{"id":8560,"date":"2021-03-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=8560"},"modified":"2020-04-13T21:27:48","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T01:27:48","slug":"asm-annual-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/03\/30\/asm-annual-19\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM Annual 19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now here\u2019s an extra weird case. I got this one in elementary school. It was at some kind of\u2026 bookshow or something? It was like a book convention or something, in a coliseum. My Mom, the voracious reader, was into it, and it turned out they had comics vendors, too. And I saw this cover and it totally worked. I had to know why MJ was Supermanning into a Spider-Suit. Here\u2019s the thing, tho: This is not that copy. At some point, I lost it. Got rid of it? I briefly had some friends who also read comics in elementary school, and we\u2019d sometimes trade stuff. I think I traded this one away. So, in 2018, I had to get it back. Funny enough, my original copy was in much better shape, as I recall. But, what can ya do? Money talks, and I\u2019d rather have a cheap copy than a pretty one. So, after all these years, reunited, and it\u2019s feels so good! Louise Simonson may not have set down roots on Web as expected, but she\u2019s not quite done with Spidey yet. She\u2019s joined by a curiously female-heavy crew. Mary Wilshire does breakdowns, Pat Redding does finishes, but good ol\u2019 Bob Sharen breaks the curve. Christie Scheele or Glynis Oliver couldn\u2019t make it? Still, this many women on a book is unheard of for the period, and pretty neat. As things get rolling, Spider-Man foils a back alley drug deal, sending the participants scattering, some escaping in a car. He makes Monopoly jokes throughout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Surprise! You only THOUGHT the hat plot was over! MJ is not actually too cool with Peter being late. In fact, she is working herself into a panic worrying that he\u2019s been killed. She starts out telling herself she\u2019s been too hard on him about the Spider-Man thing, but quickly becomes afraid for him by the time he arrives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tough times. You can understand her position, though. But, hey, let\u2019s go meet the villain of this piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alistaire Smythe, son of Spider Slayer creator Spencer Smythe, ladies & gentlemen. He berates Kingpin for the things Spider-Man has gotten away with in recent issues and the beginning of this one. Kingpin says the drug bust kept Spidey busy while something more important went down. Then he fires Smythe. Seems like the Kingpin I know woulda crushed his insolent head, but then the rest of this issue would be pretty boring. The next day, Peter Parker wakes from a nightmare about his villains and his dead loved ones\u2026 the usual. He tries to call MJ, but she doesn\u2019t answer. He decides to go for a swing to clear his head. Meanwhile, Smythe is finishing his invention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here\u2019s the thing about that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Things could get pretty bad here. It IS a pretty sharp hat, tho!  Meanwhile, Spider-Man is swinging around on the verge of a meltdown, asking a random guy on the street if any girl would be lucky to have him when the Spider Slayer flying overhead sets of his danger sense. It\u2019s way too far up and moving too fast for him to reach, tho, and soon Smythe is nearing the restaurant. Anna & May are joking-not-joking about Mary Jane & Peter getting married, and it\u2019s Aunt Anna\u2019s bad luck that she tries on Aunt May\u2019s hat rrrrright as Smythe shows up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yikes! Spider-Man arrives at the restaurant, and as Aunt May recoils in horror at him, the hat sets off his Spider Sense. He quickly finds the tracker and pins all this on The Kingpin. Reasonable guess, but not gonna help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, Smythe thinks maybe MJ is Spider-Man! Meanwhile, the real Spider-Man assaults Kingpin\u2019s tower assuming Mary Jane & Anna have been taken there. But there\u2019s actually tied up in Smythe\u2019s lab now. He\u2019s deciding that Mary Jane could easily (?) be putting on an exoskeleton that makes her look like a man, and using suction cups to stick to stuff. Case closed, she\u2019s Spider-Man. MJ say\u2019s he\u2019s crazy, but he\u2019s made up his mind. And even though he\u2019s sad that MJ is a beautiful woman, he still thinks \u201cSpider-Man\u201d has to die. But Spider-Man is still bulldozing his way through Kingpin\u2019s tower. Kingpin gets briefed that Smythe kidnapped the famous model Mary Jane Watson and believes she\u2019s Spider-Man. Kingpin actually loves this, thinking this will keep Spider-Man out of his business tonight. He says he\u2019ll deal with Spider-Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back in Soho, Smythe is showing MJ & Anna how all the gadgets on his Spider Slayer work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now we got ourselves a real fiasco. As Spider-Man races to Smythe\u2019s place, he takes MJ out on a trip to see the exoskeleton. She\u2019s keeping a really calm head under pressure, answering all Smythe\u2019s questions about her crime fighting career with whatever she can thinking of (Aliens gave her the exosleketon!), and he buys it all. She asks him how he\u2019s going to record his victory over her. Whether he\u2019ll film it or just take pictures, and this shakes him. He says he doesn\u2019t have a camera, and then MJ gaods him by saying she bets his daddy never got pictures of his victories over Spider-Man. Nerves of steel, that MJ. Back at the warehouse, Spidey arrives, triggering various heat seeking missiles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MJ is really getting away with this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meanwhile, Smythe is still carrying MJ around when she spots Peter\u2019s apartment. She uses a line about getting a photo of him in front of The Empire State Building to drop one of her boots through his skylight, hoping he\u2019s home to be startled into action. Smythe is furious, and tells her his missiles have already killed her Aunt. MJ despairs internally, but keeps up her plan, saying the exoskeleton is at The Daily Bugle. Spider-Man is racing there, too, but can he make it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He\u2019s not credited, but there\u2019s a few panels throughout this issue unmistakably inked by Romita, Sr., none more obvious than those last 2. It wasn\u2019t uncommon for him to do corrections and edits during his time as art director, and he already inked the cover. Spidey tries and fails to stop Smythe repeatedly, learning the robot has a nonstick surface, tricking him into flying through a water tower. Smythe rants about how his dad left him & his mom because of his obsession with Spider-Man, adding another layer to this bloodfeud. Meanwhile, Spidey leasps down into a train station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In spite of Smythe\u2019s optimism, he gets stuck, electricity coursing through the ship. He\u2019s still alive, tho. A sympathetic Amtrak security guard comes up and tells Spider-Man he\u2019s a hero and they have this, allowing him to swing off to check on the ladies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And that\u2019s the ballgame! Smythe helping Peter see that he & MJ should never get back together is pretty funny considering Smythe is the villain in the story where they get engaged, as we\u2019ve seen in ASM 290-292. So, you know, The Vulturions may not have been so hot, but this story really makes you wish Simonson\u2019s tenure on Web hadn\u2019t been cut short. Inventive, surprising, fun and suspenseful, all while adding layers to Pete & MJ\u2019s relationship. Grade A stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now here\u2019s an extra weird case. I got this one in elementary school. It was at some kind of\u2026 bookshow or something? It was like a book convention or something, in a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[386,9,225,36,35,253,13,26,100,372,21,868,860],"class_list":["post-8560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-alistair-smythe","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-annual","tag-aunt-anna","tag-aunt-may","tag-bob-sharen","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-joe-robertson","tag-kingpin","tag-louise-simonson","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-mary-wilshire","tag-pat-redding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8560","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=8560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8580,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8560\/revisions\/8580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}