{"id":16894,"date":"2023-05-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-01T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=16894"},"modified":"2022-01-09T19:57:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T23:57:05","slug":"tac-120","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/05\/01\/tac-120\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC 120"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Another of these covers, this one by Mark Beachum, who forgot the spider on his chest. My favorite part of Romita, Sr.\u2019s border for this is The X-Men, because they look very 80s, and it\u2019s interesting to see his interpretation. Most of the other heroes look right at home in that timeless Romita, Sr. look, but these particular X-Men look more like his son\u2019s work. We\u2019re off the beaten paht this month, as Bill Mantlo and Keith Giffen are on hand for a fill-in. Vince Colletta and Bob Sharen round out the team. Page 1 of this issue is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s so hard to read I have elected not to after the first 2 sentences. That font in white on black might work today, with digital files, better printing and slicker paper, but even then, they\u2019d probably pick a more legible font, especially for such small text. This is a disaster, and I hope it doesn\u2019t continue throughout the issue. Kieth Giffen\u2019s art is weird and quirky and maybe not the best fit here, but we\u2019ll see. Spider-Man is in his definitively destroyed red & blues as he swings around silently for a page and \u2153 until he happens upon a weird situation. Some cops have arrived on the scene of an old man brandishing a cleaver at some young goons, yelling that they won\u2019t kick him out of his home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now this is \u201cdesigny.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I am really enjoying the look of this comic. I\u2019m amazed this even got published. It\u2019d never fly in ASM. The cop explains that the old man\u2019s lived in this building since it was built, but now \u201cgangs\u201d have moved in, and the old man is the only one who \u201cdefies\u201d them. Spidey asks why the cops can\u2019t help, and they say they can\u2019t just hang around here all the time. And Spidey realizes he can\u2019t, either, and goes home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And there\u2019s the other shoe. Giffen cuts loose and makes the super pages strange and interesting, but makes sure these pages of regular people read smooth and clean. A certain breed of comics fan would deride this as bad art, but in my mind, the primary difference between \u201cbad\u201d and \u201cstylized\u201d is control. Anybody can draw any way they want, but what you\u2019re trying to do matters. These are choices, calculated and intentional, as opposed to, say, Rob Liefeld accidentally drawing someone with 2 left hands. You can not like it, of course, but calling it bad would say more about you than about the work. But too many people in comics fandom just say anything that doesn\u2019t appeal to them, personally, is bad, and that kind of fan generally wants whatever\u2019s being called \u201crealistic\u201d at the time and nothing else, and would hate this. That\u2019s how we wind up with comic artists who trace 3D models and pictures of celebrities making disjointed, lifeless comics and becoming stars in the 21st Century, realism uber alles. Bad attitude. Big digression! So, Peter and Blaire go back to the building to, I dunno, interview people? I\u2019m not sure, but as everyone in the building is either a gangster or someone terrified of them, it only takes one page for things to go south. The 2 find themselves surrounded by goons, but Peter doesn\u2019t back down, and they are let off with a warning for now. Then they go see the old guy from earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That night, Spider-Man keeps watch over the building, hoping to be Mr. Castellano\u2019s guardian angel. But a scream from a few blocks away draws him off, and as he stops a mugging, he hears sirens headed back where he came. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The goons are now planning to firebomb everyone else in the building holding out on them. Spider-Man begins dispatching them in the shadows, but when he makes himself known to the leader, he gets one of the molotov cocktails tossed at him. He dodges, but the fire quickly pickles up speed. The people are fleeing out the front door, but the gang leader is trying to find an alternate route. Spider-Man beings to toy with him, wanting him to feel as scared as his victims, popping up out of the shadows only to disappear again. A tense and well-executed sequence contrasts the gangster fleeing through the building with Mr. Castellano\u2019s stuff burning, until\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cMcFarlane eyes\u201d 16 issues before he joins the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The goon runs out of the building to confess, and Spider-Man thinks it\u2019ll take more than one old man or the power of a Spider-Man to stop what\u2019s happening to neighborhoods. And so\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A fine little one-off. If Mantlo wanted to take an issue to talk about the evils of gentrification, I\u2019m all for it, and Giffen interpreted it beautifully. I think a lot about Vince Colletta\u2019s deserved reputation for shortcuts reading his 80s stuff. My first exposure to his inks was almost certainly ASM 290, which I have mentioned I really liked the look of, and still do. Vince infamously erased backgrounds, ignored figures, and simplified details inking Kirby\u2019s legendary run on Thor. He\u2019s known for being fast, and for chopping up one of comics\u2019 greatest masters. A lot of people understandably hate him. But by the 80s, maybe I\u2019m just an untrained eye, but I think he\u2019s chilled out a little. This issue, the Silvestri stuff, the aforementioned team-up with John Romita, Jr., I think they all look great. Maybe he\u2019d accepted he\u2019d gotten too old to crank out whole issues in 24 hours and was taking more time again. I dunno. But I have to say, I think his 80s work looks nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another of these covers, this one by Mark Beachum, who forgot the spider on his chest. My favorite part of Romita, Sr.\u2019s border for this is The X-Men, because they look very…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[107,253,308,1501,121,2,382],"class_list":["post-16894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-bill-mantlo","tag-bob-sharen","tag-glory-grant","tag-keith-giffen","tag-spectacular-spider-man","tag-spider-man","tag-vince-colletta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894","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=16894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16905,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16894\/revisions\/16905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}