{"id":14181,"date":"2022-08-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=14181"},"modified":"2021-05-30T20:17:16","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T00:17:16","slug":"sm-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/08\/17\/sm-79\/","title":{"rendered":"SM 79"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So, it\u2019s not labelled as such, but apparently this is part 3 of a 4 part story with SM 77-80. Whoops. Been quite some time since we see 77<\/a> & 78<\/a>. At any rate, we are back with, hands down, the best Spider-Man creative team of the period, Howard Mackie, John Romita, Jr., Scott Hanna & Gregory Wright. Spider-Man recently met the very difficult to draw new hero SHOC and his nemesis, Crown, and fought Morbius, and the Ben Reilly Spider-Man fought Hydra and Don Fortunato in SM 74<\/a>, , and it\u2019s all comin\u2019 together here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Caribbean or no, that doesn\u2019t seem like appropriate laboratory attire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Romita, Jr. is 2nd only to Kirby in drawing big, insane machinery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Egads. Crown is in league with Hydra, and now they have Morbius! Kinda weird choices, really. In the \u201clet\u2019s all please move on from The Clone Saga as fast as possible\u201d era, Mackie\u2019s like \u201cHang on, gotta go back to my Hyrda thing.\u201d Meanwhile, in New York, Betty Brant is burning the midnight oil on some stories, trying not to think about Flash being a jerk, when JJJ strolls up and hands her a big story, telling her to drop her others. She\u2019s taken aback, says it\u2019s something he\u2019d usually give Ben Urich. But he says she\u2019s ready for it, and her plane leaves in the morning. The next day, Spider-Man enters the scene, late for class and narrating to himself about it in traditional fashion, when\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The use of the Star Trek font there is strange. SHOC just drops Spidey on solid ground and leaves, saying he\u2019s in a hurry. What a lucky break for our hero, who is shaken. He has no idea what made him fall out of the sky, and he\u2019s worried. Meanwhile meanwhile, we cut to the estate of Don Fortunato, to which Crown and Dr. Janson have delivered Morbius. This wasn\u2019t actually the plan, and Fortunato is not amused, but they think Janson has discovered something in Morbius\u2019 blood that will server the bossman\u2019s mysterious cause. So he allows it, while also telling Crown that sources in The State Department have given them a line on SHOC\u2019s alter ego, and to go get him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Oh ho, a real Nazi. I don\u2019t actually remember who that is. One assumes Baron Strucker, but that also seems obvious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Man, this scene was\u2026 doing a lot! Neal asks, rather astutely, if that Paul is Peter\u2019s tutor, and Peter is Neal\u2019s tutor, what\u2019s that make Paul to him, but Peter brushes it off. Betty exits stage left to go appear in Spider-Man Unlimited 16, and after Peter & Neal have coffee and Neal expresses an interest in Betty, Peter has a dizzy spell and has to stop for a moment. And while he does, the sky goes dark. Too dark, and crackling with energy. Peter and Neal both give flimsy excuses to go switch identities, but Peter can\u2019t shake his dizziness. He\u2019s approached by Abby Levin, who, as Abby Levine, was a bit player in SM 75, and reminds him they had classes together. This is weird. Then black goo starts dripping out of the sky and weird super goons fill the streets, so it\u2019s time for action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u201cThe only new guy to appear in the cast recently is the new hero in town????\u201d I mean, it wouldn\u2019t be that cut & dried for Peter, but it seems funny as the reader.  SHOC handily deals with the goons and politely asks Peter to forget he saw this, which is pretty funny, but then Crown shows up. Neal reminds us all Crown killed his dad, and then Crown takes Peter hostage. SHOC says a couple of weeks ago he might\u2019ve just let Peter die because the stakes are so high, but now he\u2019s met Mary Jane\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Weirdly, Abby Levin(e) will never appear in a comic again. They just needed someone to stand on that street, I guess. All this comes to a head next issue. This issue\u2019s letter column is a highly unusual 4 pages of reactions to SM 75 running the gamut. Joy, rage, disbelief, relief, several threats to quit buying comics, several assurances of a return to buying Spider-Man, the works. Delight and disgust at the return of Norman. One guy astutely surmises Norman\u2019s return was a last minute idea to wrap things up. Others thought it was a great idea. One guy thought it was the best Spider-Man\/Green Goblin fight of all time, which\u2026 I mean, come on. One guy actually mailed a letter including the sentence \u201cMy rage towards you guys is unspeakable!\u201d One lady says, as a mother, she can\u2019t keep reading the book unless Peter & MJ find little May. One guy says he started reading comics because of Ben Reilly. Another delusional soul calls Ben Reilly \u201cthe coolest, most interesting character in Marvel\u2019s history.\u201d More level-headed folks note that, no matter where you stand on him, Ben\u2019s death was kinda disappointing. And, not to retread past material, but that\u2019s the thing. They say every comic is somebody\u2019s first. This terrible ending was to those poor, sad Ben Reilly fans what his very existence was to us older folks. No one won with The Clone Saga.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, it\u2019s not labelled as such, but apparently this is part 3 of a 4 part story with SM 77-80. Whoops. Been quite some time since we see 77 & 78. At…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[11,1245,615,275,415,13,118,21,42,1242,417,970,2],"class_list":["post-14181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-betty-brant","tag-crown","tag-fortunato","tag-gregory-wright","tag-howard-mackie","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-john-romita-jr","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-morbius","tag-paul-stacy","tag-scott-hanna","tag-shoc","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14181","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=14181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14195,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14181\/revisions\/14195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}