{"id":16828,"date":"2023-04-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=16828"},"modified":"2022-01-02T20:28:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-03T00:28:29","slug":"asm-280","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/04\/21\/asm-280\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 280"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alright, with the whole missing stunt out of the way, we can check back in with a more normal issue of ASM. Why yes, that is The Deadly Foes of Spider-Man under a much better group name several years before the Deadly Foes mini. And this cover is clearly inspired by the cover of ASM 141<\/a>. I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d go quite so far as to call it a swipe, since a lot is different, but idea is more or less the same, and the Spider-Mans are very similar, and Beetle and Mysterio are very similar. I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ve mentioned anywhere that, prior to The Great eBay Hysteria of 2018, one of Marvel\u2019s great Epic Collections came out covering a lot of the period between ASM 261 and ASM 290, which, at the time, I didn\u2019t have almost any of. So I got the book, and then I bought the singles it didn\u2019t include, and suddenly I could read from my collection of the alien costume story right through the 80s and 90s. So that was kind of the beginning of all the reading that turned into this blog, really. Eventually I discovered I could get Silver Age books cheap, rewound to ASM 129 and read from there, etc, etc, but I read this material at the beginning, taking no notes, envisioning no blog, just reading. And so I am reading it again. It\u2019s Tom DeFalco writing and Ron Frenz doing breakdowns, Brett Breeding doing finishes and Paul Becton coloring for the quasi-auspicious debut of the Sinister Syndicate. Not exactly the A-list of the other \u201csinister\u201d group, but a fun enough idea. The issue begins with Spidey and Silver Sable in dire straits at Coney Island out of nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reading this, I was pretty surprised to see what I had previously thought of as Erik Larsen\u2019s redesign of Rhino. The shoulder pads and such are a very 90s touch, but here they are early. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And, with that question asked, we can roll back to how he got involved in a mess like this. It\u2019s not that hard to puzzle out, he went to answer Silver\u2019s ad in the paper from last issue. She was busy at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have no desire to touch the politics of this page. Spidey reminds us he\u2019s decided to quit, blah, and Silver tells him she\u2019ll pay handsomely for his help, and he says no. When she points out he\u2019s already fought Jack O\u2019Lantern several times, why not get paid for it, he has no answer. And I don\u2019t, either. Peter refusing Silver\u2019s money has always been kinda hard to swallow. We jump ahead from there, to Flash pleading with Sha Shan to testify on his behalf, but as you may recall, things ain\u2019t great between them by this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Marty McFly vests Frenz keeps putting Peter in are hilarious every time. Flash\u2019s lawyer reiterates that he could really use some help, and Peter thinks that he can\u2019t quit Spideying while FLash needs him, and goes back to Silver to accept her offer so he can give the money to Flash. Frenz also swipes the Spider-Man from the cover of ASM Annual 2. Silver sez Jack called her and told her he\u2019s in Coney Island. Spidey says it\u2019s a trap. She says obviously. And we can now return to the battle from earlier, all caught up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The C-Team announces they all have reason to hate Spidey and plan to make their rep as a team by taking out Silver, and we\u2019re off. Silver runs away, thinking they\u2019re safer if they divide their foes. She\u2019s chased by Beetle and Boomerang while the others try to fight Spider-Man, and don\u2019t do a very good job, on account of being Speed Demon, Hydro-Man and The Rhino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not happy times in ASM. We check in on Sandman, now living with the Cassadas (Maybe the first time we see them? I\u2019ve lost track), going for a walk, then back to the fight. Gee, where could he be going, having been introduced abruptly for no reason? Silver handily dispatches Boomerang, to no one\u2019s surprise, but Beetle\u2019s bulletproof armor proves more of an issue for her, making her flee again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shouldn\u2019t he have said \u201chuman rhino?\u201d Like, all rhinos are living, dumb dumb. So, Rhino\u2019s \u201cOne more job so I can get out\u201d bit is established way back in 1987, and like Sandman living with the Cassadas, is still a going concern in the early 90s. Time to hit up a couple more subplots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Man, everyone wants to talk to Kingpin about Nuke in Spider-Man comics. Hey, is Roderick Kingsley The Hobgoblin? I love how they have so many people acting shifty right now, trying to throw the readers off. Especially since who Hobgoblin actually was hadn\u2019t been decided yet since Roger Stern\u2019s pick was rejected. It could literally be anyone. But\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026maybe it\u2019s not Roderick, after all. Macendale could take Hobgoblin\u2019s place, eh? Well, we\u2019ve already seen that he does, but how? When? Back at the fight, Silver manages to kick Beetle in the face like she did Boomerang, which stuns him for awhile, but maybe breaks both her ankles. You know, it\u2019s nice to see someone actually get hurt punching and kicking people in metal clothes for once. Regular people punch characters like Iron Man all the time and their hands aren\u2019t instantly shattered, it\u2019s silly. Spider-Man rushes to her aid, butcher\u2019s mostly immoble and the bad guys are regrouping. Our heroes hide out in the Cyclone rollercoaster, thinking they\u2019re safe, but\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Oh, wow, Sandman is here. I can\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Egad, MJ is unwittingly hanging out with The Hobgoblin! But who could that make him? What\u2019s funny about this interaction to me is, it makes Stern\u2019s pick for Hobby harder to work, and also makes very little sense for the person eventually revealed behind the mask. But since that person wasn\u2019t the Hobgoblin when this issue came out, it was fine. It really is crazy how many parallels there are between this story and the Clone Saga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m sure this is the end for Spider-Man. In the letters, as is often the case, everyone wants to guess who Hobby is. So many people went on record wanting JJJ for it during the years this mystery dragged out. That\u2019s just silly, and yet, it was such a common guess. Ned Leeds, Molten Man, Mary Jane, John Jameson, Richard Fisk, and even Barton Hamilton are all guess this issue alone, but one Michael Rett offers the following possibility: \u201cYou guys don\u2019t know. You\u2019re just giving reader the run-around!\u201d Congratulations, Michael, on sort of being the first person to write a letter correctly guessing the identity of The Hobgoblin! By this point, several letters have already guessed Stern\u2019s choice, DeFalco\u2019s choice, the person eventually ID\u2019s and I think even the person Peter David would later suggest when he was tasked with wrapping this up after things fell apart behind the scenes, only to be told no, also, but as of this issue, Michael got it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alright, with the whole missing stunt out of the way, we can check back in with a more normal issue of ASM. Why yes, that is The Deadly Foes of Spider-Man under…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[9,33,11,155,218,12,163,241,331,100,21,55,607,1459,224,321,101,348,276,1496,317,2,325,124],"class_list":["post-16828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-beetle","tag-betty-brant","tag-boomerang","tag-brett-breeding","tag-flash-thompson","tag-hobgoblin","tag-hydro-man","tag-jack-olantern","tag-kingpin","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-ned-leeds","tag-paul-becton","tag-rhino","tag-roderick-kingsley","tag-ron-frenz","tag-sandman","tag-sha-shan-nguyen","tag-silver-sable","tag-sinister-syndicate","tag-speed-demon","tag-spider-man","tag-the-rose","tag-tom-defalco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16828","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=16828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16829,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16828\/revisions\/16829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}