Comic Review #49: Amazing Spider-Man #436 (1998)

 

Has it really taken me 49 reviews to finally discuss a Spider Man comic? You could argue that Marvel Team Up was a Spider-Man comic but I consider it a Team Up comic because well 1.) not every issue had Spider-Man in it and EVERY issue was well duh a Team Up. No, I don't truly believe that counts. The Darkhawk issues with Spider-Man in them also don't count because they are a team up. I've definitely talked about Spider-Man on this blog because he's my favorite super hero period, but it's still taken me 49 reviews in this silly little column on my silly little blog, I knew I had to talk about some good Amazing Spider Man stuff.

I picked this era that took place after the second Clone Saga story. You know the one people all know about. That was a sequel to a story from the 1970s. I think most people know that but I felt like I had to mention it. Ben Reilly had given up his life to stop the original Green Goblin who had been brought back to be the mastermind of the Clone Saga. This is when I really started to pick up new issues of Spider-Man. I don't know I guess something about these comics called to me and I used to have a lot of them. Sadly it seems most of them have gotten away from me and man I need to pick them up again. This era only lasted two years from 1997 to around 1999. Marvel was putting out five Spider-Man comics at the time. Spectacular Spider Man, the weirdly bi-annual Spider Man Unlimited (which I always forget about) Sensational Spider Man, Spider-Man and the original series Amazing Spider Man. The Spider-Man comics from this short lived era were amazing. They ended on a pretty poor note which I've still not read in full but what I've heard just makes me go "what?" and I've read more comics than most people should. It takes a lot for me to go "what?" to a comic book. 

There were about 90 comics published between those 4 series between 2 years and every single one of them is at least pretty good. This is probably the best a series like Spider-Man ever got. Yes people those Todd McFarlane issues had great art but the stories fucking sucked shit. Let's finally admit that Todd McFarlane is good at the art but his creative ideas are lame. Spawn fucking sucks. Let's finally just admit this. It'll be good for all of us. I'll go over the creative teams because I plan to discuss each and every one of these stories. This era ended when Marvel thought they weren't making enough money so they went with John Byrne to reboot the stories. This effetely killed my interest in Spider-Man for at least a few years, because while John Byrne may have been amazing in the 1970s and 1980s, he was very hit or miss in the 1990s and Spider-Man was one of those insane misses. I think I picked up a few issues and just gave up. It was the first time I just gave up on comics until I found the store I go to now in 2003. That reinvigorated my love for this stuff. I guess I would have rather have that copy of New Years Evil on VHS from Allan's Video instead of A Spider-Man comic made by John Byrne and Howard Mackie (I really feel this guy got the shaft and had to just write stories Johnny boy didn't want too)

I don't want to come off as a John Byrne basher because I really do love a lot of his work. I just thought those Spider-Man comics were not worth what they were replacing. What they replaced where fantastic fun comic books that everyone should give a read. They were solid tights and fights comics that I still enjoy re-reading. This comic has a few problems but I overall still like it. I'll get to those issues after I recap this issue. 

So This comic was done by Tom DeFalco, a guy who wrote for a bunch of Marvel and DC characters and was ALSO Marvel's editor in chief from around late 1987 to sometime in the early 1990s... I want to say 1993 or 1994. I forgot to mention that and I should have. The artist is Joe Bennett who started work in the 1990s and is still doing work today. I love the work he does for this comic but I love the stuff he's doing for the Immortal Hulk even more. That's a comic I will talk about but only during my Halloween Super Spectacular that I will start in September because there's a ton of stuff I want to talk about and I want to discuss them as soon as possible. Joe is a pretty great artist and I like his work a whole lot.

This comic starts with Spider-Man fighting one of the two new-ish foes that Tom DeFalco had created for his (second) go around on Spider-Man. This guy is the Black Tarantula. He's a South American criminal mastermind behind some kind of criminal gang that's been going on for centuries. Seeing as he mentions how the father gives the son the power of the Black Tarantula. Black Tarantula is a tough cookie and unlike say BloodDeath or KillMan or another throw away 1992-1995 Spider-Man character is that he actually gets a good enough back story to make you go "Yeah I can see why he's beating the piss outta Spidey". Characters like BloodDeath come up and just beat Spider-Man and usually barely have an origin. His design also helps a lot. You can tell this is a dude that even a hero more powerful than Spidey would have trouble with. I dunno maybe it's just nostalgia and I like Black Tarantula more than BloodDeath. He also has a little person henchmen with weird gadgets. I like that guy too.

He and Spider-Man fight until we flash back to what brought Spider-Man here. He's talking to his wife Mary Jane Watson-Parker and people can complain that Peter Parker is a nerd and shouldn't get a supermodel wife or whatever but Peter is fuckin jacked. Look at him! I don't care what naysays say about these two but I LOVE them together. Mary Jane is pissed because Peter wants her to go stay with her sister because he found a photo at a crime scene of three women and Mary Jane is one of them. One of the others is Marina Caches. Which turns out to be the Black Tarantula's wife and his son Fabian! Holy heck. 

Mary Jane goes to talk to Marina and finds that information out and then a guy named Dante Rigoletto. Yes he's related to the mobster character Don Fortunato that I'm honestly curious about what happened to him. He appeared a lot in this era and I always liked him and his cartoony old man design. He probably died to prove how cool some generic 2000s character no one remembers was. At this place is also the Rose who is arguing with Don Fortunato and was revealed to be JAKE CONOVER one of the 82 thousand people who worked at the Daily Bugle. Spider-Man and the Black Tarantula end up having a really great fight. Most of this comic is a fight until Marina yells at the Black  Tarantula that he needs to decide to ruin his son's life or to continue the legacy. Spider Man then goes "Are we going to finish the fight or are you gonna give up like a gentleman. The Black Tarantula says he has time to be patient and that he will return while leaving. Also Spidey tries to go after him even in his fucked up condition because that's the kinda hero Spider-Man is. I don't believe we've seen the Black Tarantula since. I would like to see him return. He's a complicated bad guy and I like that.

The two problems I have with this comic is some of the references Spidey makes for his jokes date the comic. I mean it still isn't as bad as say Marville #1 with it's 9,000 AOL jokes because well Spidey has always kinda referenced things but references to Titanic and South Park when it was new kinda date the comic a little. I dunno. Most of Spidey's jokey comments are still pretty great. The big problem is with the Rose just randomly ending up being Jake Conover. That was a on-going mystery and I can't remember how many clues DeFalco had laid for the mystery so it kinda feels like it was like "Damnit I gotta finish this story now because in 4 issues they are gonna screw this shit up" so maybe this will work better when I re-read some of the other issues from this era and don't worry I'm sure I'll talk about them. Still one very minor and one mostly minor issue does not ruin this fun little story. 

FINAL VERDICT: I really like this era of Spider-Man. It was just a shame it was so short and then a new lesser era replaces it. I'm sure I'll talk about some issue from the second Amazing Spider Man comic (yes they rebooted it here for the first time. Woo.) but that won't be for a while. I'm sticking with the talking about comic books from my childhood so that #50 probably won't be an amazing anniversary thing this time.