There's Sometimes a Buggy

This week, we get a mildly memorable Molten Man fizzle at the conclusion of #133 before the Conway/Andru team moves into a mode of sustained magnificence that will endure from #134 all the way to #149. En route, we learn a lot more about Liz Allen; Peter acknowledges that he should probably switch to thought bubbles whilst skulking around crooked office buildings after midnight; marvel at the hubris it takes to enter the international terror game armed only with a bola; digress a great deal on the subject of Giant-Size seventies comics and Marvel Value Stamps; and applaud Conway for correctly depicting your basic American police officer as a trigger happy storm trooper.

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

This time on the podcast, Canada’s Atomic Production stats take a serious hit during an improbably incendiary wedding ceremony for Doc Ock, Hammerhead, and their respective minions (with Aunt May a charming Runaway Bride). We also spend a little more quality Christmas time with Mary Jane and Betty Brant, before Jazzy Johnny Romita jumps in for a joltin’ jaunt back to yesteryear with Liz Allan and The Molten Man, neither of whom had been seen since Steve Ditko left the book.

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

Elise and Dave find the Conway/Andru combo hitting on all of their ever-lovin’ cylinders in this pair of bronze age blockbusters! First, we meet two antagonists for the ages: The Nihilistic Knight (Frank Castle) and the gangrenous furry men call… The Jackal! Then: it’s the return of the repressed Aunt May/Doc Ock romantic subplot that no human being could possibly have wanted to see – and it’s a tour de force.

Menaced by Mendelssohn!  

So many magnificent moments. So much food for thought. The fate of the Spider-Mobile! A George Baileyesque panel sequence. The Punisher’s Pizzagate Shooter logic. Conway’s rebranding of our hero as an explicit existentialist. Harry Osborne's lonely, Ditkoesque Exit: Stage Obsessed. Some uncommonly intimate moments at the Parker pad with MJ – and her mistletoe musing at Betty’s X-Mas bash. The Jackal’s Machiavellian maneuvering, with Hammerhead as his unwitting tool. And – through it all – Ross Andru and Frank Giacoia’s extraordinary nocturnal cityscapes.  

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

It’s the return of the venerable Vulture! Or is it? The answer lies at the end of two of the least consequential comics in the Conway canon!

With the impassioned reactions to issues #121 and #122 ebbing out of the lettercols and the magnificent madness of the Jackal era just ahead, this disposable duology felt like something of an oxygen-depleted breather. Mary Jane Watson’s involvement in these proceedings is particularly baffling – and, frankly, best excised from your memory.

Still, Elise and Dave found a fair bit to interest them in the issues, including: Peter and Harry’s roommate cold war collapsing into maniacal antagonism; more fun with the Spidermobile; Peter's brazen disregard of secret-identity security; the author's sly Vietnam and Watergate allusions; our hero's Ditkoesque judgmental streak; the return of Stan Lee’s long-lost Soapbox; and a host of seedy novelty items on offer in the pages between the panels (Raquel Welch pillow anyone?)

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

The subplots are strong in these ones – but the “A” stories are on the disposable side (literally, in one case). First up, the Jameson family - torn asunder by the heartbreak of space Lycanthropy! Then: Marvel chickens out on actually affixing their teaser title (“Where Stalks the Kangaroo!”) to issue #126, but they deliver a powerful lesson in being careful what you wish for to the letterhack who begged for the return of the marsupial malefactor! Also: new penciler Ross Andru arrives - just in time to capture Peter’s growing existential dread.

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

This week on the podcast, Luke Cage and the Man-Wolf show up to distract Peter from his Gwen-grief for a while; but, far more importantly, for the long run, Mary Jane wants a word.

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

This week on the podcast, we cover Amazing Spider-Man 121 and 122. A death no one ever wanted and the page every comics reader needed.  ‘Nuff said!

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

This time on the podcast, an enigmatic telegram lures Peter Parker north to Montreal, where he hopes to decipher the secret of Doc Ock’s sudden fixation on Aunt May. Instead, our hero gets caught between Bruce Banner’s bad-tempered alter-ego and the military-industrial neurotic known as “Thunderbolt” Ross. Among the casualties are a property lawyer named Rimbaud and Expo 67’s far-famed geodesic dome (3 years before a real fire wrecked it in our dimension). Also: Peter checks in with Gwendolyn and learns that poor old Harry’s been “backflashing” again + artist Gil Kane makes a triumphant return to the mag.

Meanwhile in the paratext:

Mixed-up Marvel gets so bent out of shape by its early-‘70s expansion that both months fly by completely bulletin-less! Fortunately, there’s a majestic MJ-centric missive from Lindy Marie Cauley in the lettercol to make up for it.   

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

This time on the podcast, get set for more electrifying electoral action, as Spidey bears witness to the fearful fate of The Disruptor and his demagogic double Richard Raleigh. Also: JJJ shows his ass (nearly getting Joe Robertson killed in the process); MJ delivers her flakiest fake-out yet; and we all discover what it takes to truly be… a Smasher! And, in the paratextual material: intimations of FOOM, the origin of “inventory stories”, and Jim Steranko’s History of Comics gets a plug from Magnanimous Marvel.

Get out and vote, you cringing milksops!

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"

In the way-out wind-up to Romita/Conway’s Gang War trilogy, both contestants appear to take their eyes off the ostensible prize. Doc Ock channels all of his considerable nerd charisma into extending Aunt May’s contract as his housekeeper, and Hammerhead catches a chartered flight for parts unknown. Then: just in time for Election Year 1972, Mixed-up Marvel musters a modified mayoral melodrama out of mothballs for those who missed it the first time around (in the black-and-white pages of the 1968 Spectacular Spider-Man #1)

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Debbie Harry - "Comic Books"