{"id":13910,"date":"2022-07-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=13910"},"modified":"2021-04-28T22:19:45","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T02:19:45","slug":"ass-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/07\/25\/ass-2\/","title":{"rendered":"ASS 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This mess might\u2019ve forced some creative chaos on some of the titles, but if you think a little thing like two entire unscheduled issues of comics is gonna throw a Mark Bagley or a Sal Buscema, yer wrong. This month, the new ASM team gets started early, as Tom DeFalco takes over full writing duties alongside the existing art team. So, into the heart of this cyber-nonsense, they\u2019ve decided it\u2019s a good idea to introduce the concept of The Great Game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Where to start on this. The dialogue is atrocious. \u201cYou have to go fight a spider-man.\u201d \u201cI was hoping for Spider-Man!\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s\u2026 look at the picture, it\u2019s the same thing.\u201d I still wish someone, somewhere, had devoted any time at all to anyone outside of the superhero world, or even in it, going, \u201cSay, how come there\u2019s 2 Spider-Mans now?\u201d It\u2019s not exactly a generic power set. A 2nd Captain America shows up, ok, someone made a guy a shield. 2 guys who swing around on identical webs and stick to walls and such? Is there a club to join? Of course, this is nothing compared to comics today, when there\u2019s Spider-Man and Miles Morales Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider and Silk, who has all of Spider-Man\u2019s powers, and Spider-Gwen and maybe another Scarlet Spider if Kaine\u2019s still alive, I don\u2019t actually know, and don\u2019t forget The Superior Spider-Man and Spider-Girl and Spider-Woman and and and\u2026. There really is a factory now. Anyway. Scarlet Spider is beating up some \u201cgangbangers\u201d who were allegedly fighting over who gets to eat in a pizza place, while recapping his deal. Then he thinks he\u2019s late for work and recaps more of his deal as he goes to the club. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I forgot Rachel\u2019s name and I was far too lazy to look it up, but I swear she was an undercover cop last issue. Aw, who cares, Seward Trainer is still in cyberspace, making my teeth grind, doing the usual and recapping his deal, then Doc Ock recaps her deal, a lot of recapping, but then she asks if the new subject is ready, and her still mysterious digital partner materializes Stunner into cyberspace. Not the fake one from last time, but the real one, who is very confused. Me, too!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The mystery person is becoming less mysterious with each appearance, but I still don\u2019t remember who it is. Whatever. Jason Tso is furious Ken Ellis has tied him to organized crime and wants Ben to go beat him up. Ben somehow still hasn\u2019t decided if Tso is a gangster or not. What a dope. He also doesn\u2019t know what to do about his new orders. Later, Joystick arrives at The Bugle in a van driven by a \u201cmonitor\u201d of The Great Game looking for Ken Ellis, since he\u2019s written so much about her quarry. Instead, she runs into Phil Urich, Ben\u2019s nephew who has recently become a heroic Green Goblin. She asks him to give Ken her number, then Ken comes around being a jerk as usual, saying he\u2019d do a better job covering this new Green Goblin than Ben Urich would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Almost got \u2018im, JJJ. Very quickly, Phil Urich goes home to get his Goblin suit and Ben switches to Scarlet Spider to follow Ellis, who is already being followed by Joystick. Scarlet isn\u2019t sure what to do about Ken when he\u2019s almost zapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, there\u2019s The Great Game explained to our hero. We already saw how all this places out with Jimmy Johnsmore and whatnot. No need to revisit those dreadful stories. I still think this could\u2019ve been an interesting concept, but all the participants were horribly lame and it didn\u2019t really click. Anyway, that zap makes debris almost fall on Ken Ellis, but he\u2019s saved by The Green Goblin, thinking pure 90s DeFalco nonsense: \u201cWhat\u2019s WITH this scene!? I only wanted to drum Ellis for trying to DOG my uncle, but this is, like, WACKED OUT!\u201d A totally real way a young person speaks! Joystick spots GG and wants to add him to her scorecard. Phil dumps Ellis on a rooftop, and even though his previous meeting with Scarlet in WEB 125 went bad, he sticks around because he\u2019s ID\u2019d Joystick as \u201cThat MAJOR BABE who played me at The Bugle!\u201d She continues to fight Scarlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alright. GG tries to make friends with Scarlet, and it sort of goes ok, but then Scarlet realizes he\u2019s late for his date. While he rushes off, we see Joystick getting the news that the committee behind The Game has decided Scarlet Spider is worth 1500-2000 points. But then we check in with Ben Reilly, late to meet a very upset Carrie Bradley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Well, that\u2019d be why I don\u2019t remember her, I guess. The issue ends with El Toro Negro threatening the dude from the beginning to tell him where Joystick is so he can have revenge, blah blah blah. Apparently the Great Game part of this story continues in Green Goblin #3, but I\u2019ll never know for sure. This issue largely just curbed the whole \u201cCyberwar\u201d thing to shoehorn in The Great Game. How strange.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This mess might\u2019ve forced some creative chaos on some of the titles, but if you think a little thing like two entire unscheduled issues of comics is gonna throw a Mark Bagley…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[455,253,496,40,1234,492,491,461,339,614,599,494,124],"class_list":["post-13910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ben-reilly","tag-bob-sharen","tag-carolyn-trainer","tag-green-goblin","tag-jason-tso","tag-joystick","tag-ken-ellis","tag-larry-mahlstedt","tag-mark-bagley","tag-phil-urich","tag-scarlet-spider","tag-seward-trainer","tag-tom-defalco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13910","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=13910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13923,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13910\/revisions\/13923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}