{"id":13731,"date":"2022-07-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13731"},"modified":"2021-04-24T20:25:45","modified_gmt":"2021-04-25T00:25:45","slug":"sm-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/07\/11\/sm-63\/","title":{"rendered":"SM 63"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This could be a rough one. This issue is illustrated by the legendary Gil Kane\u2026 at 68, only 5 years from the end of his life. I\u2019m not sure I realized this was the same guy whose work I found thrilling in reprinted 70s material, one of the few classic artists who seemed to live up to my 90s idea of what was good comics art, but man, did I not like this as a dumb teen. But was I right? This cover is kind of shocking right off the bat, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s terrible. The credits say Gil Kane\/Tom Palmer\/Howard Mackie – Art & Story, which is interesting. I wonder if this was the most Marvel Method comic of the 90s. Kevin Tinsley colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I mean, not the flashy 90s crap I loved at the time, but far from terrible! The \u201cIs Peter still evil\u201d setup turns out to be Peter feeling their unborn child in MJ\u2019s stomach again, fascinated since feeling it kick last issue. MJ tells him she has to get some sleep and he keeps waking her up, and suggests he go swing around or something. So, soon, Spider-Man is on the prowl, internal monologuing about how happy he is, for once, and thinking he hopes Ben is happy, too, wherever he is. Well\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still don\u2019t get why Trainer routinely dresses like a SHIELD agent. Ben says she better not hurt Seward, and she asks if he\u2019s been like a father to Ben before saying it\u2019s too bad he wasn\u2019t the same to her. Which, you know, fair! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I keep forgetting this title is still on better paper than the others despite Todd McFarlane being gone 47 issues until I try to take pictures of one. Some very Gil Kane stuff this page. No mistaking him, even now. Ock tells Seward to just give her all his advances in cyberspace and she\u2019ll be on her way. Instead, he antagonizes her, asking her if she got her mechanical arms in the same place as her new violent behavior. Weird dialogue, dude. She implies that Otto Octavius was her teacher before Seard cuts her off to call her insane. Really making you feel for her, he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ben has had enough and dives himself and Seward out a window. MJ briefly wakes up, wonders where Peter is, remembers she sent him away, and says she hopes he\u2019s having fun. Look at this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gil has clearly seen Todd McFarlane\u2019s Spider-Man and is even kind of trying to play ball. That\u2019s amazing to me. At 68, a defining artist on the character, he\u2019s trying to bend to the popular moment. And yet, as the next page makes clear\u2026 Still Gil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elsewhere, Ben is rambling at Seward, who doesn\u2019t want to talk about his daughter he never, ever mentioned in the 5 years they\u2019ve known each other, and then they have to run \u2018cuz she\u2019s caught up to them. Seward actually asks why Ben keeps making jokes, he\u2019s never heard him like this. Ben says he\u2019s trying to pick up where he left off. And then Doc Ock is on them. Ben kicks Seward away and tells him to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nobody would\u2019ve done a page layout that weird but Kane.Spidey heroically pushes Ben to safety, but takes a big hit for his troubles, and almost falls to his death before being snatched up by Ock\u2019s tentacles. She tells Scarlet she\u2019ll give him Spider-Man for her dad. Spider-Man has an epiphany:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good call, buddy. Scarlet has a realization and uses hsi impact webbing, hitting a tentacle near the force field and sending it snaking up the tentacle into said force field, which is ridiculous, but whatever. So she drops Spider-Man in a classic villain \u201cthis will allow me to escape\u201d move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And with that, Peter realizes going out and almost getting killed every night isn\u2019t cool to his family, and we\u2019re all set to shuffle The Parkers off, stage left, to make way for a new Spider-Man. Well, sort of. More on that next issue. I gotta say, this wouldn\u2019t be anyone\u2019s favorite Gil Kane comic, but it\u2019s pretty solid, honestly, for his age and all. Not nearly as rough as I remembered it. Young me was very unimpressed. Shame on you, young me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This could be a rough one. This issue is illustrated by the legendary Gil Kane\u2026 at 68, only 5 years from the end of his life. I\u2019m not sure I realized this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[455,496,5,415,418,21,599,494,2,227],"class_list":["post-13731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ben-reilly","tag-carolyn-trainer","tag-gil-kane","tag-howard-mackie","tag-kevin-tinsley","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-scarlet-spider","tag-seward-trainer","tag-spider-man","tag-tom-palmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13731","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=13731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13745,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13731\/revisions\/13745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}