{"id":92,"date":"2021-01-01T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T04:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=92"},"modified":"2020-02-09T15:37:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T19:37:00","slug":"tac-56","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/01\/01\/tac-56\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC 056"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This one is noteworthy for a couple of things. First, it features pencil layouts by Jim Shooter. At this time, Shooter is the controversial but undeniably great Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics, presiding over a real resurgence for the company, so it\u2019s kinda crazy he drew this issue. But before he was all that, he was a wunderkind who got his first job writing comics before he was old enough to drive, and a solid artist, too. So that\u2019s fun. It\u2019s also notable for the fellow on the cover, Jack O\u2019Lantern. Jack looks like a 3rd rate Green Goblin rip-off, and that\u2019s funny because he was created by none other than Sturdy Steve Ditko, in the pages of Machine Man. At this point, Ditko had returned to work for Marvel after his famous falling out with Stan Lee, but on the condition that he wouldn\u2019t work on his beloved characters, Spider-Man & Dr. Strange. But I guess you love some ideas so much you can\u2019t help revisiting them, and so Ditko sort of re-made Green Goblin. And Roger Stern apparently looked at Jack O\u2019Lantern and thought \u201cThat guy oughta be fighting Spider-Man,\u201d and snagged him for this issue. And while it may not be immediately obvious, the impact of that decision would continue to be felt for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, this one starts with a curious Spider-Man watching a weird looking dude being wheeled out of an ambulance: Jack O\u2019 Lantern. He\u2019s only just been beaten up by Machine Man, pretty bad, and is going to the hospital. Spidey snaps some pictures of him and swings over to the Daily Bugle to see if he can get paid. Inside, a guy is telling the tale of what happened. Jack, an \u201cinternational terrorist,\u201d attacked a fancy costume party intending to rob the guests when Machine Man stopped him by redirecting his own concussion grenade at him. JJJ is berating no one in particular for failing to get photos of this when Peter Parker runs in with his film. Good timing for once, Pete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The next day, a doctor makes his rounds in the prison ward of the hospital, checking on Vulture and Nitro before getting to Jack O\u2019Lantern who is hilariously still in his full costume. A cop watching him says they couldn\u2019t get it off of him. The doc is worried that, since no one could examine him in the suit, he could die. Meanwhile, a guy at a phone booth outside is plotting to break him out of jail. And over at ESU, Peter Parker is walking to his office when his Spider Sense goes off. He dives through the door only to find Steve Hopkins, Comic Relief, hanging upside down from the ceiling, trying to grab him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good for you, Pete-o. In the excellent book \u201cComic Book Creators On Spider-Man,\u201d Roger Stern says he based his take on Peter\u2019s fellow teaching assistants on people from the Marvel Bullpen. He has said that every time he put something that really happened in the book, readers complained it was too ridiculous. Are we to assume a version of this happened? Who knows? As this is going down, Jack O\u2019Lantern\u2019s goons break into the hospital pretending to be phone repairmen just as Jack sits up in his bed like Michael Meyers in Halloween (No grandma with a bomb<\/a>, though). His guys get to him just as he was running for it, and he explains why he\u2019s not in a coma anymore\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here is a man who sees opportunity everywhere. Meanwhile, back at ESU, Peter & Parker is still debating privacy with Deb Whtiman (Who, of course, gets hurt feelings) when Macy Kane walks in. Steve goes for her hat as promised, and we learn Marcy\u2019s incredible and tragic secret:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yes. You may have thought she had cancer or something. You fool. She\u2019s just\u2026 not blonde. Peter chases her out and tries to be a shoulder to lean on (Making her rethink her hate for him), and she says she was blonde as a kid and it was her only good feature, but now she\u2019s got brown hair and a doctor told her if she kept dying it, it would fall out. Oh, the horror. She scampers off, and then Deb runs out to tell Pete Aunt May\u2019s on the phone. Turns out, her new paramore, Nathan, is at the hospital Jack O\u2019Lantern is running amok in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\/Sigh. The Deb Whtiman riff is really out-staying its welcome, isn\u2019t it?  Anyway, the cops, led by Lt. Keating, have the hospital surrounded, but don\u2019t dare go in because Jack & Co. have hostages. So Keating is extra mad when his least-favorite person shows up to go save the day. But he does so in a totally baffling way, webbing away from the building, spotting a plane taking off, webbing on to that, getting high in the sky, and then web-parachuting back down to the hospital. I mean\u2026 climbing up a wall probably woulda done the job, but ok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey sneaks in past the distracted goons and hears some other goons talking about the hostages being watched in the solarium by a dude with an M-16. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey comes smashing right through the wall (I like it when writers remind you how strong he is) and handily disarms the guard on the old folks. He wants to get them out, but Nathan once again ain\u2019t havin\u2019 it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You gotta hand it to them for coming up with a guy who can take Uncle Ben\u2019s spot. You\u2019re messing with hallowed lore giving Aunt May a love interest, but how could you not root for Nathan? Peter is impressed, and heads off looking for Jack O\u2019Lantern. Suddenly all the lights go out and Jack tries to zap Spidey from behind, but of course, that won\u2019t get him far. What follows is a fun fight where Jack O\u2019Lantern has no idea who he\u2019s dealing with, and grows more and more panicked as Spider-Man first dodges all his lasers and then rips a steel door off the hinges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aaaaw. That\u2019s sad. And so, certainly not for the first time, a dejected Peter Parker trudges off into the sunset, having saved the day and also hurt the person he loves most in the process. Some days it just doesn\u2019t pay to be a superhero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This one is noteworthy for a couple of things. First, it features pencil layouts by Jim Shooter. At this time, Shooter is the controversial but undeniably great Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics, presiding…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[35,154,13,331,18,149,215,292,164,811,135,117,121,2,216,98],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-aunt-may","tag-deb-whitman","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-jack-olantern","tag-jim-mooney","tag-jim-shooter","tag-lt-keating","tag-marcy-kane","tag-nathan-lubensky","tag-nitro","tag-phil-chang","tag-roger-stern","tag-spectacular-spider-man","tag-spider-man","tag-steve-hopkins","tag-vulture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","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=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7716,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/7716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}