{"id":14712,"date":"2022-09-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=14712"},"modified":"2021-06-19T15:16:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-19T19:16:11","slug":"sm-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2022\/09\/29\/sm-1\/","title":{"rendered":"SM -1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I don\u2019t remember this one, either, but the phrase \u201cproto-goblin\u201d fills me with dread. Probably not the way they\u2019d want it to, though. Romita, Jr. sits this one out, but the rest of the 1997 team in the form of Howard Mackie, Scott Hanna & Gregory Wright are joined by penciler Dan Fraga. Fraga is an escapee of Rob Liefeld\u2019s Extreme Studios. Like everyone there, he was expected to draw like Liefeld (Some former employees have alleged that Liefeld even stole their pages and signed his name to them, claiming he drew them). Like many people who worked there, he\u2019s a lot better than his more famous mentor. That\u2019s a low bar, and one a lot of guys working for Rob, not to mention guys we\u2019ve seen on this blog, couldn\u2019t clear, but while Fraga isn\u2019t gonna be one of the greats, he\u2019s pretty decent for this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gotta take the chance to better integrate these Stacys into the fabric of the family when it\u2019s offered, I suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wonder of wonders, Gwen Stacy\u2019s Mom has a name! That only took 30 years. George, already a captain, has been called to Osborn Industries, where \u201ca suspicious individual\u201d messed up a lot of cops and then fled inside. However, he\u2019s told Osborn won\u2019t let the cops on his property and said he\u2019d only deal with George. As he goes in, George meets Norman, who says OI is in the midst of several delicate experiments, and he can\u2019t let anyone, even a friend like George, on site without being escorted by his new head of security. Guess what, it\u2019s Arthur Stacy, who arrives right about then. Awkward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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George sends the other nameless cops out with the newly wounded one, saying he and his brother will take care of this, but then Arthur runs off alone and gets tossed through several crates for it. A big monster, a \u201cproto-goblin,\u201d if you will, sets its sights on George. As the mostly hidden form lunges, George fires several rounds into it, but then is disappears, seeming to have made a hole in the wall with some kind of red fluid. Arthur is sure this is both the serial killer mentioned before and an mutant, but George is unconvinced. He also finds an Osborn ID badge in the rumble, indicating the attacker is an employee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good of them to find a place for the title character in the book, I guess. This dialogue is really clunky. Doesn\u2019t seem like Mackie\u2019s usual. Something\u2019s up. Arthur goes to a bar to drown his sorrows, where George finds and confronts him. He\u2019s mad enough to try to fight his brother, but George isn\u2019t into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is really just not working for me. It just doesn\u2019t jibe with the actual Norman of the 60s. Later, Norman finds Arthur going through his desk, just after Arthur confirms the allegedly fired monster-man is still employed by the company. Arthur is, obviously, fired himself for the intrusion. Back a this home, his wife mentions he had a job offer in England, and this isn\u2019t the end of the world. Then their living room is riddled with bullets. To my actual surprise, Nancy is not killed or even injured, but this is obviously too much. Arthur calles George to tell him he\u2019s taking down Osborn tonight and not to get in his way. This is a weird comic. So, soon, Arthur is breaking back into Osborn Industries. He\u2019s surprised no guards come for him until his brother appears, telling him what happened at his house was a gangland shooting at the wrong house and nothing to do with Norman. For a smart guy, George sure isn\u2019t being too bright in this issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The brothers find \u201cproto-goblin\u201d attacking Norman, who tells them to subdue it. He tells Arthur he\u2019s back on the payroll at twice his previous salary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well. Ok. Man, if this Proto-Goblin guy comes back in the present (of 1997), I do not remember that at all. And I guess this is meant to be the moment that causes George to walk with a cane when he\u2019s first introduced. Didn\u2019t look THAT bad. But, what do I know? 2 more of these Flashbacks left before we can really get on with it. One I haven\u2019t read, which I expect to be quite bad, and then the best of the lot. Highs & lows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t remember this one, either, but the phrase \u201cproto-goblin\u201d fills me with dread. Probably not the way they\u2019d want it to, though. Romita, Jr. sits this one out, but the rest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[617,35,1286,20,275,415,39,417,6,587],"class_list":["post-14712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-arthur-stacy","tag-aunt-may","tag-dan-fraga","tag-george-stacy","tag-gregory-wright","tag-howard-mackie","tag-norman-osborn","tag-scott-hanna","tag-stan-lee","tag-uncle-ben"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14712","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=14712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14726,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14712\/revisions\/14726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}