{"id":17705,"date":"2023-07-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-14T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=17705"},"modified":"2022-02-28T00:17:44","modified_gmt":"2022-02-28T04:17:44","slug":"the-way-to-dusty-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/07\/14\/the-way-to-dusty-death\/","title":{"rendered":"The Way To Dusty Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s 1993 again, and here we have\u2026 I don\u2019t know what. Some kind of graphic novel? That sort of thing was highly uncommon in this era, but it\u2019s a square-bound one-shot something or other, and here it is. I have, obviously, never read it. This block is set to feature no less than 6 oversized issues. The 90s! This is a Roy Thomas & Gerry Conway joint. That\u2019s a surprise, but pretty neat. It\u2019s penciled by Michael Bair, and then the credits get weird. Mark Beachum is \u201cinker\/MELINDA,\u201d Mark Texeira is \u201cinker\/XANDU,\u201d and Michael Bair is \u201cinker.\u201d Maybe different sequences? Kinda spoils that that dopey Xandu guy\u2019s in this. Well, anyway, Bob Sharen colors. These big squarebound things are so hard to photograph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The absurdly scantily clad young woman hurls herself off the bridge. That would be Melinda, Xanadu\u2019s wife, dressed just as she was in the equally hypersexualized Marvel Fanfare #6<\/a>. In that one, Xandu stole Scarlet Witch\u2019s spirit and put it in Melinda\u2019s body, but both women eventually got better. Xanadu has apparently only appeared in 2 comics since then, 2 more issues of Fanfare. At any rate, Melinda\u2019s falling off a bridge and Spider-Man\u2019s thinking of Gwen and so on, and he dives in and catches her. She is furious, slapping and punching him and saying she wants to die. Fun start! Spidey leaps her back up onto the bridge, and then, getting a better look at her, asks if he knows her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kind of a shame we\u2019ve not gotten to ASM Annual 2 yet, since it\u2019s the only part of this weirdly drawn out story not yet covered. I mean, this is their 4th meeting since 1965, in 1992, and those past ones are all still relevant plot points for this. Spidey fights the demons for a few pages as Melinda runs away in panels that do their best show off all her parts as gratuitously as possible. Then she throws herself in front of a bus, still bent on killing herself, but as it happens, someone else saw her doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What a coincidence! \u201cWatching on the Orb of Aggamatto\u201d is a really funny phrase to me. Like he was just watching TV or something. Strange tells Spider-Man to leap away from the beasties, then casts a spell to send them back where they came from. Then he extends his invisibility spell to Spider-Man, and the go to his house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good security. Spidey meets Dr. Strange\u2019s apprentice, who is a big green minotaur (Dr. Strange comics seem like they musta been wacky in this period), and then Strange gets back to trying to figure out what\u2019s going on. And I, also, figure out what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As insane and unnecessary as it seems, famous horndog Mark Beachum is inking the Melinda figures, and Tex is inking the Xandu figures. Wh\u2026 why? Why on Earth would you do that? Was Michael Bair not confident in his ability to render women and really bad goatees? Weird stuff. Well, anyway, Spidey and Strange watch Melinda\u2019s memories of her live with Xandu from meeting him to accidentally being killed by him to Spidey\u2019s three previous run-ins with Xandu. While that happens, the big green minotaur guy is attacked by the demons, who mob him and force him back to Dr. Strange\u2019s house.\u00a0Having made it through the This Is Your Life for Melinda, our heroes are immediately attacked by the demons again. And if that\u2019s not weird enough, Xandu forces Spider-Man\u2019s spirit out of his body and takes it over to attack Strange. Spidey can only watch in an astral form and Strange defends himself while trying not to hurt Spider-Man\u2019s body. As Strange is engulfed in a wave of demons, Xandu-in-Spidey\u2019s-body finds his precious Wand of Watoomb among Strange\u2019s gear, and taking it and Melinda, departs. Strange magicks the demons away again, and being Dr. Strange, can see Spider-Man floating nearby. Strange projects his own astral form, and they zoom around. Strange surmises that Xandu was driving one of the demons in astral form, and that\u2019s how he jumped into Spidey. He makes sure Rintrah isn\u2019t hurt, and then tells Spider-Man if they don\u2019t get his body back in 24 hours, he\u2019ll cease to exist. No pressure! Strange is able to magic up a way to see Xandu-as-Spidey webswinging Meldina to a subway station, where he\u2019s got an interdimensional gateway going.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An entranced Melinda is walking toward the gate, Spider-Man trying to stop her. Xandu fights Strange. We can see his eye in one of Spider-Man\u2019s eyeholes, and even this small bit of his face is inked by Tex. What a bizarre arrangement. Anyway, Spidey and Melinda fall into the portal. They are now in The Death Dimension. Some kind of tremor hits them immediately. Meldina falls down and gets knocked out (She has some real luck!), and Spidey learns he\u2019s solid in this realm when he\u2019s attacked by a demon and able to defend himself. He chases a demon that\u2019s absconded with Melinda into a rebuilt version of Xanny\u2019s old castle. Inside, instead of demons or Melinda, he\u2019s confronted with visions of Gwen and Uncle Ben. This old chestnut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strange fights the demons and the wizard through Grand Central station, Xandu threatening to trap him him The Death Dimension. Speaking of which, Spider-Man is doing the usual bit, being tormented by the people he couldn\u2019t save. Nothing we haven\u2019t seen before. Only this time, Gwen is an absurd Mark Beachum girl in painted on clothes, and Uncle Ben is a Michael Bair-rendered zombie. This art situation is ridiculous. The visions convince Spidey he should just die like they did, and he\u2019s despairing and blah blah blah, this has been done to death. And then he snaps out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gwen began to look more and more zombie-like during the sequence, and Beachum stopped inking her. Strictly on hand for T&A, I suppose. He swings off looking for Melinda, and finds her, now in an even more revealing Deja Thoris-style getup, next to a throne containing the unoccupied body of Xandu. Then there\u2019s another tremor, and it alerts demons to Spidey being there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strange\u2019s ploy to make Xandu angry works, and his careless rage lets Strange blast him through his portal to The Death Dimension, which Strange then enters himself. Spider-Man\u2019s mixing it up with the demons, and eventually gets the idea to try to get into Xandu\u2019s body, since he\u2019s in Spider-Man\u2019s, but the body is mystically protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey\u2019s not too tough in Xandu\u2019s body, but this gives Strange a chance to magic the two into the proper forms, all back to normal. Another one of those tremors happens, and Strange realizes this place is coming apart. Spidey wants to go rescue Melinda, but Xandu says she\u2019s dead. That she was always dead, the whole time, even that time in Fanfare 6 when she seemed restored, and even when she was running around New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is so absurd. Xandu begs them to just leave him and Melinda here, and Strange begins to think he\u2019s right, but wants to mystically examine Melinda first. Then yet another quake hits, and things are getting pretty bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Strange is casting his spells and stuff, but Xandu is more powerful in his own realm, so things look bad. Until Spider-Man snags The Wand of Watoomb and smashes it, that is. Then things really begin to fall apart, and Melinda wakes up, and Stranges tells her to scream as loud as she can for the fate of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ok! Strange takes the dudes back to his place, where Xandu is desolate in loss, and the heroes discuss how even bad guys have feelings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hey, that was awful. And really hard to take pictures of. And SEVEN DOLLARS back when a comic book cost $1.25. I wonder what I paid for it. I went to look, but I see no record of it on eBay or mycomcishop.com, where did I even get this? I know I got it post-2018. Goodness. A sticker on the back says $4. I wonder where it came from. Who bought this when it was new for $7? Did anyone enjoy it? I guess maybe the 13-year old male audience liked the girlie stuff, but this sucked. Woof!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s 1993 again, and here we have\u2026 I don\u2019t know what. Some kind of graphic novel? That sort of thing was highly uncommon in this era, but it\u2019s a square-bound one-shot something…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[253,49,866,1309,1597,2,146],"class_list":["post-17705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-bob-sharen","tag-doctor-strange","tag-mark-beachum","tag-mark-texiera","tag-michael-blair","tag-spider-man","tag-xandu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17705","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=17705"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17717,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17705\/revisions\/17717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}