{"id":9506,"date":"2021-06-25T00:00:20","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T04:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=9506"},"modified":"2020-06-15T16:11:17","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T20:11:17","slug":"asm-403","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/06\/25\/asm-403\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 403"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mark Bagley didn\u2019t achieve the lunatic furor from fans the Image guys had when he came on the scene around the same time, in spite of a more than passing similarity to Erik Larsen\u2019s work, but his excellent storytelling chops and crazy dedicated work ethic really gave ASM some stability in this time of upheaval. This is his 52nd issue of ASM, and he\u2019s still going all-out. As a kid, I thought of his work as a sort of middle ground between McFarlane and Larsen, with some of the fluidity of McFarlane\u2019s work and a lot of the musculature of Larsen\u2019s, but now I\u2019d say he\u2019s a much better draftsman than either of them. Sam De La Rosa shares the inking credit with stalwart Larry Mahlstedt, and curiously, Bob Sharen is the only one credited with colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today in totally goofy comics, Spider-Man is on trial in the bowels of Ravencroft. A 2-page spread reveals Judas Traveller as the judge, Carnage as the prosecutor, and Kaine as the the defense, with Ashley Kafka & John Jameson beside him, and various Ravencroft inmates as the jury. This seems\u2026 unfair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ugh, I hate this guy. How would this jury ever vote innocent? But, since Spider-Man can\u2019t speak\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In this period, comics were filling up with mystery men, and then things would quickly get even sillier as it turned out they all knew each other. Whether it was Cable, Stryfe, Deadpool and Gambit in X-Men or these lames in Spider-Man, they were everywhere, all doing a very lazy job of implying a bunch of mysterious backstory that rarely went anywhere. Traveller grows gigantic or shrinks Kaine, who knows, while calling him \u201ca waste of genetic material,\u201d which seems another big clue, before dropping him back into his spot. Kaine says he has to try to defend Spider-Man, even if it means his life, and our hero is totally clueless as to why. All that settled, Traveller calls the \u201ccourt\u201d to order, and Carnage calls himself as his first witness. Meanwhile, in the real court room, MJ is on the stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fffffffart sound! So the murders Kaine committed JUST HAPPEN to be during one of literally only 2 times Peter was really missing for an extended period (The other being Secret Wars) EVER? WHAT A COINCIDENCE! I didn\u2019t remember that little detail. How utterly lazy. As MJ sadly leaves the stand, Kaine has one of his visions, thinking she\u2019s going to die really soon, but he\u2019s still doing his own trial. Meanwhile, Carnage is saying he is Spider-Man\u2019s fault. That if Spidey hadn\u2019t brought the symbiote to Earth, Carnage wouldn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is all very stupid, but Carnage hopping back and forth is pretty funny.  Points lost for spelling his first name wrong, tho. And, you know, he\u2019s also supposed to be kind of a redneck, but you\u2019d never know it the way DeMatteis writes him. He and Kaine fight a bit while Spidey thinks there\u2019s \u201csomething more\u201d to Kaine, something beneath the darkness. Good of you to finally get with the program, Pete. Traveller breaks up the fight, then Carnage calls Malcom McBride, who really, really doesn\u2019t want any part of this. Kafka & Jameson aren\u2019t happy, but they can\u2019t do anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If Traveller was going to go to the trouble of basically puppeteering Carnage, why involve him at all? Clearly he\u2019s fed him all this info. So dumb. It\u2019s fun to see Bags draw Carnage, tho. Bagley co-created Carnage, and no one else (Myself included) has ever quite gotten him right since. Anyway, Travller basically just says \u201cwhatever\u201d and asks the jury for a verdict. Everyone says guilty except Malcom and Edward Whelan, the former Vermin, and then they naturally turn into their villainous alter egos and also say guilty. What is the point of this? Elsewhere, Stunner is furious Spidey and Kaine disappeared last issue, robbing her of her vengeance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why does Stunner disappear? Do not remember in the slightest, but now I do remember this was a thing. All the villains prepare to shred Spider-Man to bits, but Kaine leaps in against hopeless odds to defend him, because of how good and kind and decent and whatnot he is, crucially mentioning \u201che\u2019s everything I could ever hope to be and so much more.\u201d Surely people have it by now. I have to be completely honest, I don\u2019t remember if I figured it out. It would be so much more fun to say whether I was a super sleuth or an idiot, but I really don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As he vanishes, Traveller can faintly be heard saying, \u201cI\u2019m doing this because JM DeMatteis is way more focused on fake-deep, bargain basement psychology than super hero comiiiiiiics\u2026\u201d Just kidding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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All toys back in the toybox. Ugh. At least we\u2019re almost done here. Next time, the cast finds out what has already been spoiled on this blog: the secret of Kaine. I wish I could avoid that kinda thing, and I can sometimes, but I can\u2019t possibly keep them all secret. I\u2019m really trying with the Hobgoblin, tho.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Bagley didn\u2019t achieve the lunatic furor from fans the Image guys had when he came on the scene around the same time, in spite of a more than passing similarity to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[9,427,455,253,458,196,178,595,125,27,457,488,461,339,21,598,599,433,2,605,165],"class_list":["post-9506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-ashley-kafka","tag-ben-reilly","tag-bob-sharen","tag-carnage","tag-carrion","tag-da-tower","tag-jacob-raven","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-john-jameson","tag-judas-traveller","tag-kaine","tag-larry-mahlstedt","tag-mark-bagley","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-sam-de-la-rosa","tag-scarlet-spider","tag-shriek","tag-spider-man","tag-the-jackal","tag-vermin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9506","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=9506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9520,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9506\/revisions\/9520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}