{"id":5904,"date":"2020-08-20T00:00:24","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T04:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=5904"},"modified":"2019-08-16T21:32:42","modified_gmt":"2019-08-17T01:32:42","slug":"asm-annual-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2020\/08\/20\/asm-annual-23\/","title":{"rendered":"ASM Annual 23"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Look out, Atlantis Attacks! This was a 14-part crossover threading through various 1989 annuals, including all 3 Spidey titles. Unlike The Evolutionary War the previous year, these annuals were more tightly connected, telling a more complete narrative. Which makes the fact that I only had 3 of them as a kid more than a little confusing. I had parts 4, 11 and 14 of the event. And 14 is a Fantastic Four Annual, so it\u2019s not even part of our mandate here.
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Lurking behind that John Byrne cover is the blog debut of Rob Liefeld. Liefeld is an inveterate huckster who somehow found himself in the right place at the right time to be one of the few people to ever become a millionaire by drawing comics, despite the fact that he sucks at it. In his earliest days, he was just doing a crude and embarrassing Art Adams impression, but somehow, his art only gets worse as it becomes more his own. But, he was coming up alongside Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee and the like, and their unusual art in an era where house styles were still common pegged them all as The Next Big Thing, and so they were. In Rob\u2019s case, he became The Next Big Thing while repeatedly swiping other people\u2019s art, having a shocking disinterest in panel-to-panel continuity, drawing people with 2 left hands more often than you\u2019d think, denying the contributions of his co-creators, screwing his employees, and by \u201ccreating\u201d a library of characters that were transparent, 2-bit knockoffs of existing Marvel & DC characters. His most lasting contribution to comics would be Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, a ripoff of DCs\u2019s Slade Wilson, aka Deathstroke. And yet, aside from the visuals, everything people love about Deadpool was invented by others long after Liefeld had left Marvel, so even that has an asterisk by it. And he got rich. Lunatics still love him today. It\u2019s a bona fide tragedy.
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It\u2019s already Part 4 of Atlantis Attacks. I\u2019ve never read the whole thing and still don\u2019t really have a good feel for what happened in this story, but we have this box:
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Wait, Llyra was an Atlantean last time we saw her. Is she really a Lemurian or is that a typo? Maybe we\u2019ll see. This chapter comes with a plot by Gerry Conway, script by David Michelinie, pencils by Liefeld, inks by like 4 people credited last-name-only who I don\u2019t recognize and colors by Gregory Wright. On Magneto\u2019s island (Is Magneto there?) Lord Ghaur is further recapping how he had Captain America villains The Serpent Society find 4 mystic talismans in the X-Men annual, bringing him closer to summoning Set to conquer the Earth.
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You really gotta study those middle panels to understand Llyra\u2019s on some kind of big viewscreen, and even then, good luck explaining her first panel, there. Ugh. What\u2019s Spider-Man doing?
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(I believe that Iron Man Annual was part 1 of the event)
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Wooooooo, that MJ is horrible! Look at that hair! Good grief! The story on TV is about Hulk foe The Abomination being freed from prison, seemingly by Lemurians, but the gang is interrupted watching that as She-Hulk bursts out of JJJ\u2019s office. Not like her cousin, though. She\u2019s here in her capacity as a lawyer, in a suit, carrying a briefcase, furious at JJJ for being a jerk. I believe at this point, Jen was She-Hulk 24\/7, so she did her civilian business as green as her superheroics. She\u2019s mad at JJJ for an article about shipping the homeless to New Jersey, and apparently came for an apology. Why? Who is she representing? And even Jonah doesn\u2019t seem like he\u2019d actually print that, that seems super out of character. None of that flew for me. Anyway, we skip to lunch\u2026
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Look at these random, nonsensical facial expressions! Uuuugggghhh. Peter\u2019s Spidey Sense was triggered by a van containing Llyra and The Abomination. At their destination, Abomination demands to be returned to human form. Llyra says that will happen soon enough, and calls him Tyrannus, which is the name of another Hulk villain, and then Lord Ghaur announces that to get Tyrannus back to normal, \u201canother essence\u201d must take his place as Abomination. And, as it happens, they have the real Abomination, Emil Blonsky, currently looking like a regular dude, in a tube, ready to go. They begin some kinda transfer process, but they use so much energy they cause a power surge.
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Look at Jen\u2019s hair! What is he doing!? I know it\u2019s the big hair 80s, but come on. Why do Spider-Man’s feet look like… that?? Back at the never-named location, Tyrannus is normal and Blonsky is The Abomination once more, but the transfer has made him a mindless beast. The Lemurians take Tyrannus off to participate in the rest of the crossover as Abomination smashes through a wall and out onto the street, where he\u2019s met by our heroes.
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Spidey looks like his feet are on backwards. Jen is adopting a classic Liefeld pose. We\u2019re off to the races. As Shulky and Spidey rush to save some civilians too dumb to flee, Ghaur spots She-Hulk during his escape.
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I am always hesitant to try to guess what\u2019s going on behind the scenes, but all the tossed off dialogue feels like Michelinie just saying \u201cwhatever\u201d when he gets these terrible pages to script. Anyway, the wall collapses on the heroes. We cut to Aunt may for no reason as she\u2019s watching it on TV and hopes Peter isn\u2019t there. Then Flash Thompson just happens to run up to the scene for some reason?
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As Shulky bounds away, we see Ghaur is actively chasing her now, having decided she would make an excellent Bride of Set. That\u2019s a thing later. We cut to Kingpin \u201cwondering what effect this conflict might have on his city\u201d for no reason, we see Kate Cushing watching and wondering the same thing, we cut to MJ wondering if Spider-Man is ok, why all the cut aways? Then back to The Abomination, currently pummeling some cops when She-Hulk catches up to him. Meanwhile, Flash shakes Spidey back to consciousness.
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\u201cDon\u2019t look now, but don\u2019t look now\u201d is a pretty solid gag. Don\u2019t ask me how Ghaur just burned something into She-Hulk\u2019s indestructible skin. She wakes up none the wiser to see Spidey still fighting big boy, there\u2019s more totally lifeless \u201caction,\u201d then She-Hulk rolls up with a whole oil tanker.
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Gross comment, Jen! Spidey is clearly celebrating their victory in that one panel, all dialogue to the contrary. Spidey & She-Hulk part ways, Spidey thinking this probably isn\u2019t over, and 2 days later, Tyrannus shows up at a federal prison housing former HYDRA leader Viper under the guise of a \u201cDr. Tyrone\u201d What could he want with Viper? I don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t have the next part. But it turns out, TAC Annual 9 is part 6, so we\u2019ll pick it back up rather quickly.
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This is an annual, though, so there\u2019s plenty more stuff. First, Gerry Conway, Mark Bagley, Mike Esposito & Andy Yanchus retell Spider-Man\u2019s origin almost panel-for-panel, except with a new narrative device of Peter discussing the events as part of a science project entitled \u201cThe Effects on a Test Subject of Isotopic Radiation Transmitted by an Arachnid.\u201d Then, Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz & Chris Ivy do a primer on how the Spider Sense works, and I hope Gerry Conway read it.
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Next, Gerry Conway, Richard Rockwell, Andy Musynsky & Don Hudson and John Wilcox do a goofy bit where Nick Katzenberg applies to rent a room at Aunt May\u2019s boarding house. It\u2019s all so he can try to dig up dirt on Peter, who has just gotten home as Spidey as this is unfolding. But the more Nick talks, the more Aunt May gets a measure of who she\u2019s dealing with.
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Very sweet. Then Fred Hembeck ranks Spidey\u2019s to 30 villains, and it seems pretty arbitrary.]
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Kraven at #4? Jonah at #10? Ok. then Hembeck does 3 pages summarizing Spidey\u2019s history with JJJ. Finally, there\u2019s the 4th part of \u201cThe Saga of the Serpent Crown,\u201d a 14-part back-up story running through all the annuals. Not really our thing here, so come back next time for Atlantis Attacks Part 6.
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Look out, Atlantis Attacks! This was a 14-part crossover threading through various 1989 annuals, including all 3 Spidey titles. Unlike The Evolutionary War the previous year, these annuals were more tightly connected,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[674,9,586,225,677,35,259,430,12,73,275,13,679,403,122,245,676,21,454,678,673,321,665,2,124,675],"class_list":["post-5904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-abomination","tag-amazing-spider-man","tag-andy-mushynsky","tag-annual","tag-atlantis-attacks","tag-aunt-may","tag-david-michelinie","tag-don-hudson","tag-flash-thompson","tag-gerry-conway","tag-gregory-wright","tag-j-jonah-jameson","tag-john-wilcox","tag-joy-mercado","tag-lance-bannon","tag-llyra","tag-lord-ghaur","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-nick-katzenberg","tag-richard-rockwell","tag-rob-liefeld","tag-ron-frenz","tag-she-hulk","tag-spider-man","tag-tom-defalco","tag-tyrannus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5904","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=5904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5921,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5904\/revisions\/5921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}