{"id":17951,"date":"2023-08-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=17951"},"modified":"2022-03-06T19:17:51","modified_gmt":"2022-03-06T23:17:51","slug":"asm-376","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/08\/09\/asm-376\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 376"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019re bringing all the monthlies to the May cover date issues so they can all clear the deck for a crossover event. ASM was closer than the others, so we only have 2 issues this block. And all my least-favorite Michelinie characters are in them, how nice! They\u2019ve finally stopped with the parents banners across the tops of the covers, at least. It was a little much. These 2 issues have some help, with Steve Grant scripting over a Michelinie plot (He\u2019s all over the Spider-Office all of a sudden!) and a fill-in art team. Jeff Johnson pencils and Dan Panosian & Al Milgrom ink, while Bob Sharen gets a hand from Kevin Tinsley on colors. Whew. Johnson drew a solo Wonder Man comic around this time, and I really liked his work on it as a kid. We shall see directly that his Spider-Man face could use some work, tho. Very directly, as Spidey is already fighting Styx & Stone in a warehouse on page one. They call him a trespasser as he dodges Stone\u2019s blasts, and Stone says they have a job to do, telling Styx to do his thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Styx kills the security guard, being the unstable murderous looney and all, and Spider-Man is very upset, obviously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey thinks Stone is right, thinking if he hadn\u2019t blundered in here looking for photos, none of this would\u2019ve happened. We still don\u2019t know where \u201chere\u201d is or what\u2019s going on, tho, this is rather choppy. Then Stone shoots the wrong container, causing an explosion and trapping the owner guy under some stuff that\u2019s on fire, forcing Spider-Man to help while they flee. But not far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The gang\u2019s all here by page 9! And someone finally bothered to tell us what\u2019s going on. Cardiac mixes it up with Styx & Stone for a couple pages, at one point blasting Stone through a chimney. When Stone gets up, his mask has been shredded, and Cardiac is shocked to recognize him. Stone blasts a hole in the roof under Cardiac, dumping him into the wreckage, and they flee. Cardiac sees the studio has been destroyed and thinks he more or less got what he wanted, and also departs. Hey, whatever happened to Spider-Man?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Holy smokes, Mary Jane\u2019s getting a plot point! When\u2019s the last time that happened?? I still like Johnson\u2019s work. It\u2019s got an airy feel that very much stands out in the Image era. Too bad about his Spider-Man, but everything else looks really nice. But I have interrupted Cardiac giving what I think is his first full origin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Too bad it\u2019s being told in a very difficult to read green! Sheesh! In those nigh-unreadable boxes, he says his heart has been replaced by a \u201ccompact beta particle accelerator\u201d which empowers his muscles and his power staff, and he mentions his skin is a Vibranium mesh now. Cardiac\u2019s fake skin never made any sense to me, and still doesn\u2019t. Cardiac sets out to track down Stone without telling us why he recognized him. Elsewhere, Styx & Stone are pushing that guy from earlier to pay them, and the threat of Styx\u2019s power does the trick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We see ESU more for Peter\u2019s parents than for him lately. The guy flipping on Styx & Stone is pretty good. At his place, Cardiac gets the info he needs on Stone, and we casually hear he used to be a \u201cbio-technician,\u201d and Cardiac sets off to get him. So, naturally, Spider-Man is already arriving at Styx & Stone\u2019s fancy home. Stone is just out of the indoor pool when Spidey drops in. Stone runs off to get his gear, leaving the weirdo to tangle with our hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Johnson\u2019s doing a lot of figure-in-motion panels in this issue, this is the 3rd at least, and they\u2019re all pretty good! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, seems like Spidey\u2019s dead this time. Styx kills people with a touch, how\u2019s he gonna get out of this one? I guess we\u2019ll see. As is so often the case, I don\u2019t really remember this one. The only real evidence of the switch in inkers is Al Milgrom thickening the eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re bringing all the monthlies to the May cover date issues so they can all clear the deck for a crossover event. ASM was closer than the others, so we only have…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[153,9,35,253,604,1574,259,1607,418,21,1290,1289,2,1037,344],"class_list":["post-17951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-al-milgrom","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-aunt-may","tag-bob-sharen","tag-cardiac","tag-dan-panosian","tag-david-michelinie","tag-jeff-johnson","tag-kevin-tinsley","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-mary-parker","tag-richard-parker","tag-spider-man","tag-steven-grant","tag-styx-stone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17951","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=17951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17962,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17951\/revisions\/17962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}