{"id":3096,"date":"2020-01-30T12:00:44","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T16:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=3096"},"modified":"2019-06-03T00:22:44","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T04:22:44","slug":"asm-045","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2020\/01\/30\/asm-045\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM 045"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More reptile action! It\u2019s gonna be hard to smash out with just one arm. My copies of this one and the last are in pretty rough shape, this one especially. I guess maybe since they\u2019re the 2nd and 3rd appearances of The Lizard, they command a higher price than I would expect, so rattier copies were the way to go for me. This one\u2019s prrrrretty bad, though. Like, the cover came off when I tried to open it. It must\u2019ve been hanging on by like a centimeter of beaten old paper. It\u2019s legible, though, so let\u2019s check it out. Spidey webs around with one arm, and manages to break up a pack of goons trying to hijack a semi truck. But he was looking for The Lizard, and this hasn\u2019t gotten him any closer to finding him. He ought to try Curt Connors\u2019 \u201claboratory apartment,\u201d where Martha\u2019s sleep is disturbed by the unwanted return of her husband. Sort of.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

That\u2019s actually a pretty intense scene. I bet the horror of it would really be played up in a more contemporary comic. You wouldn\u2019t think The Lizard was a \u201ctake over the world\u201d kind of villain, but here you go. Interestingly, The Lizard\u2019s psychological split from Curt Connors is so severe that not only do Connors\u2019 scientific notes mean nothing to him, but he decides to go find Connors and force him to give up the formula. Good luck with that!  He leaves, and Martha & Billy are safe, though Martha is probably traumatized for life. The next morning, Frederick Foswell wants to try to follow Peter Parker to figure out how he gets his Spidey photos, but JJJ forces him onto The Lizard story, instead. Peter himself decides he can\u2019t just hide and wait for his arm to heal, even though he\u2019s worried Peter Parker and Spider-Man having the same arm injury will arouse suspicion, so he goes to school anyway.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Nailed it. Harry tells Peter Gwen is throwing a party for Flash and wants him to come, and also that he should come work for his dad as a chemist. Two important offers. Peter wonders why he can\u2019t stop thinking about Gwen even though they\u2019ve not really gone out yet and MJ is in his life. Just can\u2019t be satisfied, can ya, Pete? Later that night, Spider-Man canvases the city looking for The Lizard, but has no luck\u2026 until he decides to check the zoo, where they happen to be having a \u201cWorld\u2019s largest collection of reptiles\u201d exhibit. Guess what.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Things go pretty badly for Spidey, though. In a fight that goes on for several pages, The Lizard proceeds to just beat the crap out of him. Then he opens a train car full of reptiles, which he can actually command, so now Spidey\u2019s up against an army of crocodiles, snakes and whatnot. Bad times.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

How and why did MJ manage to get into a seated position with her knees up by her head while on her way out the door? Not the most obvious panel-to-panel continuity, there. Spidey grabs a crocodile by the tail and swings it around like a weapon, running most of the reptiles off. But now the train is moving, and The Lizard has packed cars with reptiles to take back to Florida to be his army (I think there\u2019s already a whole lot of reptiles in \u201cthe swampland,\u201d as he put it, but what do I know?).
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The keep fighting on top of the train until Spidey has an idea, and locates and lures him into one of the cars.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Good thinking! Spidey webs up his unconscious foe and brings him back to his lab, where he begins working on the antidote. He\u2019s successful, and soon the Connors family is reunited. And then\u2026 there\u2019s this\u2026
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

I\u2019ll never know who filled this in. Passable dialogue, whoever you were!
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Aw, you just have to get to know her, Peter. Aunt Anna catches him on his way in and gives him some food, but he\u2019s in too rotten a mood to even eat, ending yet another issue feeling sorry for himself. Across town, The Connors family enjoys their reunion. Curt says he wishes he could repay Spider-Man, but Martha says a person like him probably has everything he could wish for. Because he doesn\u2019t! Get it?? The mystery scripter of the above page also wrote the number 5 on the back cover. One of the wackier finds I\u2019ve had so far. Next time, we see the introduction of another enduring Spidey villain, and a big development in the life of Peter Parker.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More reptile action! It\u2019s gonna be hard to smash out with just one arm. My copies of this one and the last are in pretty rough shape, this one especially. I guess…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[9,36,12,22,17,21,2,6,43],"class_list":["post-3096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1960s","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-aunt-anna","tag-flash-thompson","tag-harry-osborn","tag-john-romita","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-spider-man","tag-stan-lee","tag-the-lizard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096","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=3096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3170,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3096\/revisions\/3170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}