Web of Spiderman: Issues 2-5

You might have missed it, but I started a read along with Bookstooge on the Web of Spiderman run. This series consists out of a total of around 140 issues so I will not be using each issue’s cover for these mini reviews. I personally feel that the first issue’s cover is quite the looker in any case.

Issue 2:

This one still follows Spidey and has the Vulture in it. In the previous issue some one stole Vulture’s tech out of prison and made their own suits calling themselves the Vulturions, very original for idiots. I could not take them too seriously with names such as Sugar Face, Honcho and Gripes. They did have pretty nefarious plans involving subjecting Spiderman to poison. Meanwhile Peter Parker is still trying to make right with the fact that he and Aunt May had a falling out over Peter dropping out of college, this ties into a different Spiderman series if I am not mistaken and looks like it might be resolved in this series. The three vulturions attack Spidey with peashooters and poison darts and spidey has no way but to fight them. Kingpin gets wind of the situation and formally/informally sits back to see how the situation plays out. When Spidey kicks ass in a 3 against 1 aerial battle, but gets knocked unconscious, Kingpin drops in to say thanks for taking care of them and that, for now, they are not enemies.

Issue 3:

The real Vulture reads about the escapades of the Vulturions in the previous issue and is furious. Somehow he manages to escape with a paper mached costume so he can exact revenge on the bozo’s who wronged him. Meanwhile Spiderman thwarts a cutpurse and wants to sell some pictures to Jonah, but its revealed that there is a new editor in chief that seemingly calls the shots now. At this point Parker’s life is quite the meme him never having money and always tight on cash so he needs to up his game. MJ also comes along and tells Pete to man up and sort things out with May, I think May has sort of forgiven Pete already, but Pete is too afraid of conflict, ironic him being a super hero and all. He is out shopping for a hat again, I am no expert but I think May might have a hat fetish, or Peter forgot that he already got her one in the previous issue. In the mean time Vulture sorts out the Vulturions and they just happen to be fighting where MJ and Pete are shopping for hats. Peter has to suit up and get things sorted out, but it seems seems to meet his match and passes out again. MJ gets to his appartment later when Parker just gets in, they are late for the party so Peter just swings by spidey style to drop it on May’s doorstep. Family plot solved?

Issue 4:

This starts out with Spidey taking on a gang of thugs that had a jewel heist. He does this in the dark and the one liners came in as hard as his take downs. I wonder if this was the start of wise cracking Marvel goes for in all their movies these days. If so, then I say all the movies are lore accurate now. Parker manages to also take pictures with a camera that he first instals before taking on the goons. These pictures are not good enough for the new editor in Chief Robbie. Parker runs into J.J who seems to have bigger plans and talks of paying handsome rewards if Parker can get pictures of Spidey being a menace. This one sided mind of J.J just never gets old. We then see Doc Oc in therapy apparently making good progress, the guy really seems to struggle with distorted personality disorder, but according to the shrink he is doing real well. It is only when Oc is back in his room/cell we see how wrong his shrink is. Oc sees a spider in his room and gets flashbacks to events from a different series run, Secret Wars if I am not mistaken. Spidey apparently kicked him while he was down and seems like he ws a right bully towards Oc, Oc relapses and we learn that when he freaks out his arm suit seems to be telepathically linked to him. The arms get so agitated that they manage to break out of their holding place. They then tear a hole through the city as they want to get to Oc and break him out. This was quite a forward leap in character development I feel. Spiderman also fights the arms and is soon torn between saving the people in charge of Oc’s incarceration or letting the arms break the unconscious doc out. Spidey picks civilians instead, he is a hero after all. We also learn in this issue that Oc’s lawyer has a cease and desist order barring all and any person in destroying Doc’s arms. That was pretty cool. By the end of the issue Doc awakens to his arms awaiting their command. Oc finally gives into his evil side and we are left with a To be continued…

Issue 5:

Continuing from the previous issue, Oc is still at large and Spidey can’t find him anywhere. Meanwhile at a secret unknown location, Doc has built a life size Spiderman for training against for when he finally faces the real deal. He has managed to track down some of his flunkies that highly doubt that Doc is up for the fight. There was a little part that was jarring for me as Spiderman is starts this issue looking for Doc in his red and blue but then a few panels later he drops in at his apartment in the black suit. After a call from Nathan, aunt May’s new partner, Peter learns that even though May has a person she can share her bills with, she still cannot get away from those pesky things. Pete decides to help her but he is also pretty broke. He actually considers taking up J.J’s proposition of taking bad photo’s of Spidey for extra dough… When he is out drawing the last 23 dollars from his account there is a bank bust, funny how Pete always knows where the robbers are gonna be so he can get to scene quick. Peter’s cash disappears quicker than me buying Black Library novels online and he is forced to fight rather than save the money for aunt May’s troubles. Oh well, ass kicking it is. Doc is there and goes of on a rant when he finds out Spiderman took out his team and decides to visit the Daily Bugle as they somehow always manage to know where Spidey is and manage to take pictures of him when there is action. Oc abducts the wrong editor in chief, who also happens to have replaced Robbie and a woman at that. Pretty impressive for the time this was written I think. Meanwhile, Spidey thought it would be a clever idea to put a tracker on one of the henchmen’s asses so he manages to find the Doc and save the day. He is torn between keeping a replica of himself, but quickly decides against it. Peter did set up a camera before heading in to kick Doc’s ass, but the new editor in chief also is not impressed. Peter walks out with grey skies and saying something around the lines of “i just want a happy ending from time to time.

Final thoughts:

I’ve mentioned this in a previous Spiderman review, the fact that these were written so long ago just shows how far ahead of it’s time Marvel was. In some cases they had a way of packing quite a punch in the character development department. In the case of Doctor Octupus it was very evident. Even with Peter and a lot of characters, they all have a back story that character arc that makes me excited to see if some of them get resolved. My one pet peeve I have to be honest about is that that there was always the money problem involved, I do get that that is even is a real thing in today’s terms, bt man, Peter needs to catch a break soon. I was happy to see that May moved on and that she has a new “partner” but so far Nathan has not done much apart from try to ice May’s bday cake and to bring that money problem up everytime. I do, however, respect the effort and the amout of emotions each person connected to Parker and Spiderman go through in the span of these 23 page issues, that take/took massive talent. Hats of to all!

Next month Stooge and I are taking on Issues 6 – 9 (possibly 10?). Stay tuned!

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