THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #147

"The Tarantula Is A Very Deadly Beast"

• Writer: Gerry Conway
• Artist: Ross Andru
• Inker: Mike Esposito & D. Hunt
• Print Date: Aug., 1975

Featuring:

Plot Summary:

We open with Spider-man hitching a ride to the Daily Bugle on a helicopter from the airport. Inside, he is berated by Jonah Jameson from failing to snap any photos of Man-Thing while in Florida. On his way out, Ned Leeds hands him a medical file on the recently revived Gwen Stacy.

Next, we cut to an upstate federal penitentiary where the man known as The Tarantula is perfecting another pair of spiked shoes in the prison shoe shop. After subduing a guard, cutting through the bars using an acetylene torch, and scaling the wall using his shoes, The Tarantula hops into a waiting van where we see he is working with The Jackal.

Meanwhile, Mary Jane picks up Aunt May from the hospital. As MJ's Aunt Anna fetches the car, Aunt May asks how things are going along between MJ and Peter. MJ tells Aunt May how upset and angry she is at Peter for not having time for her since Gwen Stacy returned. Aunt May convinces MJ that she shouldn't let her pride stand in the way of love.

Intermission. When we return to Spider-Man, he's read the lab report on Gwen Stacy that determines she is a clone of the original Gwen Stacy. As Spider-Man comes to the realization that there might be an army of Gwen Stacy clones running around, he hallucinates seeing Gwen Stacy in a mirror stores displays and flips out, destroying the display. Two of New York's finest put a halt to his rampage, but as they confront the web-spinner, The Tarantula ambushes them from behind and proceeds to assault our hero. A battle between the two ensues in downtown traffic.

Spider-man realizes The Tarantula is leading him in circles during the fight. Finally, The Tarantula springs his 'trap' and throws Spider-Man into a city bus. As the fight continues on the bus, the passengers flee in panic at the next stop. However, the bus driver is apparently oblivious to fight and acting very strangely... Very strangely indeed. The bus veers around the city until it comes to its next stop and picks up a single passenger: Gwen Stacy! That's when the bus driver unmasks and reveals himself to be the Jackal in disguise!

Apparently, at this point, two pages of watching the bus drive through the city is not enough, and we are treated to a third page of the Jackal driving wildly through the city. Eventually, the bus pulls up to the Brooklyn Bridge, and Spider-man gets a deep sense of foreboding as he remembers this is where Gwen Stacy originally died. As the Jackal exits the bus with Gwen in tow, Spider-Man dives after them only to be stuck from behind by The Tarantula's poisoned boots. Everything swirls and goes dark.

Finally, Spider-Man revives bounds in heavy chains atop the Brooklyn Bridge. The Tarantula confesses that his wish was to simply kill the wall-crawler, but The Jackal insisted they bound him in chains, tote him to the top of the bridge, and wait for him to revive. All this is apparently so the Jackal can spend a few panels telling Spider-Man how much he hates him and revealing that he created the Gwen Stacy clone. Finally, the story closes in a cliffhanger as the Tarantula pushes Spider-Man off the bridge.

Comments:

Man, where do you start with a story like this?

Plot Analysis:

My suspicion is that Gerry Conway woke up one morning and thought to himself, "Hey, we already threw Gwen Stacy off the Brooklyn Bridge and killed her. How dramatic would it be if we threw Spider-Man off that same bridge??!?" and proceeded to write the story from there. This is not an inherently bad idea. The execution of said idea is another story.

First, who's going to throw Spider-man off the bridge? Well, the Jackal has been a pest recently, so we'll use him. Of course, he'll need some muscle. So, this master villain thinks and apparently decides that The Tarantula provides an adequate amount of brawn to complement the Jackal's brains behind the operation. Never mind that the Tarantula is currently incarcerated because he got his head handed to him the last time he squared off against Spider-Man. This time, he'll get him for sure!

Now, instead of giving Spider-Man some plausible excuse to be near the Brooklyn Bridge and have The Tarantula confront him there (Gwen Stacy is on his mind, why wouldn't he be brooding about her while overlooking the bridge?), the writer figures it would be better to have The Tarantula confront him downtown. This way, we can see the extent of the Jackal's ingenious plan to hijack a city bus in disguise, have the Tarantula throw Spider-Man on the bus, and while the Tarantula and Spider-Man rolls around in the bus, pick up Gwen Stacy and drive them all to the Brooklyn Bridge. The depths and subtlety in this plan astound me. Also, this way, the writer can treat the readers to no less than three pages of a city bus careening around New York. It occurs to me if I wanted to see a bus in action, that bus fare would be less than the cost of this comic. Hindsight is 20/20 however.

Finally, the pain comes to an end. The Tarantula knocks Spidey out, trusses him in chains, totes him to the top of the bridge, and we, the readers, are treated to the scene of Spider-Man being tossed off the bridge that Gerry Conway's been building up to for 31 painful pages.

Part of my distaste for this issue stems from the fact that I don't really respect the Tarantula as a serious Spider-Man foe. He does not the brains, brawns, or equipment (spiked shoes?) to give Spider-Man a serious run for his money. This writer however at least treats his Hispanic culture with a little more dignity and less stereotyping. Tarantula does use a few corny Spanish phrases like 'Spider-hombre', but at least the writer doesn't write the Hispanic accent phonetically in his dialogue (No calling people "peeegs" in this issue).

The real shame is that the writer does an outstanding job with the personal interaction between Aunt May and MJ, and also dealing with Spider-Man's lingering grief over Gwen Stacy and confusion about her clone suddenly appearing.

Art Review:

After my initial reading, I was in such a daze from the story, that I couldn't remember how the issue was artistically. After re-reading it, I have to say that the art is Ok. Not great, but not so bad as to distract from the story. Of course, after the Jackal tears off his "bus driver disguise" (a la Scooby-Doo), I have to ask how did he fit his Jackal mask with the large pointed ears under the 'bus driver mask' and still passed for normal? Of course, it's hard to fault the artist for trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Action Factor:

Well, the first fight is Spider-Man beating up on a bunch of mirrors. Entertaining, but not enough to earn high marks for action. In the main event against the Tarantula, we have three good pages of them fighting in traffic followed by three pages of us imagining them fighting in the back of a bus while the bus drives through the city. Not really the action-packed issue I would've preferred.

Babe Factor:

Gwen Stacy is back! What more needs to be said. Of course, I've always been partial to red-heads. And MJ looks a lot better in her midriff bearing, low-cut, sleeve-less to than Gwen does riding the bus in her coat.

Spider-Villain lessons 101:

Before, I embark on my career as a super villain, there's a lot to be learned in this issue.

Tip #1:
If I lose a fight to someone, I will be sure come up with a different approach if I have to face that person against and not rely on the same tactics that got me beat the first time. For example, I would've expected the Tarantula to come up with a different way to beat Spider-Man rather then volunteering to be used as a punching bag against in a head-to-head fight. The fact that the Tarantula wins is more due to the Jackal distracting him with the Gwen Stacy clone than any thing the Tarantula did on his own.

Tip #2:
I will also be sure that if I team up with someone, this someone will provide value to the partnership instead of being a 2nd-rate hanger on. I have no clue what would possess the Jackal to use the Tarantula as partner. Supposedly, the Jackal provides the brains of the duo, but the Tarantula does not have the brains, brawns, or equipment to go head-to-head against Spider-Man. If I need to hire muscle, I'm going to hire some real muscle, like say The Rhino.

Tip #3:
If imprisoned, I should get a job in prison shoe-shop. Not only do they have the equipment there to make razor sharp shoes points and acetylene torches for burning through prison bars, but apparently, you can work relatively unsupervised around all this equipment.

Addendum to Tip #3:
If I have access to all that equipment and the best idea I can come up with is "spiked shoes", I will remain incarcerated for my own safety.

Tip #4:
Once I embark on my career as a super villain, I will always always ALWAYS remember to simply execute the hero instead of trussing him up so I can gloat before I throw him into my "inescapable death trap".