{"id":20610,"date":"2024-03-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=20610"},"modified":"2022-07-27T22:37:19","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T02:37:19","slug":"legacy-of-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/03\/25\/legacy-of-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Legacy of Evil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This one-shot would\u2019ve been very spoilery had I revisited it when it came out, but it also would\u2019ve made no sense. It stars Peter Parker Spider-Man, but was released during the year Ben Reilly was Spider-Man. Would have made sense way back in block 27, but I spent all these years avoiding Harry\u2019s death and Peter\u2019s parents, so I just held onto it. It unfortunately absolutely doesn\u2019t make total sense here, either, but it\u2019ll work. This one\u2019s courtesy of Kurt Busiek and Mark Texeira, who we saw on Ghost Rider awhile back. When this is released in early 1996, Tex is a few years out from launching the first ongoing Black Panther series with Christopher Priest, which informed a great deal of the movie version. And it\u2019s fully painted! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pretty snappy looking book! Tex was really great when he wanted to be. I wonder whatever happened to him. I saw him at a con like over a decade ago, but I can\u2019t recall the last time I saw his art in something. The 3rd Goblin Girl has diverted to wordlessly threaten Ben, which gets Spider-Man to back off. As the one holds Ben hostage, another kidnaps Normie. Spidey tries to get a tracer on them, but one of them grabs it in mid-air and crushes it as they leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And we\u2019re off. Obviously, a big problem with putting this here is Spider-Man isn\u2019t a raging crybaby idiot, but otherwise, it follows that annual pretty ok. Ben goes to the office and watches footage of Spider-Man and the first Goblin in battle, seemingly around ASM 23<\/a>, from an old documentary. He says it\u2019s good to review what he knows, then describes Norman\u2019s origin, and how his abuse led to Harry one day taking up the Goblin mantle. He notes that it seems strange that Spider-Man seems so at ease around Harry\u2019s widow, but then there\u2019s a knock on the door, and it\u2019s Mark Raxton, The Molten Man. Liz asked him to come bodyguard Ben while he\u2019s on the case. Ben says he doesn\u2019t need one, and Mark says he\u2019s quite, he makes a great pot of coffee and he knows all the verses to \u201cMiss Otis Regrets.\u201d Is that\u2019s where \u201cThe Molten Man Regrets\u2026\u201d came from? It almost has to be. I don\u2019t know the song, but Ben accepts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From there, it\u2019s a few sort of montage pages, cutting between Spider-Man roughing up hoods for info and Ben interviewing people on each page. Ben sees current an former Oscorp employees, old friends of Norman, Flash Thompson, former goons, a psychiatrist, cops, JJJ, but no one can tell him anything important he doesn\u2019t already know. I suddenly think to wonder how everyone knows Norman was the Goblin. Spider-Man and Harry made sure no one ever saw his body in costume, or found the costume. I doubt Harry told people. But Ben, Flash, Norman\u2019s old friends, everyone knows. Hm. Meanwhile, yer local hoods all tell Spider-Man the Goblin is dead and no one\u2019s working for him and he\u2019s crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In a beautiful 2-page spread, Ben thinks about how Spider-Man and The Goblin fought here, too, with The Torch in ASM 17<\/a>, as their ghosts wheel about above him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Up in Liz\u2019s room, Ben asks Spider-Man what he meant about it becoming personal. He loosely recaps how The Goblin just wanted to be a mob boss at first, and only tried to kill Spider-Man to make his rep, talking about the Lucky Lobo story in ASM 23, then talks about Harry\u2019s first outing as The Goblin in ASM 136<\/a> & 137<\/a>, omitting any personal info. Ben asks about Barton Hamilton and Hobgoblin and Demogoblin, but Spidey says they\u2019re all dead ends, never having much interest in the Osborns, just in The Goblin\u2019s power. Spidey says he\u2019s still convinced it\u2019s Harry, and tells them about the weird memory machine he ran into in the annual.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The boys visit the place where Goblin used a captive Spidey to outfox Crime-Master in ASM 27<\/a>, the site of an old safehouse that\u2019s been torn down, then the Osborn townhouse and finally the suburban house. Ben can tell Spider-Man\u2019s been tense in the last 2, and Raxton\u2019s tense here, too, recalling the battle in TAC 189<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s when the Goblin Gals show up and start raining lasers on everyone. Mark makes himself a human shield for Ben as Spider-Man launches himself into battle. Yelling over the din, Ben says it doesn\u2019t make sense, that he thought all signs pointed to Harry taking over as The Goblin in college, due to that being when The Goblin lost interest in crime and became crazier. Mark tells him something went on between Norman and Spider-Man that only they know that drove Norman nuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Mark sure looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So the boys bust into Liz\u2019s place, and she is very startled. I think they could\u2019ve done this without smashing her door. But, Mark discovers wounds on her head that confirm she\u2019s had the brain thing strapped to her temples, and then Spider-Man feels a vibration behind a wall and rips it out. Suddenly that mind control tentacles from the annual are arcing toward him. But\u2026 why would this machine be here? They said Liz was staying at the old club. If they were in her house, sure, but here? Seems rather unlikely. But, at any rate, as they snake toward Spider-Man, Mark grabs them and rips them out of the wall. They think it\u2019s over, but Liz, seemingly against her own will, reveals a secret door and makes a run for it. The tunnel she went down begins to collapse on the boys as they run after. Mark stops to hold up part of it so Ben & Spider-Man can go on, then it collapse, but Spidey says not to worry, Mark is tough. He also says this must be Harry\u2019s plot, because Norman wouldn\u2019t have known to target Liz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey rips the cables free, and it begins a chain reaction around the lab. Ben is desperately trying to get Liz to wake up, and she slowly does. As Spider-Man is hit by some kind of drugged darts, a dazed Liz tries to tell \u201cHarry\u201d that this stuff killed him and they don\u2019t want to kill their son. The Goblin program says they\u2019ll have to let Normie decide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It would be really nice if it all ended HERE, too. Cute to have Phil Urich read the manuscript, since he became the heroic Green Goblin. And, of course, this is the book Norman\u2019s holding over Ben\u2019s head in 1998. This was published during the Ben Reilly run, before Norman came back. Kurt maybe didn\u2019t even know Norman was coming back. But that means it has to take place before Peter moved to Portland. The last page might even imply it\u2019s before Phil became a Goblin. It might as well go here. Whenever it took place, it\u2019s a good one. I liked it a lot as a youth, and enjoyed it again this time. A nice little trip down memory lane, a nice \u201cfinal\u201d word on the Green Goblin. Well, that brings us to the end of this block, the end of this era. Spider-Man\u2019s off to ASM 390<\/a>, which, back in 2019, I didn\u2019t want to say began with him trashing Harry\u2019s house, but I can say it now. What an adventure this has been. And there\u2019s only one leg left in the journey. Well. For Vol. 1, anyway\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This one-shot would\u2019ve been very spoilery had I revisited it when it came out, but it also would\u2019ve made no sense. It stars Peter Parker Spider-Man, but was released during the year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[113,1003,172,1309,544,545,614,2],"class_list":["post-20610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ben-urich","tag-kurt-busiek","tag-liz-allen","tag-mark-texiera","tag-molten-man","tag-normie-osborn","tag-phil-urich","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20610","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=20610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20635,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20610\/revisions\/20635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}