The Comic Review #94: Web of Spider-Man #113-116

 

The post on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers got me to thinking about the early comic reviews on this site. Most of them were a paragraph long. I do not plan to re-review most of them because really what I could say about those comics WERE said in those small paragraph reviews, however I really feel that most things deserve more than a paragraph in a review. It’s just that the one story that deserved more attention is quite possibly one of the worst fucking Spider-Man stories I’ve ever read. And I’ve read a god damn lot of Spider-Man. So I figure it’s finally time to rip this gross, smelly bandage off and get into this story. It has many, many problems.

So let’s talk about the comic series Web of Spider-Man. It first came out in 1985 as a replacement for the Spider Man teams up with another random Marvel Comics superhero for an issue (or two) and they go on some wild adventure. By 1985 that comic was not selling very well so they decided to make a new Spider-Man title. Just Spider-Man. It was the third Spider-Man title and it was okay. The highlight of the entire ten year run was when it was connected to Spectacular Spider Man, as in like it was another place to keep telling that comics story. So yeah it was at it’s best when it was literally piggybacking on that series. It ended in 1995 without much fanfare to be replaced by Sensational Spider Man (at that time was the fourth Spider-Man comic. I think Comic companies need to realize that popular characters can only really take on one or two books but what the hell do I know anyway?)

Anyway, this story came out in 1994. One year before they decided to say goodbye to Web of Spider-Man. It involves a MYSTERY of who became F.A.C.A.D.E.. Now I know what you are thinking “Who in the fucking fuck is F.A.C.A.D.E. Well, think Iron Man and some of the guys he fights (Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man), He is a guy in a suit of armour. If say, Iron Man, Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man are the top tier because they (at least I think so) have memorable designs and some very enjoyable stories to their name then F.A.C.A.D.E is at the bottom because his design kinda sucks and the only story he ever got was this one.

The mystery element is also not very good. The suspects are: A boring reporter guy named Cole, a rich asshole, the rich assholes butler, J. Jonah Jameson and his son John Jameson. I think you can see two reasons already why this is a failure. The first is most of the suspects are dreadfully uninteresting. Seriously they appear in this story only! The second is J. Jonah Jameson at this point in time despite doing some wild shit in the 1960s and 1970s was now portrayed as a man who felt bad about that stuff and tried to be the best person he could. He was a giant grumpy fucker but they weren’t about to make him a crazy murder man, AND if they were to make that awful mistake it would not happen in Web of Spider-Man. They would put that stuff in the main book. I also think his son was too important of a character to waste on being F.A.C.A.D.E.

The second problem I have with this story is probably a minor one but It still bothers me. This story kills off the character of Lance Bannon, a character that wasn’t that amazing (he was literally a rival photographer at the Daily Bugle and was literally upstaged by a more entertaining version named Nick Katzenberg) but he did exist in the comics for 14 years (and over 50 appearances) so I honestly do believe he deserved better than to be the cannon fodder for F.A.C.A.D.E. I don’t think any character should be the cannon fodder for F.A.C.A.D.E.

Also can I say that random team up appearances were done better in the 1980s and 1990s. It at least felt like the writer and artist wanted to use the other character to have them bounce off Spider-Man. The first part (yes he doesn’t stay around for the entire four issues) has Gambit just show up because Gambit was popular as hell in the 1990s. I’m not trying to say every time prior to the 1990s did a team up work but it just feels like he’s shoehorned into this story. Might have worked better if he helped Spider-Man do something with F.A.C.A.D.E in another part of this book. I like when the heroes work together after having a goofy fight.

Anyway, you could easily recap all four issues in one paragraph. Some group of losers try to steal a fancy armour suit called F.A.C.A.D.E. and get stopped by Black Cat, Spider Man and Gambit. However someone else steals the suit. Lance Bannon takes a picture of them and then they kill him in the second part. Betty Brant tries to find out what Lance Bannon knew and in the process really makes it look like it was either the rich douchebag or his boring butler. They have Lance’s funeral and Spider-Man beats up F.A.C.A.D.E. but he escapes from said armour before he’s found out. The F.A.C.A.D.E armour is now in government custody so no one can ever touch it again.

In the last thirty one years, F.A.C.A.D.E. showed up twice. Both times as a joke. There’s been about seventy five trillion Spider-Man stories since 1994 and not a single solitary one had them go “wow let’s actually find out who F.A.C.A.D.E. was” You’d think they would have tried during one of those “oh shit we have no idea what to do but they want a four part story!” but nope. Dropped like a lead potato. I don’t know what a lead potato is but I don’t think I’d eat it. I’ve also been reading Spider-Man fans thoughts on things on the internet for way too long now and I’ve never seen a single person say they want to see how this story ends. That’s insane because you know statistically someone had to have this story as their first comic book and also have some kind of nostalgic attatchment to it but even they don’t care enough to want a conclusion. They must have been one of those weirdos who grew up and started to enjoy adult things. Loser.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I really could have just said that F.A.C.A.D.E. stood for Full Acclimation Combat And Defense Explo-skeleton and left it at that but no I had to go and re-read this story and blather on about it for way too long. Anyway have fun trying to find out what a Explo-skeleton is. Exploding Skeleton? God, this story sucked.

The Final Episode #125: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993 – 1996) (Take Two)

 

I have been writing things on the internet for other peoples enjoyment for twenty two years now. The first time was when I was eighteen years old. It was a website I created with another person who now hates me called K.R.A.P. I don’t know what it stands for and I am personally glad it was wiped off the face of the internet. My idea of a good funny post was just to yell obscenities and call the characters gay and say everything sucked. It was cringy and terrible and I hope never to see any of it again. I still have problems looking at stuff I wrote for this blog when I started in 2020 (wow who knew I would do it for that long) and that’s where this comes in. This is me trying to re-do awful awful blog posts from the past. I will not remove the original Power Rangers final episode but I will talk about the ACTUAL final Episode. You see they changed it to Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers for like ten episodes for some reason. I guess I had planned on reviewing that one too but never got around to it, until now!

So this is my favorite part. I don’t know why but I’ve kinda grown to love writing the history of the thing I’m talking about. It’s just nice. I dunno. Anyway Mighty Morphin Power Rangers like most amazing things comes from the LAND OF THE RISING SUN, Japan. They started a series of shows under the banner of Super Sentai. It’s like any superhero team show is under this banner. It started in 1975. that’s right. Power Rangers techinally goes back half a century now. That makes a man feel old. I’m going to take a nap. Uh, okay. Here’s wheres things get interesting. Apparenly some time in the 1980s Stan Lee found out about this stuff and wanted to bring it over but no one would listen to him. Weird ain’t it. Anyway some time again in the 1980s someone took seven episodes of the seventh Super Sentai series, Dynaman and turned it into……..Dynaman! It was a parody that aired on Night Flight and once on Nickoledon’s Special Delivery. I bet portnoyd remembers Special Delivery and making a soap box derby car with his dad. Portnoyd is older than I am and will turn to dust soon enough. I will miss him even if he is a jerk.

Dynaman was a failure. I have not seen any of it but apparently most of the jokes were HOHOHO THE JAPANESE CAN’T SAY L WORDS CORRECTLY HOHOHO not to say that I am a perfect angel who has never made that joke but I think it being every single joke is a bit much. Who knows, maybe this person was just wrong about it and I might enjoy Dynaman. I might end up watching it but I want to watch like 893410391059104 other thigns too. Yet none of those things are prestige tv like Mad Men or Breaking Bad. WEIRD HUH.

Anyway in the early 1990s, a man named Haim Saban who with his partner Shuki Levy wrote the theme songs to just about every cartoon ever made by DiC and about 90% of the rest of them created Saban Entertainment (who knows it might have been made earlier I dunno I’m too lazy to check this shit) and started to dub some animes (like Samurai Pizza Cats) and then saw Super Sentai and Saved by the Bell on a raging bender and was like WOAH IF I MASH THESE TWO THIGNS TOGETHER I’LL BECOME A JILLIONAIRE. and thats how Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was born! I can remember the first time I ever saw this show because for some reason people were trying to sell drugs behind my house! You see you could get into the fence behind our house and do things like that. I remember my mom talking to them. It was weird. I do remember being into the show for quite some time but honestly according to the internet, shitty parents who want to raise everyones children and cause a stink about the shows “violence” and wanting all children to watch fucking Davey and Goliath shit. I don’t want claymation dogs at this moment! I wanted giant fucking dinosaur robots FUCKING SHIT UP. Jesus. Raise your own stupid kids and stop being jerks. It was removed from YTV and I guess I just didn’t see all that much of Power Rangers. I swear I saw some Power Rangers Zeo on YTV but the YTV Schedule Wiki says no and I’m not going to argue with them. That’s almost as pointless as arguing with politics with anyone on twitter. If you don’t agree with them 100% you are the enemy and also evil. The old internet was not perfect but my god the worst parts of it are still better than this.

Now we finally get to my first post on this. I do not know how the hell I wrote something so saucy and angry about this. I don’t know why I was so grumpy. I’m guessing portnoyd or NES bounty related things. I miss the NES Bounty but I know that I am not allowed to do things like that. It messes up my mind and makes me a jerk. Uh, so here we are now. Finally ready to talk about the last two episodes (yep a Two PARTER!) of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers known as “Hogday Afternoon, Part I and II”

So uh, First off, I’m sure I mentioned it in the other post on Power Rangers but uh, I did not realize that they changed the cast this early. I thought it was the original cast until Zeo. I don’t know when I got out of Power Rangers but I guess it was before this episode. Anyway, the Power Rangers are all uh children now and not TEENAGERS WITH ATTITUDE, except for Tommy and Billy. Tommy was the best Power Ranger and I don’t want to argue. If you disagree you can shove that argument right up your butt. ALL THE WAY UP THERE. They are also working with another group of Rangers called the Alien Rangers who sound weird and annoying. I already do not like them. I am grumpy and old.

Another Power Ranger named Aisha is out in the Desert in Africa or some place with Lions. She needs to find something to fix the Zeo Crystal. Rita and Lord Zedd (best part of the episode) send the Hydro Hog to steal all the water on earth. The Hydro Hog kinda reminds me of a blue Grimace from McDonalds. I like the Hydro Hog. The Hydro Hog removes all the water from the Alien Rangers. Aisha is stuck in the desert AFTER DARK with CRAZY ANIMALS GONE NUTS FROM A RANDOM SICKNESS. Goldar and Johnny Skeleton (I don’t know this characters actual name) get ready to blow up the entire Command Center! Of course all of this is easily rectified in the next episode. The Alien Rangers get water, Aisha finds the final Zeo Crystal!!!! and then they do the best part of most Power Ranger episodes is when they grow to giant size and start FUCKING SHIT UP. The Alien Rangers zord looks really dumb. It has a giant origami goose on its head. The flaming sword is fucking awesome though.

They have to get some help from the FALCON ZORD to beat up the Hydro Hog, but they do. Aisha gives the Zeo Crystal to her friend and joins the people in the Desert, she becomes the next Power Ranger. However the bomb that Goldar and Johnny Skeleton (who apparently is Rita Repulsa’s brother!) steal the Zeo Crystal and escape. The Power Rangers escape barely and then look and see the Command Center HAS EXPLODED and we don’t know what has happened to Zordon or Alpha Five! Thankfully unlike every other cliffhanger ending this one did get resolved in Power Rangers Zeo.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I liked Power Rangers a lot as a kid. I was the perfect age for it. 8 years old. It was one part Saved by the Bell and one part goofy monster crap. I ate it up like there was no tomorrow and I did have fun with this. I mean it’s kinda hard not to have a least a little bit of fun with it. However, I just wish that the entire team of original Power Rangers were there and not just some randos I never watched as a kid. Still it makes me want to watch some more Power Rangers and that’s something. Anyway, have yourself a good day and let’s get outta here.