SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED #22 - November 1998

Poisoned Souls

Credits:  Mark Bernardo (writer), Mike Deodato, Jr. (penciler), Joe Pimentel (inks), John Kalisz (colors), Jack Morelli (letters)

The Plot:  Scorpion reemerges as a sanctioned vigilante, working as an employee of Roxxon Oil and an unnamed government agency.  Roxxon stages events that cast Scorpion as a hero and ingratiate him to the media.  Later, Peter and MJ attend a lecture held by Jonah Jameson’s wife Marla at ESU, only to find it a target of Scorpion and the Black Tarantula’s hired thugs.  Jonah and Marla are kidnapped. Later, NYPD detective Connor Trevane is able to help Spider-Man board a plane that follows them to South America.  Spider-Man soon discovers Roxxon is working in concert with the Black Tarantula to create a new breed of super-soldiers.  Marla’s scientific expertise is needed to complete the project, so Scorpion threatens to kill Jonah if she doesn’t cooperate.  Spider-Man emerges and defeats Scorpion in battle.  The Black Tarantula escapes, and Marla (who was wearing a wire the entire time) contacts the proper authorities.  Connor Trevane informs Raymond Royton of the Department of Justice that he should now have enough info to indict Roxxon Oil.

The Subplots:  Peter is uncertain if he can defeat Scorpion, especially now that Scorpion has received upgraded abilities.  MJ tells Peter she has faith in him, and congratulates him when he returns home.

Web of Continuity:

• The government agency working with Roxxon is never identified.
• At the Roxxon event that announces Scorpion’s debut as a Roxxon employee, Betty Brant meets Trish Tilby, who Spider-Man describes as “one of her idols.”
• Marla Madison (not called Marla Jameson this time) is actually drawn on-model this issue, for the first time in almost two years.

*See _________ For Details:  A footnote reminds us that Spider-Man helped find Det. Connor Trevane’s son in Peter Parker, Spider-Man #44 (although the book was only known as Spider-Man back then.)  Roxxon’s former subsidiary the Brand Corporation (which dabbled in human experimentation) was shut down in Amazing Spider-Man #236.  Brand reopened without ties to Roxxon in Spider-Man: The Mutant Agenda #1.  Ben Reilly (with Power Man and Iron Fist) faced the souped-up Scorpion in Spider-Man Unlimited #13, which also featured Roxxon’s efforts to acquire Rand-Meachum.  Raymond Royton has been investigating Roxxon since Amazing Spider-Man #235.

I Love the ‘90s:  Spider-Man tells Detective Connor Trevane that he has to explain to him the meaning behind the bees in the X-Files movie.  I have no idea what this is supposed to mean…are police detectives better than the average person at deciphering vague plot points in movies?  Shouldn’t he be consulting a film critic?

Review:  It’s the final issue of Spider-Man Unlimited, even though an animated series and accompanying comic tie-in with the same name will debut in 1999.  (The less said about that fiasco the better.)  Years after that, in an effort to pump more Spider-product into the market, Spider-Man Unlimited is revived, this time as a standard format comic.  It dies after a few years and no one seems to notice.  In 1998, the original incarnation is being cancelled to make way for the relaunch of the Spider-Man line, which will allegedly feature fewer, more easily accessible titles.  The new Amazing Spider-Man #1, which is just two months away, will feature yet another story about a mysterious group granting the Scorpion upgraded powers.  Editor Ralph Macchio either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

There’s nothing particularly great about this issue, but I have to say that Mark Bernardo addresses my standard complaints about Roxxon stories.  Roxxon is, I can’t believe this, actually being investigated this time, by a long-forgotten minor character from the Roger Stern days.  The idea that Roxxon could just do WTF-ever it wanted and get away with anything because, "yeah, man, the corporations" was always ridiculous and I’m glad Bernardo remembered that Roger Stern was trying to address this ages ago.  That doesn’t mean their plan this issue is bulletproof, however.  There’s no clear reason given for why Roxxon feels the need to make the Scorpion a nationally famous superhero, which is a major plot point in the first half of the story before being dropped.  I guess the assumption is that they’ll make stacks of money merchandising his image, which is the standard “corporation meets superhero” plot, but it would be nice to have some clarification in the actual story.  More frustrating is the idea of an unnamed rogue government agency with an elaborate scheme to create super-soldiers operating right under the Department of Justice’s nose.  I realize that government conspiracy stories were all the rage in the ‘90s, but just throwing that idea out there with no effort to give the agency some kind of identity or motive, and letting them get away scot-free, feels half-baked.

All that said, the issue is fairly satisfying as a Spider-Man story, a problem that’s plagued Spider-Man Unlimited for much of its existence.  (Although to be fair, Bernardo’s handful of issues are usually good about presenting stories that feel unique to Spider-Man.)  This time, Peter has an emotional issue to resolve, the supporting cast not only appears but has an actual role in the story, and a classic Spider-Man foe returns and is played up as a credible threat.  In fact, the crux of Peter’s emotional angst this issue is his insecurity about facing Scorpion yet again.  You could argue this is overblown given the number of times Peter’s succeeded in the past, but I think the story is effective in selling the idea that Scorpion’s more powerful than ever now and not a guaranteed win for Spidey.  MJ’s there to give Peter a pep talk, as opposed to nagging him to death, which is a welcome sight these days.  Any Scorpion story wouldn’t be complete without Jonah, which gracefully leads to Marla’s role in the plot.  And that’s not all, because even more obscure characters start popping up!  I half-expected Deb Whitman to make a cameo before the story was over.  This feels specifically like a Spider-Man story, and not a random fill-in rescued out of the drawer and tossed on to the schedule.  I realize that sounds like a low bar to clear, but even the monthly titles seemed to have a problem accomplishing this much in 1998.

SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED #21 - August 1998

A Real Boy

Credits:  Chris Golden (writer), Mike Deodato, Jr. (penciler), Joe Pimentel (inks), John Kalisz (colors), Jack Morelli (letters)

The Plot:  Peter and Betty are sent to the Swiss Alps to cover an event hosted by Dr. Walston Kraft, a scientist who specializes in cloning.  Peter investigates Kraft’s home and discovers Frankenstein’s Monster and Ivan the Hunchback are secretly staying there.  He also learns that Kraft has made dozens of clones of the monster’s body.  Betty’s own investigation leads her to believe that Kraft has a connection to his neighbor, a descendant of the original Doctor Frakenstein, Victoria Frankenstein.  Peter investigates her castle and discovers that she’s been kept prisoner there by Kraft.  She reveals to Peter that Ivan pretended to be the monster’s friend in order to trick him into falling for Kraft’s scheme.  Peter returns to Kraft’s and convinces the monster that Kraft and Ivan are using him.  The monster kills Ivan in his anger, and sets fire to Kraft’s lab.  Peter escapes with the monster, who disappears shortly before Peter can introduce him to Betty.

The Subplots:  None.

Web of Continuity:  I seem to recall Marvel labeling this a “retelling” of Peter’s first meeting with Frankenstein’s Monster, but this is clearly set in current continuity, since Betty is a reporter and Billy Walters is even mentioned.

We Get Letters:  The “Next Issue” box in the letters page accidentally runs a teaser for the Lizard story that ran two issues ago.  The same page also jokes that editor Ralph Macchio isn’t paying attention to what’s going on.

Review:  There’s an odd significance to this issue, since Peter only appears as Spider-Man on the cover.  In the story, he rightly decides that Spider-Man showing up in the Swiss Alps while Peter Parker is traveling there would make ace reporter Betty Brant suspicious, so he forgoes changing into costume.  It’s a perfectly logical decision to make, but it’s strange to read a story that doesn’t go through some form of acrobatics in order to get Peter into costume.  Visually, it’s probably not the best decision, since Mike Deodato, Jr. is forced to spend the majority of the issue drawing Peter in what appear to be black long johns.  I wonder now if Deodato was hired for this job after he successfully channeled Gene Colan in Spectacular Spider-Man a few months back.  Unfortunately, this issue doesn’t look much better than the average issue of Unlimited, which may or may not be due to the fact that Deodato isn’t inking his own work.  (It just occurred to me that Marvel could’ve gotten Gene Colan himself to illustrate this issue if they wanted, since he was alive and working at the time.)

The story, like the previous issue, is a somewhat baffling attempt to incorporate ‘70s monster characters into a Spider-Man story.  It’s not bad, since Golden does have a handle on Peter’s character and his dialogue is fine, but there is a sense that Marvel was kind of desperate to fill Unlimited with pretty much anything by this point.  Thankfully, there is some effort to personalize the story as a Spider-Man story, allowing Peter an opportunity to give his own thoughts on cloning and to relate to Frankenstein’s Monster on a deeper level.  I can’t believe I just wrote that, but hey, it’s a superhero comic.  Golden strikes a decent balance between taking the material too seriously and just presenting it as camp, and as bizarre as the premise is, the issue is actually more entertaining than many of the other titles released by the spider-office this month.

SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #252 - December 1997

Son of the Hunter! Part Two

Credits:  J. M. DeMatteis (writer), Mike Deodato (penciler), Al Milgrom (inker), John Kalisz (colors), Comicraft’s Kiff Scholl (letters)

The Plot:  Kraven’s bullet grazes Spider-Man, but he’s shocked to discover later that Kraven has bandaged his wound.  Kraven reveals that he only wants to speak to Spider-Man, his father’s greatest enemy, in order to learn more about him.  Suddenly, Kraven’s home is bombed by Calypso, who’s accompanied by the senior Kraven’s lackeys.  Calypso drugs Kraven and Spider-Man and takes them upstate to the Kravinoff estate.  She practices a voodoo ritual that unleashes the inner rage of Kraven and Spider-Man.

The Subplots:  Norman Osborn meets with Jonas Mueller, alias Professor Angst.  Gibbon and the Grizzly patrol the city in the Bearmobile, until Grizzly crashes it into the river.  Aunt Anna grows irritated with Peter’s sudden disappearances and tells MJ that she knows “the truth.”

Web of Continuity:  

• The new Kraven, Alyosha Kravinov, lists his age as twenty-one.  He says that even though his father arranged for a cultured education, his true teachers were the beasts of the jungle.
• Kraven’s last name is spelled as both Kravinoff and Kravinov this issue.
• Spider-Man wakes inside the senior Kraven’s mansion “up on 72nd.”  This is presumably the same Kravinov home partially destroyed in the “Torment” storyline.  The upstate Kravinov home is where Spider-Man was buried alive in “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” and where the climax of  the “Pursuit” crossover took place.

*See _________ For Details:  Calypso wants revenge on the younger Kraven for rejecting her in Spectacular #250.

Miscellaneous Note:  The Statement of Ownership lists average sales at 128,297 copies with the most recent issue selling 102,787.

Review:  So, we discover the new Kraven actually isn’t a villain, even though he’s brainwashed into attacking Spider-Man again by the end of the issue.  I can’t decide if this issue’s opening is a brilliant fake-out or a cheap trick on the reader, to be honest.  We’re lead to believe for a few issues that Alyosha is Kraven, then learn he’s another son, one with the same apparent motivation as his brother -- kill Spider-Man.  Ending the issue with Spider-Man getting shot, only to discover next month that he’s only grazed and that Kraven did this to incapacitate Spider-Man so that he can hear stories about his father…yeah, it’s a bit cheap.

But I like the fact that the third Kraven isn’t a flagrant repetition of the characters we’ve already seen.  He’s simultaneously more civilized and savage, and his interest in Spider-Man is mainly based in curiosity.  He doesn’t necessarily want to be his father, but he wants to understand him better, and meet the man who drove him over the edge into insanity.  All fine as far as comic book motivations go, even though the younger Kraven’s more nuanced portrayal makes Calypso seem even more ridiculous.  Even if “Torment” is still an easy target for ridicule, I think McFarlane had the right idea regarding Calypso.  Keep her in the background, as a mystery element, and she’s fine.  Bring the voodoo priestess lady out in the open for more than a few pages and she’s just an awkward fit for a Spider-Man story.  

Although Luke Ross has evolved greatly over the months on this title, I wasn’t disappointed to see a Mike Deodato fill-in.  Deodato’s art has shown a Gene Colan influence in recent years, but it’s actually evident as far back as this issue.  I know Deodato (or more specifically “Mike Deodato Studios”) is associated with some of the most stereotypical ‘90s art this side of Extreme Studios, but he’s found a great mix between classic Marvel and the early Image look this issue.  He doesn’t draw Spider-Man any more consistently than Luke Ross does in a typical issue, but there are a few panels where he goes for a flagrant McFarlane style and it actually works quite well.  (His standard Spidey drawings aren’t so bad either, even if I think he overplays the white in Spidey’s eyes.)  Deodato walks the line between traditional superhero anatomy and a cartoonier style in a surprising way, and his heavily detailed drawings add a lot to the mood.  The new Kraven really does look intimidating, and Deodato’s rendition of his pet elephant is great.  Unfortunately, Deodato’s female characters are still strictly generic; there’s virtually nothing to distinguish his Calypso from, say, his Scarlet Witch.  That’s a shame, because every other aspect of the issue is on par with the best art being done in the other titles.

ONSLAUGHT Crossovers Part Two – September 1996

Amazing Spider-Man #415 (DeFalco/Bagley/Malhstedt/Milgrom/Comicraft/Sharon/Malibu) – This installment doesn’t advance the Onslaught story at all, as it just uses the Sentinels as villains while the book continues its ongoing storylines. It’s amusing to read the first page of this issue, as the narrative captions recapping the past few years of storylines provide a list of events Marvel soon dismissed (MJ pregnant, Aunt May dead, Peter Parker’s a clone, etc.). This was published during the awkward period when Marvel pretty much admitted that Peter Parker would be back as Spider-Man, but his return would have to wait until the Onslaught crossover was over. The story involves Peter evading Sentinels with Mary Jane, as Spider-Man (Ben Reilly) takes on another Sentinel. One of the Sentinels heavily infers that Mary Jane’s unborn child is a female mutant, which I’m sure was supposed to be a big revelation at the time. Reading any Spider-Man comic from the past twenty years or so gives me an odd feeling now, as I have no idea what’s supposed to be in-continuity, what was never in-continuity, and what was once in-continuity but has since been retconned within continuity. Consequently, I really don’t care (and it’s not just the continuity headaches that bother me, it’s Marvel turning its back on the idea that Spider-Man comics are supposed to be about the continuing life of Peter Parker). Even if it was published during a strange period in the character’s history, it is a fairly enjoyable story about Spider-Man fighting Sentinels. DeFalco does a nice job of depicting the Daily Bugle’s reaction to the crisis, and helps to convey the seriousness of the event more than some of the main Onslaught chapters have.

Avengers #402 (Waid/Deodato/Palmer/Kalisz/Oakley) – This is actually the final issue of the first volume of Avengers, so it’s sad that it’s dedicated to an X-crossover and not to any of the title’s own storylines. In this issue, Iron Man finishes the psionic armor that’s going to be used against Onslaught, and the team is soon attacked by Post and Holocaust, who want to destroy it. Waid tries to make the story more about the characters than the event, as he focuses on the Avengers’ reactions to the chaos in New York, and emphasizes the toll that it’s taking on Captain America. Predictably, Cap eventually figures out a way to defeat Post and Holocaust, as the citizens of New York cheer the team on. The ending’s certainly cheesy, and it seems like something tacked on to make the final issue seem more sentimental than it really is, but the majority of the story works pretty well. The art’s improved from the previous issue, and the action moves at a steady pace. “Heroes responding to a massive catastrophe in a major city during a crossover” is probably its own subgenre at this point, and while this issue doesn’t do anything new, it’s still a decent read.

ONSLAUGHT Crossovers Part One -August 1996

AVENGERS #401 (Waid/Deodato/Palmer/Oakley/Kalisz) – Following Uncanny X-Men #335, Gambit joins the Avengers as they track Magneto's energy signature to the Southeast. The rest of the issue mainly consists of Rogue and Joseph fighting off the Avengers, who think that Joseph is still his old self. Rogue's afraid that if Joseph finds out about his past, he'll revert into Magneto again, so she spends a lot time yelling at the Avengers and telling them to shut up. The conflict ends when the Scarlet Witch recognizes that Joseph isn't the man she knew, and convinces everyone to calm down. This is the classic "heroes fight over a misunderstanding" issue, but Waid's characterizations keep it from getting too dull. As far as crossover tie-ins go, this isn't so bad. There's some nice work with the Scarlet Witch, and a few amusing interactions during the fight scene. Pairing Mike Deodato with Tom Palmer is an odd look, and Palmer's influence unfortunately doesn't tone down some of the more egregious '90s poses and anatomy.

Fantastic Four #415 (DeFalco/Pacheco/Wiacek/Starkings/Comicraft/Lenshoek) – Carlos Pacheco was taken off of Excalibur in order to draw these final two issues of the original Fantastic Four series. This issue contributes to the plot by re-establishing Franklin Richards’ latent mutant power (which is described as the ability to “restructure matter”) and sending Onslaught after him. Onslaught reverts to Xavier’s form and tries to convince the Richards into sending Franklin to his school, as a team of Avengers and X-Men members arrive to stop him. There are also a few pages dedicated to resolving storylines from DeFalco’s utterly bizarre run on this title (although editorial restraints seem to have calmed him down by this point). The rest of the issue is mostly a large fight between Onslaught and the various Marvel heroes. There’s a clever bit that has Onslaught clouding Franklin’s mind while he plays a card game as the battle goes on around him, but Pacheco’s art is the only real redeeming aspect of the fight. If Onslaught is such a devious, cunning foe, it seems like he would’ve had a better plan than just knocking his way through any heroes who happened to be in the FF’s headquarters that day. Since he’s supposed to be the most powerful telepath on Earth, he could’ve used his mental powers in a variety of ways to easily get Franklin away from the team.