{"id":9994,"date":"2021-08-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/?p=9994"},"modified":"2020-07-28T14:56:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-28T18:56:37","slug":"smtu-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/2021\/08\/03\/smtu-5\/","title":{"rendered":"SMTU 5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This obscure issue has 2 stories, and one is actually rather infamous in certain circles, because a big stunt is pulled in it. And not the usual kind of comics stunt. A genuinely pretty wild one. I\u2019ve read about it, but not actually read it, so this should be fun. First up: Spidey\/Gambit both written and drawn by Darick Robertson, with inks by Jerome K. Moore and colors by Tom Smith. I didn\u2019t realize how much work Robertson did for the Spider-Office back then since I seem to have skipped most of the books he worked on, but he\u2019s so welcome in this sea of terrible art. At the start, we find our hero in the N\u2019awlin\u2019s Cajun Club ordering a club soda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Haw haw haw, dat\u2019s a spicy crawdad &etc. Gambit, man. So embarrassing. Can’t blame Robertson, this is how Gambit is supposed to be written. Ben Reilly with TWO possible new romances in as many posts! And if you think her last name is not a coincidence, you\u2019ll be thrilled to know it\u2019s not. Remy\u2019s buddy has some sketchy visitors that set off Ben\u2019s Spider Sense just as Meredith is talking about moving to New york after her sister died (Even though the very story in which she died detailed her childhood and mentioned no sister, womp womp).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ben was taken in by a \u201cMs. Nellie,\u201d who fed him in exchange for him cleaning up around her shop. He ended up staying a few days, becoming friends and working in the shop, until Creaux, a corrupt cop, showed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wrong thing to do with a Spider-Man in the room. Ben launched himself at Creaux, and in the struggle, Creaux lost an eye. Then he threw \u201cvoodoo powder\u201d in Ben\u2019s face (ugh), paralysing, him, but Ms. Nellie came to his aid until some kind of internal affairs gang showed up to arrest Creaux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Oh, stories about New Orleans by people not from New Orleans, you never change. Once he was able, Ben bolted and never came back. As we return to the present, he thinks he called the store once from the road and no one answered as he watches Creaux and the guy who\u2019s obviously Tombstone being led into the back room. When Meredith tells Gambit Ben followed those guys, he goes after them, too, leaving her pretty annoyed that all these dudes keep abandoning her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tombstone sure got outta jail fast. Having never dealt with Tombstone, Remy thinks he\u2019s out once he\u2019s on the floor, so Tomby is able to get him in a bearhug for Creaux to shoot him, but of course, there\u2019s a Spider-Man in the rafters. But while he saves Gambit, Spidey is quickly grabbed by the throat and thrown into a pit of alligators this club apparently has in the middle by Tombstone? Really? Surely that\u2019s not legal. As spidey escapes the crocks, Gambit catches the fleeing Creaux, and the two go spilling over a balcony, with his bag of \u201cvoodoo powder\u201d set to fall on the crowd below. But Spidey is able to web it shut at the last second even as Tombstone is tackling him. He\u2019s a professional. Spidey and Gambit then hit Tombstone at the same time, freeing Meredith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Simple and clean. That was a pretty fun one, all told. And honestly, the whole \u201ca Spider-Man roaming the world\u201d angle of Ben\u2019s lost years really does have some appeal to it. Putting someone with Spider-Man\u2019s powers and personality in all these new places on shaky terms with the law could\u2019ve been fun. More fun than him in the present, frankly. But as Howard impatiently said, we have another story to get to, the infamous one. It\u2019s brought to us by Howard\u2019s creator, Steve Gerber writing, with James Fry drawing, Chris Ivy inking, Tom Smith coloring and Digital Chameleon doing color separation. Gerber was one of the wild and wacky writers of Marvel\u2019s 70s strangeness, creating Howard and Man-Thing and all sorts of crazy stuff, but by \u201896, he\u2019s had a very tumultuous professional and legal history with the company, and this is his first time agreeing to work on Howard in a long time. As the story begins, both Peter Parker and Spider-Man find themselves on the scene of what eyewitnesses describe as a fight involving The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, because why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the two Peters compare notes, we see one witness up in his bedroom window is The Ringmaster of The Circus of Crime, now retired. He worries the cops will come up and harass him even as someone knocks on his door. But instead of a cop, a little elf in a purple outfit says he\u2019s off to joint he circus before shooting The Ringmaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As Ringmaster is carted off to a hospital, the two Peters once again compare notes, assuming the elf must\u2019ve made off with Ringmaster\u2019s hypnotic control disc, and wondering where The Circus of Crime is these days. Meanwhile, in Cleveland\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Howard the Duck is always a weird time. Rather ironically at this point, he got Marvel into some legal trouble with Disney back in the 70s for obvious reasons. And believe it or not, the mandate of this blog means we\u2019ll be looking at the first issue of his 70s series one day. But for now, he and his companion Beverely are attacked by this crazy anti-meat lady until Bev drags Howard out the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is no villain in the Spider-Man canon more suited to a Howard story than The Circus of Crime. At their campsite, the elf arrives, but he apparently didn\u2019t steal the disc because he didn\u2019t know what it was, grabbing a little toy sitar that he\u2019s stuck to his hat instead. When the circus folk ridicule him for it, he shoots them all except Princess Python. And then\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gettin\u2019 weirder by the page! In New York, Peter Parker has figured out where The Circus is, and he and Ben are planning to go investigate. But the Elf is back in New York\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ok, so here\u2019s where things get really crazy really fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That is The Savage Dragon, a giant green cop with a fin on his head working out of Chicago, and the character Erik Larsen created when he moved to Image. He cannot appear in a Marvel comic, but here he is. And Erik Larsen is totally in on this, but Marvel is not. And if you think that\u2019s weird, well, just wait. Elsewhere, Peter is on the last plane to New York as Spider-Man sneaks a ride in one of the wheel compartments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gerber is clearly having a lot of fun here. So, soon Peter, Ben, Howard & Bev are approaching one side of the building the elf is in, while The Savage Dragon is approaching with a much smaller companion. Now, here\u2019s the thing. Right as this was coming out, Gerber also did a crossover for Larsen, pairing The Savage Dragon with his own character, Destroyer Duck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Destroyer Duck was created to raise money while Gerber was suing Marvel in the 70s. Jack Kirby even worked on it, crazy stuff. And having secured this Marvel gig and the Destroyer\/Dragon crossover, Gerber hatched a plan\u2026 to steal Howard from Marvel in broad daylight, in the pages of one of their own comics. So both books tell one story. If that\u2019s not enough, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles scene referenced at the top actually appears in the Destroyer\/Dragon book, because Larsen had the rights to make comics about them at the time. This is all part of the plan! In the other book, The Dragon was on a case that led him after the little sitar and also brought him face-to-face with Destroyer Duck, So, then, all the characters burst into the dark warehouse, and chaos ensues\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All the Marvel characters emerge from the warehouse, Spidey and Peter putting the wraps on the Circus of Crime outside. And then it\u2019s time to go home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So, what just happened? Well, in the other comic, it all went about the same in the big fight in the dark\u2026 EXCEPT when Howard & Destroyer met, there\u2019s a little more to the story\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Destroyer and The Dragon grab Howard & Bev and run out the other way, with Destroyer mentioning some of the clones ran out with Spider-Man. The Destroyer\/Dragon adventure continues, and then eventually\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And there you have it. Leonard The Duck. Free to run around in his own comics as much as Gerber wanted him to, and while Marvel still had Howard, it was sort-of-semi-canon that they had a clone.And how fitting for that to happen in a Spider-Man comic of this vintage. Kind of sadly, tho, after all this, Gerber never did anything with Leonard. And in the 2000s, Marvel even lured him back to write some more Howard for them before his untimely death. But what a wild stunt. Erik Larsen encouraged Gerber and admitted to the whole thing in an editorial page in his book. Meanwhile, here\u2019s Glenn Greenberg getting rooked in his:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pretty funny stuff. Note that this issue, SMU 14 and Redemption 4 are all cover dated December 96 as we move into the next bit. That\u2019s gonna get weird.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This obscure issue has 2 stories, and one is actually rather infamous in certain circles, because a big stunt is pulled in it. And not the usual kind of comics stunt. A…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[455,714,961,712,958,959,421,954,412,955,956,960,957,2,703,548,962,706,280],"class_list":["post-9994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1990s","tag-ben-reilly","tag-chris-ivy","tag-circus-of-crime","tag-darick-robertson","tag-destroyer-duck","tag-digital-chameleon","tag-gambit","tag-howard-the-duck","tag-james-fry","tag-jerome-k-moore","tag-meredith-dewolff","tag-ringmaster","tag-savage-dragon","tag-spider-man","tag-spider-man-team-up","tag-steve-gerber","tag-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles","tag-tom-smith","tag-tombstone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9994","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=9994"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10332,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9994\/revisions\/10332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicsfromspace.com\/spiderman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}