I think you guys are going to get to see more posts in the next little while. I am finally staying away from most social media for the most part. No twitter. I blocked every stupid political thing I would watch on YouTube like a giant dumb doofus. I will probably do a post talking about this stuff I was way into for way too long. It's finally time to do anything else. Literally anything else. So I figured that I might as well finish up and talk about the sequel to the last Comic book I talked about. I mean it's better to do it now then forget about it and do it in three years, I mean if I'm even doing this blog in three years. I dunno. This is a huge ramble. I'm going to probably be posting more on this blog. You'll get sick of this shit soon enough. Anyway let's go with this story.
I remember picking up the first part of this story when I was on my usual summer vacation to Lewisporte. The town my aunt, uncle and cousins lived in. It was something we did EVERY year from I guess the early 1990s to the early 2000s. I think 2000 or 2001 were the last year we went. I miss that place and wonder how it has changed in the last twenty five years. Anyway there was a bigger than normal Shoppers Drug Mart in this store and in the basement they had a video store, a book store and a bunch of comics for sale. It was really weird as it seemed that the video store and book store were closed but still had TONS OF SHIT FOR SALE. It was a shame. I remember trying ot return to this place and it was gone. even the stairs going down (in the middle of the store) to the place. Did I get this comic from a weird mystical area? I think that might be the case.
I think I picked up the last three issues of this story but never did read them. I read this one and was not very enthused by it. I would find out that one of the characters in this story would turn out to be the Hero NIGHTWATCH. Which is just Spawn. Yes, I know comic companies rip each other off like there is no tomorrow but AT LEAST those characters have differences that you could literally get into say Moon Knight and Batman. Nightwatch is so like Spawn that Todd MacFarlande should have sued. Like The character is literally 97% Spawn. He showed up a little bit and then went away forever. This story has back ups about the character of Nightwatch in them but I don't give enough of a fucking shit to talk about them. I have the feeling this piece will be long enough without them.
This story was written by Terry Kavanagh. Terry started working for Marvel in 1987 and according to the Internet has written some of the worst stories in Marvel history. I mean yeah The F.A.C.A.D.E. story would get on my personal list of Worst Spider-Man stories So yeah, this does not bode well for this story. Alex Saviuk was the artist of this comic and he did some pretty good work but sometimes some of his work feels rushed and could have been better. I dunno. Still I do like his work and I'm glad he stayed on Web on Spider-Man for like 90 issues or so. It's always nice to have the same artist on a comic. So let's finally get into this story. Let's see if it's as bad as the people say.
This issue starts with BLOOD ROSE from the last story shooting up some punks. This is going to be really out of character when we find out who the BLOOD ROSE is. After he shoots these guys from RICHARD FISK'S GANG, we go to a scene of Peter Parker bringing Betty Brant to dinner with his wife, his aunt and his parents?!!? Yes. This was from the era of Peter Parker's parents. I really do believe they could have gotten a really good story out of this but how it ends is kinda goofy. They clearly had no idea what they were doing when they brought these two characters back. That's for another review we will do sometime in the future.
BLOOD ROSE is talking to someone with his mask off. He has blonde hair and is talking about hitting another FISK related thing tonight. He is talking to The Foreigner. He is a hitman. He was created by Peter David if I recall correctly and I really enjoyed him in those Peter David stories. We then turn to Richard Fisk from the last story. He was found by a boat of men but that boat has sunk. DR. KEVIN TRENCH aka SPAWNWATCH shows up and threatens him I guess. Peter Parker and Robbie Robertson are arguing over something and then they see THE FISK BUILDING HAS BEEN ATTACKED. So they both literally rush over there. Peter being Spider-Man gets their first and then fights BLOOD ROSE. The building starts getting increasingly worse shape because BOMBS ARE GOING OFF ALL OVER THE PLACE. That doesn't stop NEWSMAN ROBBIE ROBERTSON as he just grabs someones camera AND RUSHES IN. Spider-Man meets him and then Blood Rose shows off his friends. Some goobers in CYBERNETIC SUITS. My favourite thing from 1990s comics. Just so wonderfully cornball. I just can't help myself.
So we are now in Part two which actually opens up with a pretty good fight scene. I enjoyed this part of the story. Anyway after the fight we go to The Foreigner who tells his CYBERNETIC SUIT MEN to kill Blood Rose now that the building is destroyed. He is then contacted by THE NEW ENFORCERS who will take over for THE KINGPIN. Who are the NEW ENFORCERS. Well I'll let you know as soon as I know! We go back to the ISLAND with Trench chasing after RICHARD FISK. Who almost dies. He doesn't and then he and Trench talk. This is Trench was just helping him lose weight?!@#!? He then dresses in COOL MILITARY GEAR and I guess Trench is helping him?? This is a weird scene that does not work at all. I dunno. He pisses of Trench because he picked up a briefcase?? I got to be honest I do not care about this stuff because I know this guy is literally the biggest ripoff of another character ever.
Spider-Man is swinging around talking about the last issue and also the INFINITY CRUSADE. I really need to read that story and post about it. I said I would but it's like 925429 parts. I will get to it. I really do like Infinity Crusade and even Infinity War but I have not heard a lot of great things about Infinity Crusade. He has another argument with Robbie and then Mary Jane shows up and BETTY BRANT SECRETLY SNEAKS INTO ROBBIES OFFICE. Ooo MYSTIQUE AND INTRIGUE! Then we see one of CYBERNETIC SUIT MEN try to get into the Foreigner office. It turns out it was the BLOOD ROSE in disguise. He and the Foreigner are not friends. He wants to know who hired him to kill him
We are in part three now. Blood Rose tries to kill the Foreigner but it was a trap. Spider-Man shows up because he put a tracer on Blood Rose. You think like every villain in New York would realize they should check their clothing for SPIDER MAN'S TRACERS but they never do. He webs up Blood Rose and goes to check on the Foreigner, just to find a nearly dead man wearing a Foreigner mask. I wonder if the Foreigner's goons play like rock paper scissors to decide whos going to wear the mask and get shot to death so the Foreigner can pull off these wild charades. Blood Rose escapes the webbing and The Foreigner's goon gets killed. We get some scenes of Mary Jane and Robbie Robertson/Betty Brant showing up and showing off new sub plots. Spider-Man flies off to just get caught by the New Enforcers, which turn out to be THE EEL and some new character named BLITZ. The rest of the New Enforcers show up. Which are THE VANISHER (a guy who fought the X-Men in like issue 2 back in like my dad's childhood) THE SUPER ADAPTOID (looking a whole lot less cool than the original version) DRAGON MAN (a DRAGON MAN who fought the Fantastic Four and also like everyone else in the Marvel Universe), and DREADNOGHT who fought IRON MAN. Three of these guys are just random ANDROIDS.
RICHARD FISK who is now calling himself GAUNTLET has stolen SPAWNWATCH/Trench's POWER GLOVE. He escapes the island. Blood Rose takes off his mask and yells I WILL TAKE BACK THE NAME OF RICHARD FISK and I'm like what? No. That makes some of the best parts of the last story. You know the bits with Kingpin being a giant douche bag to THAT Richard Fisk. Yeah I'll tell you what happens next, it turns out that the Richard Fisk was actually his friend Alfredo. Yeah. This is a twist someone made on the day before the script to this issue was due. It is stupid and thrown together at the last minute. Those scenes from the first part only work if Richard Fisk is actually Richard Fisk and not someone who was pretending to be Richard Fisk or thought he was Richard Fisk. This story is really dumb. It gets dumber.
The Vanisher, Blitz and The Eel well vanish away. Spider-Man now has to fight the androids. He gets two of the androids down by having them run into each other. Lol. He now has to fight off Dragon Man. Gauntlet shows up. SPAWNWATCH shows up. I'm clearly kinda bored of this story now. It is not very good. All of the bad guys and COOL TOTALLY ORIGINAL AND NEW ANTI-HERO SPAWNWATCH show up and then SPIDER-MAN COMES IN WITH HIS SPIDER-ARMOR. I don't like when they do this because the best part of these stories where Spider-Man is put up against characters stronger than him is seeing him use his brain to beat them. Not just jump into the armor. This armor literally gets destroyed in this issue and I do not think it shows up ever again. Anyway Spider-Man fights a few new bad guys that I'm pretty sure never show up again and that's saying something because like JUST ABOUT EVERY character no matter how obscure has someone who loves them. Blood Rose lets us know that ALFREDO went CRAZY and thought he was Richard Fisk.
Spider-Man beats them all and you can tell I stopped caring. Yeah there was one cool fight but this story sucked. Richard Fisk being the Blood Rose makes no sense. Richard Fisk was most of the time a guy who hid in the shadows and had THUGS and GOONS to go after who he wanted to be taken out of the way. He wasn't COOL POUCHES MAN #1050. Not to mention that I don't think the Kingpin would have been fooled by ALFREDO. SPAWNWATCH is lame. I mean yeah I love random obscure bad guys like PLANT MAN and THE VANISHER and THE EEL and DRAGON MAN and SUPER ADAPTOID and DREADNOUGHT but it's not a lot of fun when there's like 25402 of them all at once. The New guys are no good. The best part of this story is that like the F.A.C.A.D.E. storyline the ending to this story is also never mentioned again. It ends with the NEW ENFORCERS who work BEHIND THE SCENES. aka The Fixer, Mr. Fear, The Controller and Mentallo were trying to take over the underworld but nope, they don't.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I am going to end up reading more Terry Kavanagh stories aren't I?
Oh man an issue #100. I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE HOW CRAPPY THIS ONE IS.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, it's amazing how most "landmark" number issues are just kind of crap. I can't remember a single one that was any good. And lol Deadpool never naturally reached #100 so I am sure it would be crap too, even though Deadpool is AMAZING.
I am very happy you blocked all political stuff. THIS IS THE WAY AS THEY COPY FROM MANDOLORIAN. Keep posting and I will keep replying... even if it takes me a while.
I like the idea of Claw's Magical Media Store. It's like Harry Potter but no magic and it's Newfieville.
There's something about going to the same place every summer that's like good and fun. We don't do that here (and the move to the west coast ensured that wouldn't happen) but it would have been nice. We had a beach in Delaware we liked, but we only got to bring the kids once & they were so young, they don't remember it. The California beaches are fucking crap so that's that. Next year, we're planning on flying to the east coast to go back to that beach in Delaware, that's how bad the west coast beaches are.
For me, it was Stone Harbor all the way down south in NJ. I have good memories of it and less good memories of it. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff that was originally good memories... and then the less good ones started creeping in, and it got really depressing. Basically, it was a bunch of dysfunctional family horseshit that I will spare you of. But I will say the main drag had the most amazing arcade. So many games I never saw anywhere else like a 2 screen Ninja Warriors and a dual screen space game by Atari that I can't remember the name of. I am certain that arcade is long gone, like your magic basement store.
When you said Nightwatch, I thought you meant the New Warriors guy Night Thrasher at first. If he is that bad a ripoff of Spawn, probably an improvement.
OH GOD Peter's parents. What a lame overarching story. I remember reading a few issues of Spiderman with them around and when I saw the final payoff, it made them being around that much worse. Spiderman sure had some stinkers, didn't he? Not to say X-Men didn't because holy fuck they did, but... wow. I look forward to the CLAW BLOG Spidey parents post.
I would stay away from Infinity War/Crusade. They are just crap, sorry. I mean, yeah, that is CLAW BLOG fodder but like, not a fun crap.
Oh god is Betty Brant actually Blood Rose? I will be annoyed by this if so. SCROLLS DOWN, no it's not and yes that is very stupid. Way to destroy any investment in the character, Terry.
I like how they break out the Z-Team robots to fight an A-list hero. Wtf.
This indeed sounds like total shit. The Alfredo thing is just lazy writing. AND THIS WAS ISSUE #100 AND IT WAS CRAP. So once again, comic publishers ruin landmark issues yet again. I think ultimately the problem with this whole storyline is Kingpin having a son at all. Like, I get it, you need new villains but this is like a copy of a copy of a copy. No thanks.
I don't know what Betty Brant was doing with Robbie Robertson. I'm sure it left unanswered with every other Terry Kavanagh story. Not that I cared.
DeleteI am going to read Infinity Crusade because I like to finish stuff off.
Probably will read NIGHTWATCH #1. Yes he got his own comic.
I love that we both had a place where we went every year. It was always fun. We'd go to other towns close to Lewisporte and i'd always find some comics.
I really should write about a Web of Spider-Man comic I liked. I swear it wasn't always terrible.
The best landmark issues came out in the 1970s and 1980s. Although I did like the Aunt May ASM #400 issue, that was until they decided she needed to come back which you know kinda ruins that story. Oh well.
Peter Parker's Parents is what happens when someone has a starting point for a story but has no idea how the end it so you get GOOFY SHIT. I did like the story where he goes after the Chameleon after that. Pursuit or something.
Next time I review a comic it will probably be something that is not Spider-Man. These two stories and especially this one made me not want to read any more for at least a little while.
I like the New Warriors but man Night Thrasher was so lame. I should show you this memo that DWAYNE MCDUFFIE did about all the black guys that marvel was creating at one point were COOL SKATEBOARD MEN. It's pretty funny.
I bought Infinity Crusade as it came out. It was just so miserable.
DeleteASM #400 was good until they ruined it. It's what SHOULD have happened and stayed happened. But RETCON FOR SALES LOL