{"id":21320,"date":"2024-05-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=21320"},"modified":"2022-09-07T17:03:47","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T21:03:47","slug":"sm-96","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/05\/10\/sm-96\/","title":{"rendered":"SM 96"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I know this is called the Gathering of Five, but did it rrrrreally need to be 5 issues? We know Norman will succeed in acquiring all the bits, otherwise, what\u2019s the point? His quest coulda been happening in the background of more normal comics, and the event coulda been what happens when he gets them. But, what do I know? This issue, we got that guy Norman Felchle from Made Men as guest penciler, with the rest of the team holding on. After a very 1960s splash page that\u2019s more like a 2nd cover\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hard to imagine Peter would ever voluntarily hang out at The Bugle knowing this could happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ok! Meanwhile, Madame Web, not seen in a comic book since ASM 239<\/a>(! 1983!) is dreaming of meeting Norman Osborn and being offered her youth back. He makes her see herself as young, and says all she has to do to achieve this is bring him the missing piece. Then vanishes. She intuits that she\u2019ll need Spider-Man. Ok!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A furious Spider-Man swings off into the night, and Norman says he\u2019s so easy it\u2019s not fun anymore. He happens upon a mugging to stop, but Madame Web projects her thoughts at him, saying she needs his help to live. He\u2019s so distracted he falls out of the sky right onto the muggers, saving the day by accident. But then Web blasts his mind again, saying she\u2019s running out of time. And back at The Bugle, JJJ resolves that this has to stop tonight, and pulls his gun out of the desk. He leaves a folder for Robbie, saying he wishes Joe could be here. But he\u2019s doing this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So that guy\u2019s really called The Creep? I think Todd McFarlane has a The Creep over in Spawn, I wonder if there was ever threat of a lawsuit from either side. The internet sez this guy\u2019s sole appearance in comics is this page! Jeez! Couldn\u2019t it have been Conundrum or something? Robbie\u2019s sounding very Terminator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good lightning gag. Suddenly, Madame Web is dreaming, and she sees JJJ kill Norman. And then\u2026 Spider-Man shows up with the fragment, talking about how hard it was to get. Wow. For a storyline that feels too long, that\u2019s a huge thing skipped. She tells him JJJ is about to make the mistake of his life. At The Bugle, Norman\u2019s telling himself  the time is at hang and it\u2019s time to end games and tie up loose ends and JJJ storms into his office. And as Spider-Man races to stop him, there\u2019s a random fire breathing monster on the street. That\u2019s pretty crazy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Godzilla \u201898 was pretty successful despite being terrible, Spidey. But… where did this come from? Is this part of the thing? It doesn’t seem like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spider-Man smashes through the window and webs Norman\u2019s hand. Norman asks if Spidey\u2019s going to beat him again, then offers him the gun and the chance to take out \u201chis two greatest enemies.\u201d All these so-called mind games are getting prrrrrrretty boring. I know you\u2019ll be shocked, but Spider-Man doesn\u2019t shoot anyone, and Norman calls him weak and all that, but says he\u2019ll be out of his misery very soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ok! Things are escalating quickly, but I\u2019m mostly wondering how Madame Web came to Norman if she previously was being kept alive by a whole roomful of barely explained equipment. Maybe we\u2019ll find out, but probably not!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know this is called the Gathering of Five, but did it rrrrreally need to be 5 issues? We know Norman will succeed in acquiring all the bits, otherwise, what\u2019s the point?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[275,415,13,26,168,21,1841,39,417,2],"class_list":["post-21320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-gregory-wright","tag-howard-mackie","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-joe-robertson","tag-madame-web","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-norman-felchle","tag-norman-osborn","tag-scott-hanna","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21320","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=21320"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21321,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21320\/revisions\/21321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}