{"id":13510,"date":"2022-06-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13510"},"modified":"2021-04-11T02:03:58","modified_gmt":"2021-04-11T06:03:58","slug":"tac-182","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/06\/21\/tac-182\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC 182"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The people trying to write cover copy for this nonsense like these are actual superhero comics must be so tired. Look at all those exclamation points. \u201cWe PROMISE this isn\u2019t just a bunch of sadsacks being miserable! They\u2019re gonna FIGHT while they do it!\u201d Up til now, Dr. Kafka\u2019s examinations of Vermin have seen him talking about \u201cthe bad thing\u201d as a breaking point for his psyche. And I don\u2019t think anyone would be surprised to finally have that spelled out\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSpider-Man! Now starring in 4 comics a month, and 2 of them are about child sexual abuse for some reason!\u201d I\u2019ve not read Vermin\u2019s first appearance in Captain America, but one assumes he was not 8 years old when transformed. One assumes this tragic backstory was added far more recently. One assumes there was no ill intent behind making the victim of one of the most horrible possible traumas a LITERAL MONSTER, but guess what, that doesn\u2019t matter! This is deplorable! The 80s & 90s trend of giving every villain an abusive father was bad enough, but this is too far. What does this say to people who\u2019ve lived through these experiences (Who, by the way, PROBABLY don\u2019t want to relive them while buying into what they thought would be escapism!)? They always wound up villains and monsters in this period. No one survived abuse and became a hero, or even just a regular, everyday advocate. No, if you have an abusive backstory in comics of this period, you\u2019re a broken miserable person, and almost certainly a bad guy, too. It\u2019s gross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vermin is about to murder his abusive (step-?)father (Still dragging his mother around by her hair. What\u2019d she do to deserve this?), but then he sees the child version of himself begging him not to do it. And if that wasn\u2019t depressing enough, Peter Parker is still doing this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sometimes, over the course of writing all these things, I feel like maybe I\u2019m being too hard on ol\u2019 JM, but other times, I feel like I\u2019m not even really scratching the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Going by the color alone, I was worried Kraven\u2019s ghost was going to be the one coaxing Spider-Man out of his delirium, and I was about to lose it myself, but no\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m pretty sure he didn\u2019t even have his mask with him when he came here last issue. Our hero flails around Dr. Kafka\u2019s office in a panic for a bit before slowly getting it together. Kafka tells him he faced the monster and won, but neither of them sees the silhouette of The Green Goblin approaching in the distance. Elsewhere, Vermin is arguing with young Edward about killing his dad until his dad tells him there\u2019s no one there, and Vermin agrees, there\u2019s no one there to protect him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nothing but a happy ending headed our way, I\u2019m sure. Punishing the old man is about the only thing Vermin could\u2019ve done right here. Oh, wait, here\u2019s his deal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While this is all still utterly reprehensible to me, the grin in the last panel is great work by Sal. Back at Dr. Kafka\u2019s, Spider-Man is still reeling at the revelation that he blamed himself for his parents\u2019 death as a child. Dr. Kafka says it\u2019s a common coping mechanism for trauma, trying to establish control over a situation you are powerless in. JM read a book! The Goblin is still hovering outside, but then a nurse runs in and informs Dr. Kafka of the standoff at Vermin\u2019s house, and Spider-Man\u2019s already gone before she can tell him to go help.  On his way, he thinks about how shaken he is by the evening\u2019s events. He feels off and shocked and drained, but also free, having faced down his \u201cmonster\u201d and beaten it. This recurring theme of Spider-Man facing his darkest place metnally and overcoming it might have some weight if DeMatteis didn\u2019t keep returning to that well over. And over. And over. Every time he faces down his darkest fear, it\u2019s only matter of time before he\u2019s going to be facing down his next, other darkest fear. I mean this and Soul of the Hunter back to back is hilarious, really, but also Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt, all that \u201cthe spider\u201d garbage during the clone mess, his mental spiral after hitting MJ in the clone mess\u2026 How many times can one man go on the same psychological journey? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But Vermin can\u2019t pull the trigger, and then flies into a rage at himself for not being able to. Spider-Man shows up, calling him Edward and genuinely trying to get him to Dr. Kafka with no further violence, but Vermin is almost happy to have someone he can hate without feeling confused and lunges for him. They go right out the window. Vermin\u2019s army of rats (No one ever explains that) goes after the assembled cops and Spider-Man shoots a web and swings them up onto the roof with remarkable calm, given the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This arc feels like it\u2019s doing too much. Either of these stories could\u2019ve been its own thing. And it feel like a result of Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt having a dueling narrative with Vermin and an established Spidey villain. Like this has to have that structure because the previous milestone did. But, especially because Spider-Man actually does have the complicated history with Harry the Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt tried to pretend he had with Kraven, it feels like too much. Note there hasn\u2019t been an appearance by any of the supporting cast since part 2. Even Kraven\u2019s Last Hunt made time for MJ. This feels crowded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The people trying to write cover copy for this nonsense like these are actual superhero comics must be so tired. Look at all those exclamation points. \u201cWe PROMISE this isn\u2019t just a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[427,35,253,40,22,125,172,21,545,37,121,2],"class_list":["post-13510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ashley-kafka","tag-aunt-may","tag-bob-sharen","tag-green-goblin","tag-harry-osborn","tag-jm-dematteis","tag-liz-allen","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-normie-osborn","tag-sal-buscema","tag-spectacular-spider-man","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13525,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13510\/revisions\/13525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}