As was pointed out by our eagle-eyed readers, Pete's "bad guy fake-out" problem in Amazing Spider-Man #170 was at least the third time something like this had happened:
Anyone know of any other times? sPat? Robert Gillis? Marv? Allergy? My supply of Amazing isn't complete, so if anyone knows of any additional times this plot device was used, it would be fun to know about!
But you know who Pete hadn't been seeing illusions of? The Rocket Racer. Because he pops up in Amazing Spider-Man #172:
You know, he has made something of a comeback in recent years, even making a couple of appearances in the awesome Avengers Academy, not to mention an episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series of the 1990s.
But he's still an awful character.
I think Pete was trying to oversell it there. Granted, symbiote villains like Venom and Carnage were still more than a decade away, but I'm pretty sure this guy wasn't on the short list of villains to audition for the Sinister Six.
But that issue had JJJ dancing, so there's always that:
Fast forward to issue #174, where Harry is all emo because his fiance Liz Allen dumped him. Why? Because Liz's brother, who everyone except Aunt May seemed to know was the Molten Man, forced her to steal chemicals for him ("Why, Liz? Why are you stealing chemicals?" "I can't tell you why, Peter!" "If only I remembered that you only do these things when your brother is in town and emotionally blackmailing you, I could solve this infernal mystery!") bit the big one and, as everyone who has ever been in a serious relationship will tell you, the death of a family member requires you to end an engagement. Because that's the rule.
Anyway, Pete and Flash take Harry to that psychiatrist who gives me the creeps:
Oh. Well he doesn't seem that creepy right THEREOHMYGOODNESSWHATISTHATONHISWALL?
You know what else will set my therapy back? Looking at carved images of demons while I'm in therapy!
Oy. See you tomorrow!
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2 comments:
I still collect issues of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, but only up until Steve Ditko left the book and character he created. Of course I don't have to buy any more issues, as I have them all, now. But back in the day, (before I realized what had been done to steal the intellectual property of Ditko and Kirby), I would read then-current issues of Spider-Man. I stopped reading them right around the time of your samples here. I thought that Ross Andru (while a nifty soldiers-versus-dinosaurs artist) was pretty much the single worst choice to illustrate Spider-Man. So I don't have any solid memories of the stories of this period--only that I perceived them (at the time) to be wholly awful.
I did not know that Rocket Racer had ever appeared in modern times. Too bad there wasn't an issue of Spider-Man chasing him down in the Spider-Mobile.
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