey with those spikes on his boot, shouldn\u2019t they stab pretty deep? But, no, it\u2019s always like \u201cboop.\u201d Anyway, the drugs in Spidey’s system from those two gentle taps he got put him on the floor, too. At just the worst possible time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This boat had 3 supervillains, one superhero AND one gritty anti-hero on it? New York is crazy! This issue features a letter from Ralph Macchio. The same one who would one day be the editor on Ultimate Spider-Man? I don\u2019t know. Maybe the Karate Kid. I choose to believe the former. Next time we\u2019ll see how this shakes out. And I know you were waiting to hear: Marvel Value Stamp intact!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here we go. The introduction of The Tarantula. As we will see, on covers, The Tarantula only attacks Spider-Man from the left, on a yellow background. It\u2019s in his contract. A polarizing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[9,562,12,41,73,172,21,74,2,114],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1970s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-dave-hunt","tag-flash-thompson","tag-frank-giacoia","tag-gerry-conway","tag-liz-allen","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-ross-andru","tag-spider-man","tag-tarantula"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","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=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6863,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions\/6863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}