{"id":17548,"date":"2023-07-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=17548"},"modified":"2022-02-06T16:52:20","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T20:52:20","slug":"asm-288","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/07\/05\/asm-288\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 288"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Weird, weird cover. Is that background supposed to imply Kingpin\u2019s windows? The color trails behind Spider-Man\u2019s jump make it look like he came up out of the floor. Back to Alan Kupperberg, Jim Fern & George Roussos as the art team for this final chapter, which begins with Spider-Man swinging at us and yawning in front of a giant newspaper. Then a 2-page montage of newspaper headlines behind him fighting his way through mob goons, Hammerheads, Punisher, Hobgoblin, Rose, Jack O\u2019Lantern, Daredevil, and\u2026 Blaze? What\u2019s he doing there? A footnote makes sure you know this takes place before the Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine one-shot and after the Daredevil: In Love and War graphic novel. That book was in large part about Kingpin kidnapping a doctor to take care of his ailing wife, but not the doctor who\u2019s been shown doing so in this story. Maybe they should\u2019ve have brought it up. Speaking of whom\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I kind of think Fisk\u2019s weird posture here may be an attempt to approach the crazy size he had in the aforementioned, Bill Sienkiewicz-illustrated graphic novel, whose giant Kingpin inspired Into the Spider-Verse, but it mostly just looks like his back really hurts. Anyway, while MJ & Felicia have a catty argument, and Felicia lets us know her apartment blew up in TAC, Peter tells Aunt May he\u2019d love to come for lunch and seemingly leaves them to it. Back at Kingpin\u2019s, he fires a very angry Jack O\u2019Lantern, saying he\u2019s not good enough for Kingpin\u2019s much-vaunted \u201cchief assassin\u201d position. Quick cut to Alfredo vowing to kill Hobgoblin\u2026 again\u2026 and Richard Fisk thinking his \u201ccharade as The Rose\u201d has all been for nothing, then over to Matt Murdock, Tork, Sam Wilson and Ben Urich in a restaurant, where they are the target of a particularly inept hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But as weird as this book has been under Priest, I\u2019m not totally sure how inept it was supposed to look. Like all his issues, there\u2019s this feeling that it\u2019s 5 pages of comics crammed into one and a half. And that steamroller pace only picks up\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The cycle of Betty & Flash is another one of those things in this series. They keep finding themselves in similar places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What did Jack O\u2019Lantern do to Hobby? I just read all these books and I don\u2019t know. So, like, if Lance is Hobgoblin, what does he have against Flash, a character I don\u2019t think he\u2019s ever even interacted with? And if Ned is Hobgoblin, what was that business with Lance right before this? All these attempts at red herrings are too much. Ned makes more sense out of the 2, but Priest didn\u2019t want Ned to be Hobgoblin, and I\u2019m pretty sure he didn\u2019t want Lance, either. Really painting himself into a corner. Meanwhile, in Queens, Peter is losing to Mr. Chekov at chess and thinking about how Felicia all-but forced her way into living with him after her place blew up, and how he felt bad when MJ found them together, even though they\u2019re not formally dating. Then Matt Murdock calls, and Peter just hangs up on him. Elsewhere, Hobgoblin attacks Jack O\u2019Lantern as he\u2019s bemoaning his lost job, accusing Jack of \u201cdeserting him\u201d when he ran off to fight Spider-Man instead of doing what he was told in 286. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Where are we? How is Alfredo there? Could they have actually drawn some backgrounds to give us SOME idea of what\u2019s going on? How rushed was this issue? Richard Fisk hears about Alfredo\u2019s failed hit on Hobby, and knows the Goblin will blame him for it. Then his dad calls on a phone line only his man Varley is supposed to know about and tells him to come over. Meanwhile-meanwhile, Tork, DD and Falcon are waiting for Spider-Man to show up to a meeting I don\u2019t think he should know about since he hung up on Matt, but he does, anyway, because this comic is really hard to follow. Falcon\u2019s telling DD he\u2019s treated Spider-Man terribly right before Spidey and Black Cat arrive, Spider-Man ready to punch DD\u2019s lights out until he\u2019s told Kingpin\u2019s planning to have all his lieutenants assassinated tonight. DD says this is their big chance to get Kingpin legally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that\u2019s a lot of info on one page. A literal \u201cWho cares if Kingpin knows Richard is The Rose\u201d is the most baffling indignity for The Rose as a character yet. The Rose was an interesting villain, and now makes no sense. I wonder if it\u2019s personal, Priest tearing down The Rose after his falling out with DeFalco. Anyway, on a very fast-moving 12-panel grid, goons and heroes alike converge on Kingpin\u2019s tower, Kingpin gets on stage in some kind of theater to tell the assembled mobsters they\u2019re fired and then instruct his goons to kill them, Vanessa is put in an ambulance to be whisked off to Europe, and the heroes intervene to save the mob guys. All on one page!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How does Tork know about Vanessa??? Are the cops in on it? Things just keep HAPPENING without much comment or impact. That\u2019s a very specific theory Spidey has, which is undoubtedly true, because this comic is terrible at exposition. Spidey bursts into Kingpin\u2019s office to have one of their usual \u201cI hate you but I can\u2019t hurt you\u201d \u201cyou hate me and I don\u2019t even care\u201d conversations until\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Where id Punisher go???? And so, the story that was meant to be a final climax to The Hobgoblin mystery puts him on the sidelines for most of its running time, instead turning into this random Kingpin stuff, and on top of that, it becomes one of the all-time worst Daredevil stories with Spider-Man as his unwitting pawn despite taking place in a Spider-Man comic. A full-tilt disaster. A disaster really similar to the 1996 Blood Brothers arc that was similarly meant to end The Clone Saga for real, long after it should\u2019ve ended, but didn\u2019t, and in fact did nothing at all, due to a constantly changing state of affairs behind the scenes. It\u2019s the cycles that get me. Well, it\u2019s finally approaching. The big reveal. And anyone who\u2019s read Spider-Man Vs. Wolverine has some pretty concrete evidence for their guessing. Or do they?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weird, weird cover. Is that background supposed to imply Kingpin\u2019s windows? The color trails behind Spider-Man\u2019s jump make it look like he came up out of the floor. Back to Alan Kupperberg,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[1009,9,156,253,322,163,331,392,100,21,1028,343,2,282,325,357],"class_list":["post-17548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-alan-kupperberg","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-black-cat","tag-bob-sharen","tag-christopher-priest","tag-hobgoblin","tag-jack-olantern","tag-jim-fern","tag-kingpin","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-richard-fisk","tag-sgt-tork","tag-spider-man","tag-the-arranger","tag-the-rose","tag-vanessa-fisk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17548","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=17548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17567,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17548\/revisions\/17567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}