{"id":22717,"date":"2024-09-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=22717"},"modified":"2024-02-21T16:42:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T20:42:27","slug":"usm-003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2024\/09\/10\/usm-003\/","title":{"rendered":"USM 003"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marie Javins and Colographix take over colors this month. We begin with Osborn and his employees reviewing surveillance video of Peter being bitten and talking about the success of this accidental human trial. How the spider venom mixed with the OZ produced a startling result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ominous! While that\u2019s going on, Peter, MJ, Flash, Harry and Kong are watching a wrestler called Crusher Hogan announcing that he\u2019ll fight all comers. It\u2019s part of a promotion for \u201cUCW Spankdown,\u201d and a promoter says it\u2019s worth $500 to anyone who can win. Kong decides he\u2019s got to try it, but is told no one under 21 is allowed to participate. Flash taunts Peter that he should try, and Peter says Flash should do it, and when he loses, his family can sue Peter\u2019s family. The tension is broken by Kong saying Peter really got Flash, and the student has become the master. Kong is being revealed as a guy who likes a good spectacle more than a dedicated bully. But Peter\u2019s still thinking about that $500\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another really great interaction. I just remember this stuff so vividly. People just didn\u2019t write superhero comics like this in 2000. But that mask sure has a familiar look!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I might\u2019ve pointed out last issue, but this is the first Marvel comic since the more experimental corners of the company in the 70s where a character could say \u201cdamn.\u201d Which is interesting, because DC let some \u201cdamns\u201d in there as far back as the late 80s. The Comics Code was entirely arbitrary and mostly relied on companies policing themselves, so it\u2019s kind of anything goes as the Code is slowly rendered obsolete here at the turn of the century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I think it\u2019s really interesting to compare this to the original. And to Chapter One, for that matter. Peter defeating Crusher was obviously a big step toward becoming Spider-Man in both previous takes, but it was also really nonchalant. Peter hops in, makes some jokes, embarrasses Crusher very quickly, the end. It had no weight, it just quickly established that he was ready for superheroin\u2019. Given this much room to breathe, the same basic bullet point in your outline is a huge moment. AND it happens in front of Flash & Kong. It\u2019s a whole new ballgame despite being more or less the same thing. Later that night, May & Ben find an envelope slipped under the door with $500 and a note saying it\u2019s from anonymous school faculty who felt what happened to Peter was unfair, and ask them to honor their anonymity. While Ben reads the note, a beaming Peter\u2019s face pops down from the stairwell for a second. May & Ben are amazed, and Peter is delighted. Next day at school, Flash and Kog are breathlessly describing the Crusher fight to Harry when the basketball coach comes \u2018round to offer Peter Flash\u2019s spot on the team in front of Flash. Peter only really expresses interest when Flash gets upset. Kong really amps up the drama of it all. All of a sudden, after all these decades, the teenagers in a comic act like teenagers. To wit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Of course he would! Of course he would. What kid in Peter\u2019s shoes wouldn\u2019t become a basketball star with his newfound powers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Man, that secret identity became a problem real fast, huh? Jump to Monday night, where Peter and Crusher reenact their battle, now with prepared wrestling commentary and for the cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, like, panel 6, you know Peter is smiling under that mask. They don\u2019t even have to show you his face. I can\u2019t claim to know when Bags started to get invested in this material, but he feels pretty locked in this issue. After, the promoter wants to know a phone number he can reach Spider-Man at, but Peter obviously won\u2019t budge on the anonymity. The promoter goes along for now, telling him to be back Friday, and handing him a dufflebag, saying his costume sucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Makes a lot more sense than a 15-year old boy quickly sewing himself an entire suit in one panel! And, you know, these changes, it\u2019s no slight to Steve & Stan. They made the right choices for a short story in a scifi anthology in 1962. It\u2019s just a reflection of what you can do with the benefit of almost 40 years of hindsight and the opportunity to really work on the book and not just rush it out because you have 3 more to draw that month. You know, Jack Kirby is the best comic book artist of all time, but he was the best while rarely doing less than 4 comics at a time, often more than 4. People who did comics were able to make a living drawing or writing, but job 1 was feeding the family, and that meant producing as many pages as possible as fast as possible. The notion of art had to be a distant runner-up. And I\u2019ve just always wondered what a Jack Kirby who got paid well enough to just do one book a month would\u2019ve looked like. I feel like the smart changes to Spider-Man\u2019s origin here kind of hint at what could\u2019ve been if the geniuses who created the Marvel Universe had the luxury of taking a breath. But anyway:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that sounds bad. And with that, we\u2019re done with this 3-issue reprint thing I\u2019ve been reading. Almost 3 whole issues before Spider-Man\u2019s name and costume debuted! That woulda been commercial suicide just a few years before. Instead, it\u2019s a smash hit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marie Javins and Colographix take over colors this month. We begin with Osborn and his employees reviewing surveillance video of Peter being bitten and talking about the success of this accidental human…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1864,1],"tags":[498,35,1924,1922,25,12,22,1925,339,21,39,2,994,1923,587],"class_list":["post-22717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2000s","category-uncategorized","tag-art-thibert","tag-aunt-may","tag-bill-jemas","tag-brian-michael-bendis","tag-doctor-octopus","tag-flash-thompson","tag-harry-osborn","tag-kong","tag-mark-bagley","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-norman-osborn","tag-spider-man","tag-steve-bucellato","tag-ultimate-spider-man","tag-uncle-ben"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22717","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=22717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22729,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22717\/revisions\/22729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}