{"id":66,"date":"2020-10-15T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T04:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deweybass.com\/spiderman\/?p=66"},"modified":"2019-10-31T00:06:02","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T04:06:02","slug":"gssm-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2020\/10\/15\/gssm-1\/","title":{"rendered":"GSSM 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hot on the heels of Giant-Size Super-Heroes featuring Spider-Man comes Giant-Size Spider-Man, an even larger comic with the same star just a month later! And y\u2019all, it smells TERRIBLE. Holy crap. This is an eBay purchase, and the first time it\u2019s been out of the bag. WHEW. This review might be short for my sake. Dracula! Morbius and a werewolf, then Dracula. It\u2019s crazy that Marvel\u2019s biggest stars in the 70s were Conan and Dracula. Len Wein joins Ross Andru and Don Heck on inks for this one. Oh, man, it smells worse on the inside. This thing has been wet, I think. Oh God. This product is not as advertised. I\u2019ma have to wash my hands after this. I am suffering for YOU, dear reader. And me. Mostly me. But also you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our story begins as they often do, with Spider-Man happening upon a jewelry store robbery. Why do people even open jewelry stores in Marvel Manhattan? Spidey charges in, as Andru does a surprisingly modern widescreen page\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026and a shadowy figure attacks. Spidey finds his webbing doesn\u2019t stick to the silent attacker, and then slips on a patch of ice chasing him even though he says it\u2019s 60 degrees out. Having lost the mystery man, Spidey continues on to his destination, and soon Peter Parker is visiting his Aunt May at Anna Watson\u2019s place. I guess this is where he took her after they escaped nuclear destruction? The aftermath of that was strangely glossed over. Aunt May\u2019s really sick, with the flu probably, but doesn\u2019t want Peter to worry. He\u2019s visibly shaken, though, and takes her doctor aside from more info. He says she\u2019s got a new strain of the flu she may not be strong enough to survive, and it\u2019d take a new vaccine to save her. He happens to know it\u2019s being brought to the US by boat with its inventor, one AJ Maxfield, and by the time it gets here, it may be too late. Naturally, Peter isn\u2019t having that, and soon, Spider-Man appears at The Baxter Building, home of the Fantastic Four. He goes to his old pal The Human Torch and begs for a fast vehicle. As it happens, Reed Richards just finished whipping up a new scifi looking airplane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I don’t have MTU 23 because it’s not a Spider-Man comic, so we’ll never know what happened. Ah, well. Spidey gets to the boat in 15 minutes, wondering why the eccentric Maxfield refuses to fly and won\u2019t part with this life saving vaccine, and that\u2019s when Dracula shows up. He just.. Lands on the boat as a bat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What a spoooky encounter! So Spidey wants the vaccine, and Dracula wants its maker dead. This sounds complicated. And then we learn that a bunch of goons are on the boat, about to try to kidnap Maxfield and steal the vaccine! This boat is jumpin! Ex-Maggia don Anthony \u201cThe Whisperer\u201d Cavelli (he whispers) figures he can trade it for being allowed back into the US, which does not sound plausible at all. They\u2019re gonna try to nab him at a costume ball later on the ship. Elsewhere on deck, Dracula is tired, and finds a young lady to feed on, but his plans are thwarted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OoooooOOOOOooOOO. Then some of the goons happen upon Dracula, and decide he\u2019s the scientist they\u2019re after, leading to a fight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He hypnotizes the goons and makes them walk into the sea. That\u2019s cold. Then he happens upon a young woman and gets him some blood. Her scream is heard by Peter Parker, who rushes over to find her unconscious as a bat flies away. This is a very Dracula story all of a sudden. The ship\u2019s Captain is wanting to know where Peter came from, a doctor shows up, and then the guy who took Dracula\u2019s picture runs in, and is identified as Maxfield. The Captain says his name too loud, so the goons come running, and it\u2019s a Spider-Man comic again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Soon, Spider-Man is on the scene, leading the goons to the deck by webbing up the corridors, making them come out in the open, and when they get up there, they find him waiting for them. Sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s a costume party, after all. That\u2019s a good bit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey manages to deal with the goons in spite of their various machine guns, using his agility and the darkness against them. But once they’re all down, he’s no closer to the vaccine and getting desperate. Meanwhile, Dracula is in the costume ball, looking for Maxfield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pseudo-decadence! Cavelli plays sick to get Maxfield to leave the ball with him, and Dracula follows. One of Cavelli’s goons tries to kill Drac,but gets hypnotized for his troubles. Then Dracula catches up with his prey. Cavelli pulls a switchblade on Dracula, Lord of the Vampires, which is pretty funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That’s what you get! Drac tells Maxfield that killing people like him will make it easier for vampires to rule the Earth (Um, wut), and then tosses him overboard\u2026 where he smacks into Spider-Man, prowling the side of the ship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spidey puts the crazed goon down before he can hurt anyone. The doc thanks him for saving his life again, and Spidey brings up the vaccine, only for the doc to say he\u2019s only the ship\u2019s doctor, not AJ Maxfield (Wait, what about the other doctor earlier? What? Whatever). Which leads to\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WHAT?! Spidey didn\u2019t even fight Dracula! What a rip-off! They at least justifies why the girl in the skimpy viking suit has kept showing up, I guess. But still… Spidey never even realized he met Dracula!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An editorial page by Roy Thomas then explains some things about all these new lines of comics, and why Super-Giant Spider-Man didn\u2019t get published. Super what? Apparently, In addition to Giant-Size Marvel Super-Stars featuring the Fantastic Four and Giant-Size Marvel Super-Heroes featuring Spider-Man and Giant-Size Marvel Teams featuring The Defenders and Giant-Size Marvel Chillers featuring Dracula, 35 cent, 48 page comics, there was to be a line of Super-Giant titles that would 100 pages for 60 cents. Super-Giant Spider-Man #1 was solicited with the Dracula story and cover\u2026 and then they decided this was getting really confusing, and combined all that mess into 9 Giant-Size titles featuring particular characters that would be 68 pages for 50 cents, starting with this one. And so, here we are. Thomas also explains it was his idea for Spidey and Dracula to sort-of meet, thinking it expressed the weird balance between the burgeoning Marvel superheroes and Marvel horror lines. How fans have been demanding that \u201cMarvels two biggest superstars\u201d meet (The 70s were crazy). How he thinks all the Marvel titles are connected, but not always closely. Ok, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the book reprints Strange Tales Annual #2, featuring the first meeting of Spidey & The Human Torch (Always weird to see Kirby draw Spider-Man, in this case inked by Ditko to make it less weird). I might actually do a post on this one day. I don\u2019t own the original, naturally, and it\u2019s a Lee\/Kirby\/Ditko story. It\u2019s only Spidey\u2019s 4th-ever comic appearance, it counts. But not today, because I am tired of smelling this comic! Yuck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hot on the heels of Giant-Size Super-Heroes featuring Spider-Man comes Giant-Size Spider-Man, an even larger comic with the same star just a month later! And y\u2019all, it smells TERRIBLE. Holy crap. This…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[752,35,66,751,750,91,74,2],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1970s","tag-aj-maxfield","tag-aunt-may","tag-don-heck","tag-dracula","tag-giant-size-spider-man","tag-len-wein","tag-ross-andru","tag-spider-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","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=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6851,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/6851"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}