Spider-Mannotations: Amazing Spider-Man #670, Venom #7, Herc #8, Spider-Island: Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #2

Bust out those backissues and hardcovers, Spider-fans, because it's time to look at another chunk of Spider-Island!

Amazing Spider-Man #670

Another cover homage - this time to Amazing Spider-Man #646!
(art by Humberto Ramos)

Advertising Age: Popples

From 1983 to 1994, Marvel Comics used Marvel Age magazine to shill everything it was making. Among other things, it featured behind-the-scenes looks at Marvel's books, promo pieces on oncoming projects, and updates on what Marvel Productions was doing out in California. Marry this monthly mouthpiece with the rampant licensing Marvel was doing in the '80s, and you end up with a lot of things like this - a two-page spread on a Popples comic that was canned after four issues.

  

It's an eventual goal of mine to scan and post every licensed toy-related article that was published in Marvel Age; it's fair to say that's a ways off. For now, though, we can all bask in the article's sage advice to never kick anything "that looks like a muff".

Wait, what?

B-b-booty.

RIP MCA.  Please, enjoy Dan Slott, Fred Van Lente, and Stefano Caselli's tribute to the Beastie Boys' finest diss track from Amazing Spider-Man #659:

Spider-Man's Greatest Villains #200-191

This makes slightly more sense in context.
(Amazing Spider-Man (volume 2) #8, written by Howard Mackie, art by John Byrne and Scott Hanna)

So, as Andrew embarks on his own quixotic quest to acquire every Fantastic Four appearance ever, I too have taken on (at his sadistic suggestion), a celebration of Spider-Man's greatest villains!  One of the things that makes Spider-Man the world's greatest super hero is his villains; no other hero has such a diverse and awesome rogues gallery (sorry, Batman, but I'm with Jacob). Plenty of sites will give you the top 25 villains, and sure, that's cool.  But you know what's cooler?  200 villains.  Yes, in celebration of Spider-Man's 50th anniversary (and, let's be honest, probably his 51st, given how fast I write these things), I, Rob London, Canada's foremost Spider-Manologist, will count down a bicentennial of Spider-foes.

The criteria will be:

Scent of a Venom

The day we stop lethal protecting, Charlie, is the day we die.
(Venom: Along Came a Spider #2, written by Larry Hama, art by Joe St. Pierre and Randy Emberlin)

Sal's Sunday Punch #15

Like ASM #407, today's Sunday Punch comes from the Complete Ben Reilly Epic volume 2.  In Spectacular Spider-Man #230, from Todd DeZago, Sal Buscema, and Jimmy Palmiotti, rookie Spider-Man Ben Reilly's on the trail of David Kalen, an environmental consultant who ran afoul of a booby-trapped toxic waste dump.  Because this is comics, Kalen survived, of course, and become a horrific purple goo-man, capable of decaying anything he touches.  He's not too happy about this state of affairs, given that his brother died in that same explosion, so he's terrorizing the crooked CEO behind it.  Spider-Man is sympathetic, of course, but he's not about to let Kalen (who now goes by DK, because those are his initials and also it sounds like "decay") just kill this dude.  So DK punches him really hard.

I guess nothing can stop the Smooze.

Who Watches the Nightwatch Part 4: Ongoing Nightmare

If asked, Stan Lee will deny ever presenting this book.

Face it, Nightwatch - you just hit the jackpot.  It's 1994, and, off the strength of a dozen appearances in various Spider-Man books, you just got your own series.

It's important to remember that the comics business was booming back then.  Anything and everything was getting greenlit.  Let's take a look at what else Marvel was publishing in April, 1994:

Amazing Spider-Man #407 is always gonna be with you.

Well, better than the one-stroke penalty you get when you hit your ball into Hydro-Man.

I was reading The Complete Ben Reilly Epic, volume 2 (available at all finer booksellers now, from the good people at Marvel's Trades Department), and the lead issue, 1996's Amazing Spider-Man #407, really grabbed me.  The issue centres around the people of New York City (and specifically, the Human Torch, Silver Sable, and the Sandman) getting used to new Spider-Man Ben Reilly, and around Ben Reilly getting used to his new job in a coffeehouse (because 1996).  It's not the best thing DeFalco's ever written or the best thing Bagley's ever drawn, but it made me smile in that goofy "oh, comics" way that Tom DeFalco does so well.  Specifically, it made me smile three times.

Well played, Darkhold, well played.

Marvel's 1990s comic series "Darkhold" was pretty much a mediocre attempt to cash in on the horror craze started by the success of Ghost Rider. It wasn't that well drawn, and certainly never that well written. But every now and then it was at least kind clever.

Taken from Darkhold #2, art by Richard Case, writing by Chris Cooper.

This is from Darkhold #2. The main characters are searching a military warehouse for a gama bomb that's about to go off. The issue's a little unclear about how this all relates to the supernatural aspects of the book -- mostly it seems to be about the summoning of a hell hound. That's not important. What's important is that this actually led into a surprisingly clever little referential gag.

I dunno. Maybe my guard was just down, but I found this very funny.

--Andrew S.
(And it's nice that they put the reference in, in a way that was in character, and beats the Comics Code. Though I'm not sure the word 'bitch' was much bother for the Code at this stage...)

Ricochet to Freedom

This is an advertisement. You can see it on the top of this comic strip. Please, please, please let this be official Marvel canon.

Please. Spider-Man and Captain America are chosen by the president to be fired from giant pistols into an enormous spider web that was put there by aliens to strangle the hopes of freedom.

This is an official story, right... please?

--Andrew S.