{"id":19468,"date":"2023-12-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=19468"},"modified":"2022-06-13T19:43:01","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T23:43:01","slug":"ssm-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2023\/12\/25\/ssm-25\/","title":{"rendered":"SSM 25"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

And so, we reach a big milestone in my personal comics collecting habits: the moment when I stopped individually bagging comics. I decided it was both easier and more convenient to put a bunch of books in a single, larger bag. The bags made for Silver Age and Golden Age comics are significantly bigger than modern ones, allowing you to put usually around 6 books in a bag. It\u2019s easy to pull a whole storyline out of the box and read it if it\u2019s all in one bag. Like this one! Here we begin our journey into what is definitely one of the craziest stunts I\u2019ve ever seen in comics. While the basic elevator pitch might not be all that revolutionary, the practical result is\u2026 well, we\u2019ll see. And yes, this issue is drawn by Joe Bennett. Why? Who knows? The cover, tho, is by Weiringo, and I find it noteworthy because the Spider-Man on the wanted poster is clearly styled after John Romita, Jr.\u2019s Spider-Man, while the real Spidey is in Ringo\u2019s style. Very interesting choice. Anyway, Al Milgrom & Dan Green pitch in to ink this one, with Gregory Wright & Mark Bernardo sharing color credit. Things are happening pretty fast now. We\u2019re only 9 months away from the whole line being canceled and rebooted, and one assumes they know where they\u2019re headed by now. A few odd detours aside, we\u2019re headed for the endgame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Seems weird! As does bringing back these losers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The bounty on Spider-Man\u2019s head has been in place for several months, our time, by this point, and yet it hasn\u2019t really come to the forefront. Which, given what\u2019s coming here, seems strange. I guess they wanted to let everyone get to a stopping point in their own stories before this. We see some skinhead guys get some laser weapons from a \u201cMr. Crier\u201d before a 2-page spread of Spider-Man having to dodge a bunch of lunatics on rooftops trying to tag him for the money. It\u2019s really getting out of control quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A guy is about to shoot Spider-Man, and he knows there\u2019s kids in a window behind him, so he\u2019s gotta do some fancy webbing to stop him without moving. The guy starts losing it, having read that Spider-Man\u2019s webbing people up and suffocating them to death these days. Spidey tells him not to believe everything he reads as he leaves. Soon, Peter is at The Bugle, recapping furiously as his new pal Billy Walters walks in, and then\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Peter naturally assumes this is another part of Osborn\u2019s plan to ruin his life, which Osborn confirms with an evil grin over his shoulder as he ushers Flash into his office. Peter thinks about how Osborn is poison to everyone around him as he sees JJJ dejectedly locking himself in his office. Then Billy says something\u2019s going down and they gotta go. That turns out to be a woman who was being rescued from a fire when the burning building collapsed on top of the firetruck trying to help her, leaving her stuck on top of a ladder with nowhere to go. Billy says no one could ever get to her in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Always glad to see Prowler show up. Spidey does as suggested, clocking and webbing his attacker, but thien his webshooters short out due to Override\u2019s powers, and the 2 jobbers are on him. I had genuinely already forgotten their names again and it\u2019s only been 16 pages. Well, Aura\u2019s power is a force field, and she smashes our hero into a wall. He picks up his previous attacker\u2019s rifle and throws it at them\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Very Ditko-y panel at the top. The battle is interrupted by a whole gang of idiots on a nearby roof opening fire on everyone. Spider-Man flees, but the skinhead guys from earlier (Lead by a guy with long hair, I guess he just likes to be different) hit him with a \u201csonar tag\u201d so they can track him. That\u2019s usually his department!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, at Norman\u2019s estate, Liz is being informed that she & Normie will be moving in with Norman. When she objects, she\u2019s told it\u2019s not a request. It\u2019s all very much like the Harry stuff near the end of his life. Which I guess is fitting, but also makes it feel stale and done already. Also, Bennett is drawing little Normie with the inexplicable family cornrows. Speaking of, he\u2019s playing in his room when an unseen figure opens his window, and Normie reacts by saying, \u201cDaddy?\u201d Surely not. They wouldn\u2019t, would they? They might! At their hotel, Aura & Override argue about continuing on this stupid bounty, Aura worrying they\u2019ll get hurt, but her husband overriding her feelings. Eh? Eh? Fine, whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Funny how reality can hit you in the face like that. Peter rides the subway home, thinking that it took that moment for him to finally hear what MJ was saying earlier, and to begin pondering if he really should stop being Spider-Man. But as soon as he emerges from the subway, those goons are after him with the lasers (From a distance, so they can\u2019t see who he is), and he\u2019s forced back into the suit immediately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Spidey flees to a park, where he quickly webs up the space between some poles in the hopes of using it like \u201ca big ol\u2019 pest strip.\u201d Then the dopes are on him, and a beat cop wanders in, too. Spidey get one of the dopes into his web trap, but then the cop distractions, and then Aura & Override show up, Aura\u2019s wild blast collapsing some masonry on the cop. Things are getting out of hand. But Override is actually helpful\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSlazer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Well, that\u2019s grim! But wait, there\u2019s more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So Norman would even use his grandson as a pawn in this stuff. What a cool guy. A pretty explosive opening round to this crossover. Unusually light on horrible \u201ccomedy\u201d for DeZago, too. More next time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so, we reach a big milestone in my personal comics collecting habits: the moment when I stopped individually bagging comics. I decided it was both easier and more convenient to put…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[153,1236,11,1251,120,12,275,621,26,172,1254,21,39,545,1235,31,473,2,452],"class_list":["post-19468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-al-milgrom","tag-aura","tag-betty-brant","tag-billy-walters","tag-dan-green","tag-flash-thompson","tag-gregory-wright","tag-joe-bennett","tag-joe-robertson","tag-liz-allen","tag-mark-bernardo","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-norman-osborn","tag-normie-osborn","tag-override","tag-prowler","tag-sensational-spider-man","tag-spider-man","tag-todd-dezago"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19468","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=19468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19475,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19468\/revisions\/19475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}