{"id":2249,"date":"2019-11-13T00:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T04:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=2249"},"modified":"2019-05-28T18:18:39","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T22:18:39","slug":"web-113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2019\/11\/13\/web-113\/","title":{"rendered":"WEB 113"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have yet to mention that Danny Fingroth is back as Spider-Man group editor, and he\u2019s brought yet another continuity nightmare with him. We\u2019re getting into an awkward spot here, where all the Spidey titles are pushing toward a crossover, but not coordinating well at all. Something happens in ASM 391 that is referenced in all the other titles. The idea that Spider-Man has been running nonstop helps, playing into the idea that he really could be falling into all these adventures in the span of a day or three. Buuuuut SM is the only one that really leaves many gaps for the other titles to, you know, happen at the same time. ASM 390-393 are a continuous story with cliffhangers. WEB 113-116 aren\u2019t as airtight, but then a moment in 115 blows it all up. Ugh. I\u2019ve arranged it in the most reasonable order I can. We\u2019ll see people reacting to ASM 391 before we see it, though. I just can\u2019t square it all up.
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Anyway, welcome to Web of Spider-Man, 1994. Alex Saviuk is still here, but it’s\u2026 not so great. He\u2019s trying really hard to fit into the post-Image \u201crough, millions of lines everywhere\u201d style, and it doesn\u2019t suit him. He\u2019s got a classic style more at home in the era where he got started. But he\u2019s trying. You gotta give him that. And he\u2019s not going to lose his mind over the change in fashion like John Byrne did, so you gotta give him that, too. This month, he\u2019s doing breakdowns for Stephen Baskerville, who is applying a whole lot of 1990s mess to the work, and Al Milgrom, who is not, to finish. This one\u2019s written by Terry Kavanagh, who\u2019s been writing the book since 97 (Previous writer? Uh, Howard Mackie. Just shuffling these guys around) and colored by Bob Sharen. Some familiar names from a previous era there.
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We get started at what we\u2019re told is the grand opening of the new Macro Science Museum, and event Peter Parker would love to attend, but Peter Parker isn\u2019t in right now, and Spider-Man has heard something nefarious is going to happen here, so he\u2019s on the case. And he\u2019s not alone.
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Busy evening! Felicia\u2019s story has taken some odd turns since last we saw her. This Cole Cooper kid is a short-lived Jimmy Olsen knockoff who more or less only appears in this story. Lots of long time Spidey folks here, though. And as this Mike Wilson is scared off of Betty by the European industrialist Archer Bryce (Some name!), who says he knew Ned Leeds when he was in Europe, we see JJJ & Marla are here, too. And soon, they run into even more family:
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John & Dr. Kafka work at Ravencroft, the aforementioned Arkham Asylum knockoff. Look at him! Last time we saw him? Locked in a mental hospital. Time before that? Werewolf. Now he\u2019s got a good job (And that\u2019s not even mentioning his time working for The Avengers as Captain America\u2019s personal pilot in the 80s). Doing it up. I like this party scene because it\u2019s full of familiar faces, and also because it\u2019s not endlessly depressing like the rest of the comics this time period. We see Felicia trying to use her feminine wiles on that Wilson guy, but he says his wife is on her way back from the bathroom, so he can\u2019t show her the \u201cWorking display micro-fusion generator\u201d on the 2nd floor that powers the whole building. Now THAT sounds like it\u2019ll come back later! That Archer guy is up there with Betty when he gets called away to the night\u2019s demonstration. \u00a0She\u2019s graduated from secretary to reporter since last we saw her, and thinks he\u2019s not gonna like what she writes about him. We get quick looks at how JJJ is taking out his anger at John on Lance, and how John\u2019s night has been ruined by JJJ, and then it\u2019s time for the demonstration.
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I have many questions. Why is a pharmaceutical company making battle armor? What in the world does \u201cexplo-skeleton\u201d mean? Why is JJJ so taken with it? Explo-skeleton? Does it make your skeleton explode? That sounds bad. Homeboy up there keeps talking about all its incredible attributes as we take special care to see Cole Cooper, John Jameson, and Archer Bryce\u2019s reactions. And then, on page 14, Spider-Man appears in his own comic, and not alone, either.
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Now dat’s a spicy crawdad, I gar-on-tee, haw haw haw! Gambit say he not here as de X-Man, but as de \u201cblood-member\u201d o\u2019 de Thieves Guild ok, I\u2019ll stop. While this is certain to be Ye Olde Two Superheroes Fight Over A Misunderstanding, leading with the phrase \u201cThieves Guild\u201d was a prrrretty dumb thing to do, Gumbo. Y\u2019all know Gambit, I assume. Charges objects with kinetic energy, wears a trenchcoat all the time even though he\u2019s from a place where it\u2019s always really hot with 100% humidity, possessed of one of Chris Claremont\u2019s most absurd accents. I grew up on the Gulf Coast, I spent a lot of time in New Orleans, I\u2019ve had friends with Cajun relatives, and I have never met anyone who talks even remotely like Gambit, chere. Anyway, it\u2019s fightin\u2019 time. Gambit\u2019s explosions catch the enhanced ear of Felicia Hardy, who slips away from the demonstration as dude is talking about how the FACADE \u201cstill requires human interaction\u201d (He JUST said it works off a person\u2019s biology, what else would it do?) and no one should be in it for long, which feels like more info that\u2019ll be relevant later. Betty Brant leaves to find out where Bryce went, and Lance & Amy slip away, too\u2026
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Aw, look at that. We saw Amy\u2019s first appearance during the Stern years as she was having a fight with Lance, and look at them now. Felicia keeps tracking the noise of the fight, getting a weird feeling about a certain room in the building but with no time to investigate, as Spidey & Gambit\u2019s fight has taken them into a room marked \u201cLunar Display,\u201d so it looks like they\u2019re fighting on the moon. Gambit says he\u2019s here to make sure no one from the Thieves Guild is behind a rash of robberies he\u2019s tracked all the way from New Orleans\u2026
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You take that coat off and Gambit\u2019s outfit goes from funny looking to completely ridiculous real quick. They keep on fighting until Black Cat literally jumps between them.
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2019 issues of ASM have revealed Felicia and her dad to have been members of the NY branch of Gambit\u2019s Thieves Guild, you\u2019d think they\u2019d mention that. But Kavanagh couldn\u2019t have known what someone else would do 25 years later. They all wind up back in the room with the generator. Downstairs, the demonstration hall is evacuated due to the fight, with Wilson running out to check on the generator while Haney stays with his FACADE suit. All the lights are out, and they note the guards present earlier are missing and find them tied up in a closet just as 3 almost invisible dudes attack.
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Spidey has some oddly specific informants lately. Black Cat says she\u2019s faced \u201cThe Silencers\u201d before, so she can offer up some exposition about how their suits refract light and sound and they do top dollar assassinations (and a caption indicates that story has never been told). Cat\u2019s been buffed considerably since her last appearance on this blog, with further enhanced senses and a suit full of gadgets, so she\u2019s no easy mark for them. As our heroes get the better of their invisible foes, the last one threatens to blow the generator if they don\u2019t let The Silencers escape.
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Spidey essentially sends out a small EMP knocking out The Silencers\u2019 gear, and that wilson guy elbows his attacker unconscious. Soon, all The Silencers are dangling from a web outside the museum for Betty to notice.
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…from the real problems in his life, he thinks. Meanwhile, back in the presentation hall, Al Milgrom takes over on finishes, as Lance & Amy are emerging from their closet, where they find everyone\u2019s left and the lights are off. But then Lance trips over Haney\u2019s dead body. He shoves Amy back in the closet, and then uses an infrared attachment on his camera to see a mystery man climbing into the FACADE armor in the dark. Unfortunately, he\u2019s spotted doing so.
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Well, that seems bad. That tidbit about it not being safe for anyone to be in the suit too long is surely going to play a role later. Who stole it? Who knows? I bet we find out next issue. This is another one I surely bought just for the included promotional items. I have recently acquired the rest of the story, but never read it before. It\u2019s all gonna be news to me.
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Unusual to see Gambit here. X-Men rarely appear outside of their own books. I mean, other than Wolverine, but in this era, Wolverine was a guaranteed sales boost, being perhaps Marvel\u2019s 2nd biggest character behind our man. Some people might quibble with that ranking, but Spider-Man\u2026 just Spider-Man\u2026 starred in 61 comic books in 1994. 4 monthlies, a quarterly, 3 annuals and 4 miniseries. Plus there were 12 issues of Spider-Man 2099, and probably guest appearances in other peoples\u2019 books. I would say The X-Men were bigger than Spider-Man, but Spider-Man was bigger than any single X-Man. But, regardless, while it wasn\u2019t uncommon to see Wolverine pop up outside the X-books, anyone else is a surprise.
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I have yet to mention that Danny Fingroth is back as Spider-Man group editor, and he\u2019s brought yet another continuity nightmare with him. We\u2019re getting into an awkward spot here, where all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[153,268,115,426,427,11,156,253,425,428,421,13,27,122,116,2,424,423,265],"class_list":["post-2249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-al-milgrom","tag-alex-saviuk","tag-amy-powell","tag-archer-bryce","tag-ashley-kafka","tag-betty-brant","tag-black-cat","tag-bob-sharen","tag-cole-cooper","tag-facade","tag-gambit","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-john-jameson","tag-lance-bannon","tag-marla-madison","tag-spider-man","tag-stephen-baskerville","tag-terry-kavanagh","tag-web-of-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249","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=2249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4579,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249\/revisions\/4579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}