{"id":9679,"date":"2021-07-12T00:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T04:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=9679"},"modified":"2020-06-17T20:58:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T00:58:00","slug":"sm-super-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/07\/12\/sm-super-special\/","title":{"rendered":"SM Super Special"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If the art in the last post gave lie to the claim that these books would be illustrated by \u201ctop talent,\u201d it is utterly obliterated in this one. This book looks horrendous. I\u2019m not sure if penciler Joe St. Pierre is being destroyed by inker Greg Adams or if Adams is being as faithful as possible to St. Pierre\u2019s horrendous line work, but whatever\u2019s going on here, it sucks, flat out. Michelinie still writes, Tom Smith still colors as a guy stumbles into a science expo begging for help. A security guard who says they were warned to watch for terrorists shoots him, but then symbiote goo comes out of him and chokes the guard as the guy keeps asking for help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No matter who\u2019s to blame for this art, the inking is way too slight. Why don\u2019t any lines connect at all? There\u2019s no changes in line weight. This might as well have been inked with a ballpoint pen. Peter says there\u2019s been several break-ins at high tech places lately, and the evidence points at Venom. But after last issue, he thinks he actually has a shot at talking Eddie Brock into giving up the symbiote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Meanwhile, at Ravencroft, Cletus Kasaday has a doctor spooked, because he keeps moving when no one else is around. No one believes him, but he knows Carnage is gonna wake up soon. I mean, probably so. Elsewhere, Spider-Man is looking into the scene of the crime on the opening pages of this issue when Scarlet Spider just shows up. He says he thought he\u2019d look into this crime. They just both happen to be on this case. Awesome. Then, Eddie Brock also breaks in. He says after he sent the symbiote away last issue, he\u2019s worried it\u2019s bonded with someone else. Also, last issue, he had the most insane, long, flowing mullet I\u2019ve ever seen, and now he does not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Good grief, Michelinie seems to have checked out on this one, too. Maybe the art made him give up. I was 16 when this came out, and this is only slightly better than what I was doing at the time. And I sure don\u2019t mean I was ready for my Marvel contract when I say that\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The symbiote makes chumps of both Spider-Men until Eddie hits it with the McGuffin gun. Then it panics and tears down the roof to escape. It gets the modulator, too, of course. Ben has another \u201chunch\u201d about where it\u2019s going, and Spidey begins to suspect he\u2019s developing psychic powers. Really. Meanwhile, Mary Jane tries on maternity dresses. The store clerk says she & her man don\u2019t want to have kids \u2018cuz he\u2019s a cop and it wouldn\u2019t be fair to the kid to have to worry about him coming home safe every night. Ouch!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The symbiotes who materialized on Earth last issue have hooked the thingy to a much larger thingy to use as a power source. But then our heroes are attacked by many more symbiotes. There is much fighting and yelling and very little of interest going on and it all looks awful, and then\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that explains some of it, I guess. My goodness, I hope there\u2019s better art coming. Look at this \u201cspecial bonus pin-up:\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like most of these McFarlane wannabes, \u201cPedi\u201d here has figure out how to ape McFarlane\u2019s texturing style pretty well, but has pretty terrible fundamentals. And all the stuff prior to this in this issue was even worse. YEEESH. The next story is written & drawn by Darick Robertson, inked by Jimmy Palmiotti & colored by Joe Andreani. It\u2019s so exciting to see professional art, at this point. A young couple is having an argument with the guy says he wants a divorce. But then they\u2019re jumped by goons, and in spite of the girl displaying some fighting skills, it goes badly. The guy is at knife point and the girl is about to be, and then Spider-Man shows up. He dispatches most of them before noticing the guy at knifepoint, and then talks his captor out of killing him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A few years from this, Darick Robertson will embark on the 65-issue opus Transmetropolitan with Warren Ellis before co-creating The Boys, like that Amazon show. He\u2019s still getting his feet under him here (And in future work we\u2019ll see on this blog), but compared to the clownshoes main feature, he\u2019s Jack Kirby. What about our flipbook feature?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Terry Kavanagh still writes, Tod Smith does breakdowns and ever-reliable Sal Buscema provides finishes, with colors by Chia Chi Wang. This is really weird, because while there\u2019s no mistaking the hand of Sal here, with someone else doing breakdowns, it\u2019s Sal without any of his stock poses and trademark storytelling moves. Very unusual. \u201cSomething\u201d that is obviously the Lizard is barrelling toward NY because of whatever the doctor from last issue is doing to save that guard, Armstrong. Also those 2 muscle head guys are gloating about having killed Scarlet Spider. They are soon disappointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s so Sal, and so not. While SS deals with that guy, his brother makes off with Broga and escapes. And if that\u2019s not enough, a nurse tells him there\u2019s a hostage situation in one of the operating theaters, as one of the generic goons, Clash, forces doctors to save her teammate and romantic partner Cordite. Great names. Thing is, they\u2019re not even surgeons, she just got the first doctors she saw. As her teammates watch and Scarlet Spider sneaks in through the air vents, they aren\u2019t saving ol\u2019 dude, and Clash is about to shoot one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Well, that\u2019s baffling. It looks like a coloring mistake, but how\u2019s that first panel ok if the rest aren\u2019t? Ben saves the doctors as the other doctor fails to save Armstrong. As our guy fights the rest of the lames, the other doctor refuses to give up, trying CPR on his patient. Ben takes out most of the lames, but then Cordite wakes up and hold a gun to Broga\u2019s head? Man, whatever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is like The Arachnis Project all over again. Just wall-to-wall generic paramilitary 90s cliches we don\u2019t care about and will never see again. The distraction lets Ben get Broga and a doctor to safety, and soon the bad guys have lost, so they produce \u201cmini-bombs\u201d powerful enough to destroy half the hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He\u2019s fine. Assembled press ask his name, and he says Armstrong, and they mishear and call him Strongarm. Good grief. Meanwhile, somewhere in Delaware\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is the first appearance of that bizarre new version of The Lizard that we already saw retconned away. They said this change to The Lizard was forced by editorial and no one wanted to do it. Can\u2019t imagine why! More of this crap next post…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the art in the last post gave lie to the claim that these books would be illustrated by \u201ctop talent,\u201d it is utterly obliterated in this one. This book looks horrendous….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[455,458,413,712,259,592,930,485,453,918,21,37,2,423,43,913,706,409],"class_list":["post-9679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ben-reilly","tag-carnage","tag-chia-chi-wang","tag-darick-robertson","tag-david-michelinie","tag-gabrielle-greer","tag-greg-adams","tag-jimmy-palmiotti","tag-joe-andreani","tag-joe-st-pierre","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-sal-buscema","tag-spider-man","tag-terry-kavanagh","tag-the-lizard","tag-tod-smith","tag-tom-smith","tag-venom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9679","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=9679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9697,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9679\/revisions\/9697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}