{"id":8423,"date":"2021-03-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=8423"},"modified":"2020-04-06T22:57:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T02:57:17","slug":"tac-104","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/03\/15\/tac-104\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC 104"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who\u2019s this lame? When I see this cover, I always think it\u2019s Loki for a second. And Rocket Racer is coming to town, great. It\u2019s a fill-in! This one\u2019s written by Bill Mantlo, another guy who just can\u2019t stay away. Rendered by 2 new names to me, Vince Giarrano & Pat Redding. Colors by good ol\u2019 reliable Bob Sharen. It opens on Rocket Racer robbing an armored car as Spider-Man happens to pass by overhead, what luck. Spidey recaps their previous battles quickly before going after him. I guess RR hasn\u2019t appeared since way back in ASM 183<\/a>, but it seems few villains get left in the past forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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They mix it up for a couple of pages, RR\u2019s money bag splitting open and spilling cash everywhere for no obvious reason in the process. Then the reason Rocket is in such a hurry appears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A guy whose name is just \u201cThe Bounty Hunter?\u201d How generic can it get? Now it\u2019s a battle between \u201cThe Bounty Hunter\u201d and Rocket Racer, with Spidey left in the dust since they both have rocket transportation. Bounty Hunter proves to have a ton of gimmicks, like an \u201canti-mag-net\u201d that doesn\u2019t work on Rocket\u2019s magnetized shoes, heat seeking missiles and various other things. Eventually, RR\u2019s luck runs out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rocket Racer escapes and Bounty Hunter sets off a flare in Spidey\u2019s face, blinding him to effect his own escape. Spidey decides to get some background on Rocket Racer before he goes looking for him, and heads to the morgue at The Daily Bugle, where he says he\u2019s never seen Rocket\u2019s family before in spite of that time he literally gave Aunt May a heart attack because RR\u2019s mom happened to be sharing a hospital room with her and he busted in to confront the villain. Seems a memorable event. Anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spider-Man goes to see Rocket Racer\u2019s family, saying he\u2019s trying to help him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s a junkyard where Rocket Racer scavenges for parts. Spidey is all-in on helping him now, seeing that life has dealt him an unfair hand, but when he finds him, he\u2019s already got The Bounty Hunter\u2019s gun in his face. So Spider-Man puts his foot in that guy\u2019s face, and the fight is back on. Bounty Hunter deploys Spider-Man\u2019s most dangerous enemy, gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Bounty Hunter shoots RR\u2019s rockets out of the air, and then uses some corrosive rounds to melt his boot clamps. This guy has a lot to work with. But when all seems lost\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So that\u2019s the end of Rocket Racer\u2019s criminal career and the first steps toward his infrequent hero career. Considering how often Gerry Conway uses him later in the 80s, this is rather incredibly a pivotal moment. In a truly shocking turn of events, the internet tells me The Bounty Hunter never appeared in another comic. I mean, he\u2019s pretty lame, but that hasn\u2019t stopped so many others from coming back. If The Mindworm could get a second issue, seems like this guy could have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who\u2019s this lame? When I see this cover, I always think it\u2019s Loki for a second. And Rocket Racer is coming to town, great. It\u2019s a fill-in! This one\u2019s written by Bill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[113,107,253,860,130,121,2,861,859],"class_list":["post-8423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1980s","tag-ben-urich","tag-bill-mantlo","tag-bob-sharen","tag-pat-redding","tag-rocket-racer","tag-spectacular-spider-man","tag-spider-man","tag-the-bounty-hunter","tag-vince-giarrano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423","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=8423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8424,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8423\/revisions\/8424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}