{"id":9720,"date":"2021-07-14T00:00:27","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T04:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=9720"},"modified":"2020-06-23T13:34:01","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T17:34:01","slug":"tac-super-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/07\/14\/tac-super-special\/","title":{"rendered":"TAC Super Special"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The main feature is drawn by Darick Robertson! Oh, this is a relief. Maybe I can actually enjoy this chapter of Planet of the Symbiotes, even though I bet our heroes won\u2019t. Some excellent symbiote-ized people on that cover. It gets better the longer you look at it. Arne Starr inks and the rest of the team remains from previous chapters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The newsguy gets Venom\u2019d on live TV, and the symbiote pulls off his hairpiece! That\u2019s cold, symbiote. I am gonna be so tired of typing that word by the end of this. Why The Torch and Blackbolt together? Cap got Venom\u2019d in his absurd armor (He\u2019s dying because The Super Soldier Serum is killing him and he can\u2019t move without that armor, because 90s). We check in with MJ, who\u2019s boarded herself into the apartment and is prowling it with a knife thinking she won\u2019t become a victim, then we go see our star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ben & Venom are waiting on the other end of the tunnel to collapse it with the aliens inside (Wouldn\u2019t they just double back?). As our heroes seem to consider going to the mall for weapons like they\u2019re in a zombie movie, we cut to the facility Cletus Kasady is being held in as the aliens get to one of his guards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The mustache is amazing. Robertson is clearly having a good time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That seems bad. It\u2019s weird that they\u2019ve already made the rules for Carnage so different from Venom and the others. It\u2019s nowhere near as insane as he\u2019s gotten by the present day, but it\u2019s pretty different. Meanwhile, the heroes have really gone to the mall, and split up to look for \u201cfire or sonic devices.\u201d What, like a boom box? This a mall, not Reed Richards\u2019 lab. As they search, Eddie is upset that this is all sort of his fault, but also thinks now Venom is one of the only things that can stop it. Peter finds a cell phone display and tries to call MJ, but the batteries are all dead. And Ben? What\u2019s he doing as they look for weapons to fight an alien invasion?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Great stuff, Ben, great stuff. As Spidey & Venom regroup having found nothing, Ben comes running chased by a wave of symbiotes without hosts. Spider-Man turns the ice rink\u2019s music on full blast and then holds a microphone up to the speakers to create feedback that stops the aliens long enough for the good guys to escape. Elsewhere, Carnage finds the symbiote he absorbed still has a separate consciousness, and tortures it by holding it against fire to make it tell him what\u2019s going on. It hurts him, too, but he\u2019s crazy, see, so it doesn\u2019t matter. We cut to hours later, as the trio of good guys assaults the stargate with firebombs. They set Venom to trying to reverse the gate while the Spiders fight monsters. But\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A giant Carnage. I guess. Why not? Things look pretty grim! How can our heroes save the day? We\u2019ll see. I turn the page to a shock. Darick Robertson holds on for feature #2, but now he\u2019s inked by the legend, George Perez, and he\u2019s drawing for Stan Lee. Stan just keeps popping up! And it\u2019s a story about Pete & MJ visiting Aunt May\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That\u2019s pretty wacky. Peter begins flashing back to how his parents disappeared and May & Ben took him in. How he was small and got picked on, but they always tried to make him feel better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Perez is really elevating Robertson. Perez is making his art look as good as it will a few years from now under longtime inker Rodney Ramos, and that couple\u2019s with Robertson\u2019s naturally flare for facial expressions really gives this bit some power. Peter thinks aloud about how he had to keep being Spider-Man to atone for his role in Ben\u2019s death, and he\u2019s always just tried to do the best he can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pretty corny. But man, imagine being a relatively new guy on the block, drawing for Stan and being inked by George. Crazy. What\u2019s the cover to part 4 of the Scarlet Spider story? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alright. This issue\u2019s art team is Claude St. Aubin penciling, Ralph Cabrera & Matt Robertson inking and Chia Chi Wang coloring. That guy Armstrong is trying to wrestle The Lizard at that fancy party Ben abandoned his girl at like a jerk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That last panel is really hard to understand. The Lizard focuses on Martha Connors, and Armstrong takes another pass at it, but winds up pinned beneath it and about to be killed when Ben finally decides to stop being a baby and come back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And lo, there is much fighting. Armstrong gets an unconscious Gabrielle to safety as Ben fights the thing, then Armstrong calls it \u201cThe Lizard,\u201d which somehow shocks Ben, who I guess thought this was just some OTHER lizard monster. It grabs another lady, but Armstrong gets its attention, and since the process that turned Curt Connors into The Lizard was somehow a part of how he got powers, it\u2019s really into him, and drops the woman to try to eat him. The cops show, and the light and noise drives away The Lizard. Not before Scarlet gets a tracer on him, tho, and then he changes back to Ben.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lookin\u2019 scaly, there, buddy. A cop shows up wanting a statement from the doctor, who tells him he was Curt Connors\u2019 lab partner back in the day, and continued their research after Curt went all Lizard-y. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ben & the doc are informed Gabrielle & Armstrong checked out together earlier, and the cop & the doc go to see Martha Connors, so The Scarlet Spider swigs around feeling sorry for himself about Gabrielle seemingly into the Armstrong guy. He goes to The Connors\u2019 place to check on them, but decides against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ol\u2019 sadsack Reilly, at it again. Come back next time for the end of both these stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The main feature is drawn by Darick Robertson! Oh, this is a relief. Maybe I can actually enjoy this chapter of Planet of the Symbiotes, even though I bet our heroes won\u2019t….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[934,455,458,413,937,712,259,592,704,21,938,928,2,6,423,43,409],"class_list":["post-9720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-arne-starr","tag-ben-reilly","tag-carnage","tag-chia-chi-wang","tag-claude-st-aubin","tag-darick-robertson","tag-david-michelinie","tag-gabrielle-greer","tag-george-perez","tag-mary-jane-watson","tag-matt-robertson","tag-ralph-cabrera","tag-spider-man","tag-stan-lee","tag-terry-kavanagh","tag-the-lizard","tag-venom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9720","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=9720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9744,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9720\/revisions\/9744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}