Anniversary Countdown #1 (Part 3)

Time to finish this monster of a retrospective, after Part 1 and Part 2.

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L’Uomo Ragno #26 (1989)
Published by: Star Comics

I like how Nightcrawler’s image in the bottom left corner (to advertise the backup feature) looks like he’s concerned for Black Cat.

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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #76 (1983)
by Bill Mantlo & Al Milgrom

Jokes aside, it’s a great cover. I would call it a homage to the famous Crisis cover with Supergirl’s death… if this wasn’t done years earlier.

I sure hope Spider-Man is kidding here, and he wasn’t making out IN THE MIDDLE OF A BATTLE.

You really have to admire the commitment of the henchmen.
They saw Spider-Man RIP OFF DOC OCK’S ARMS and they’re STILL after him! Even the henchmen of the Owl, who is somewhere around bleeding to death!!!

Speaking of Ock’s arms: they’re still responding to him! I feel like we’ve seen Octopus controlling the arms remotely before this, but it might be the first time he does.

So the arms end up attacking Black Cat…

…who is brutally attacked by the henchmen.

To be honest, I was expecting a slighly bigger reaction than “Oh gee” here.

But jokes aside, it’s a VERY powerful scene.

Spidey doesn’t take this well.

After wiping the floor with the henchmen, Spider-Man throws away Ock’s arms…

…and then rescues Black Cat, who is BARELY still alive.

She’s STILL bleeding out once he gets to the hospital! Even if he says this is just “across the river”, maybe he should’ve used the webs as a tourniquet.

It’s a neat hospital scene, but I’ve always wondered why they bother cutting the costume with scissors instead of just taking it off. Maybe it’s medically preferable, to avoid moving her too much?

I’ve seen TONS of scenes with superheroes in a hospital, but to me this is still the best blending of medical drama and superheroics.

I’m guessing that normally they wouldn’t let anyone look at the operation like this, but it’s Spider-Man: what are they going to do?

Black Cat survives the night, and in typical Spider-Man fashion he’s only in MORE trouble than before!

He just BARELY makes it to the final exam. Which, as you might remember, he didn’t even study for.

I’ve always loved the parallel between him taking the exam and the doctor operating Black Cat.

And OF COURSE he finishes at the last second.

Rushing to the hospital, Spidey meets Captain Jean DeWolff who has some good news and some continuity.

Black Cat might have survived, but she’s still in rough conditions.

And in the finale, Doctor Octopus is having his limbs re-attached.

Without painkillers, despite the fact that for SOME reason this is painful to him.

Because Doctor Octopus is HARD. CORE.

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Historical significance: 10/10
Very important for Spidey and Black Cat’s relationship of course, but also makes things with Octopus even more personal.

Personal significance: 10/10
A big, BIG reason for pushing me to keep reading regularly. How could I possibly resist finding out how things continue?

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
Come on.

Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
Once again I fully admit my bias, but I think this is even better than the previous issue. The hospital scenes are highlight, as they feel incredibly real despite the setting.
You really, REALLY feel Spider-Man’s pain here. Especially if you read it knowing Spider-Man has already experienced the death of a girlfriend.

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Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #77 (1983)
by Bill Mantlo & Al Milgrom

You know I’m a sucker for characters interacting with the logo.

Since the first page is in a costume shop, we take the opportunity to be very creative with the credits…

…but something feels off about Jim Shooter.

Our adversary for the issue is Daredevil villain Gladiator, who owns a costume shop.

A few petty criminals chased by the cops take refuge in his shop, since they know who he is, and convince him at gunpoint to help.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man is sleeping in Black Cat’s hospital room.

He’s also having a really horrific nightmare about Doctor Octopus returning to kill her.

And it’s not paranoia, because Doc Ock attacks for real!!!
Could it be a subtle indication that the nightmare was inspired by the Spider-Sense going off?

Well, to be precise, Doc Ock didn’t come to kill Spider-Man TODAY.

This is probably Doctor Octopus at his cruelest.

If you’re asking yourself why they don’t move Black Cat to a more secure location, the comic has an explanation. I’m not sure I buy it 100%, but it does make sense.

Said “biggest battle of his life” won’t be in THIS issue, because he runs into Gladiator helping those criminals.

Too bad that, in this period at least, Gladiator is not entirely sane and starts hallucinating being an actual Roman Gladiator.

Gladiator is just a regular buff guy, so Spider-Man easily deals with him. But even with the criminals exonerating him, Gladiator’s delusions don’t let him accept defeat.

Gladiators is REALLY set on teaching the criminals a lesson for forcing him to help them.

But he doesn’t actually do it. Good for him.

And so we end with Gladiator striking a friendship with Spider-Man.

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Historical significance: 0/10
Gladiator would’ve worked fine as an occasional supporting character, but sadly he barely ever interacts with Spider-Man… and even sadder, he routinely goes back to beign a crazy if slightly sympathetic criminal.

Personal significance: 7/10
I didn’t care for Gladiator’s plot. But I vividly remember the nightmare scene.

Silver Age-ness: 2/10
I get they have guns, but Gladiator putting up a decent fight with Spider-Man makes me question if he truly HAD to help them.

Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
The Gladiator plot doesn’t really work with the rest, interrupting a major storyline. While I’ve never found him to be a particularly interesting character, he HAS been in several good stories. And conceivably he would be an interesting match with Spider-Man… but the latter is too preoccupied with his own stuff to get involved too much. To be fair it’s not BAD, but just very meh after such heights. Speaking of which, as mentioned Doctor Octopus is at his cruelest and creepiest here!

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Black Cat’s evolution in her relationship with Spider-Man deserves its own review, which I will handle next time as a sort of epilogue to the
retrospective.
But I have to mention how the big fight with Doctor Octopus ends!
Specifically from the following two issues, which have some of the the best Doc Ock covers ever.

It culminates in Spider-Man locking Doc Ock’s arms into a construction site, and collapsing the whole thing on his head.

And he defeats Ock SO THOROUGHLY that Doctor Octopus was SCARED TO DEATH OF HIM…

…something that lasts all the way from 1983 to 1988.
To give you an idea of how long that is in comic book time: it spans Spider-Man’s ENTIRE relationship with Black Cat, and he’s married by that time!!!

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Uncanny X-Men #143 (1981)
by Chris Claremont & John Byrne

 What better way to celebrate Christmas than having THE MOST FRIGHTENING THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN terrorize a Jewish girl?

We begin with a scene set during Uncanny X-Men, with Storm destroying a magic monument that acts as a portal to the demonic N’Garai.

And now, months later, one of those demons emerges. And we have our first good look at how John Byrne is going to draw it.

And then murders a couple for no real reason.

It’s the night before Christmas, and the X-Men are busy nearly killing each other.

Years later, Jim Shooter would receive a lot of criticism for mandating that Kitty Pryde and Colossus to break up because of the age difference.
While I generally think the American moral panic on age is a bit extreme, in their case I get it. Kitty was supposed to be FOURTEEN in this period, right? Colossus is not THAT much older, as I think he’s about eighteen when he joins the X-Men… but the fact that most characters are okay with them flirting first and then becoming a couple is more than a little creepy. Especially since he’s always been drawn like a full adult.

With everyone else out for Christmas, Kitty is all alone in the X-Mansion.

But instead of moping around, she decides to pass the time working out.

While I’m sure a full issue dedicated to that would have its own fans, it’s time for the plot to arrive.

Turns out the demon isn’t celebrating Christmas either!

What follows is a high-octane chase between the demon and the intangible Kitty Pryde.

Since she can’t be touched, you’d think this would lower the stakes… but the demon can STILL hurt her.

She’s hopelessly outmatched, but luckily the X-Mansion is a giant death-trap thanks to the Danger Room.

Usually I’m not a huge fan of how Claremont fills the page with tons and tons of narration and dialogue… but this time I think it helps.
Not only we get in Kitty’s mind, but since the demon is completely silent, if she didn’t we’d have only pages of just action undermining the psychological tension.

And this is where the story ended for me, because the issue dropped here.

But since I was lucky enough to track the following issue very early on, and since it’s only a few pages more, let’s finish the story with Kitty reaching the hangar with the Blackbird…

…and BURNING THE DEMON ALIVE WITH ITS ENGINE.

OR IS IT???

Yes. That was just a cheap jump scare.

Best superhero Hanukkah story ever? I can’t think of many others, but it’s probably still a good contender!

And if you think my Xenomorph jokes were out of line…

We wanted to do an homage to the movie Alien, and I don’t know whether I was demented or what in those days, but I honestly thought when I was drawing it that people wouldn’t instantly realize where we got it from. I thought I was being really clever, how I was making little twists and turns to change it. Only the ending where she used the Blackbird to blast the N’Garai to death was the same. And then Chris kind of wrote [the script] even more like the movie. By the time I actually read it, it was like, ‘Oh, well, wait till the lawsuits come…’ But they never did.
JOHN BYRNE

I seriously doubt the people working on the Alien movies were ever told about this story, but I wonder what they would think of it.

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Historical significance: 0/10
This is the last issue penciled by John Byrne, but remember that I don’t consider real-life changes for this score. And while the N’Garai occasionally come up, they’re not exactly a huge part of the X-Men lore.

Personal significance: 7/10
I read this waaaaaay before I saw Alien, so naturally the homage was well above my head. I still found it incredibly fascinating.

Silver Age-ness: 0/10
As if.

Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
I’ve mentioned many times that I’m not a huge X-Men fan and that I consider most of Claremont’s work to be overrated. This is still an undeniable masterpiece.

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And lastly, to give you an idea of what was being published at the time, this is the back of the reprint that advertises the other Star Comics books.
By this time they were publishing semi-monthly both Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four (the latter with Hulk and Daredevil as backup features), plus the monthly Punisher, Captain America And The Avengers (which also had Alpha Flight as a backup feature) and X-Men.
I never bought the Punisher series, and in fact the two only Star Comics issues I own are the ones that feature Doctor Doom (what a shocker). And while I would eventually buy all the X-Men back issues, I had like two issues growing up.

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And it’s finally a wrap on the 5 year anniversary!

This was a huge undertaking, but I’m glad I got the change to talk about characters I don’t normally cover to this level of detail.
Next time, since she was such an important part of this finale, I will cover the first Black Cat story.
And as anticipated, next year I’ll take a look at those five books I owned between the older Corno and the one that made me a regular reader.

Now what the heck am I going to do for the 10th anniversary?