THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #150

"Spider-Man... Or Spider-Clone?"

• Writer: Archie Goodwin
• Artist: Gil Kane
• Inker: Mike Esposito & Frank Giacoia
• Print Date: Nov., 1975

Featuring:

Plot Summary:

One hour after last issue, Peter stands alone in his apartment brooding over his final fight with Professor Warren (see The Jackal) last issue. He struggles with the knowledge that he could very well be one of Professor Warren's clones. Finally, he decides that pacing around his apartment isn't going to help thing and decides he can get more done as Spider-Man.

He swings over and sneaks into Dr. Curt Conners' laboratory intending to discover the truth. Little does he realize that someone has been watching Dr. Conners' lab hoping he would show up. As Spider-Man ponders how to determine if he is a clone or not, Dr. Conners returns to his lab from Florida. Spider-Man explains his problem to Dr. Conners who offers his assistance.

After a long and debilitating series of tests, Spider-Man lies down in the office. He is awoken by someone calling his name. Looking out the window, he sees the Vulture perched on a water tower across the street. Concerned over Dr. Conners' safety, Spider-Man leaps out take the fight to the Vulture. After a short scuffle, Spider-Man leaps onto the Vulture's back, and starts struggling to control the Vulture's flight. The Vulture loses control, and threatens to slam himself into a nearby wall. At the last moment, Spider-Man leaps off the Vulture to safety. As Spider-Man lands into a water tower, the Vulture slams into the wall and explodes into a cloud of smoke and feathers.

As Spider-Man tries to decide if he's hallucinating or dreaming or what, the Sandman strikes him from below. The Sandman leaps down off the tower in an attempt to crush Spider-Man as he lay stunned, but Spider-Man flips up onto a nearby wall. Spider-Man returns the attack by cannonballing into Sandman, and ricochets into the nearby water tower taking out the support struts. The tower collapses under its own weight and crunches the Sandman in a deluge. As the cascading water flows away, Spider-Man realizes that the Sandman has vanished just like the Vulture.

Without a moment's rest, a jewel-tipped walking stick knocks Spider-Man to the street where he is confronted by the Kingpin. The Kingpin manages to toss Spider-Man into a passing car, but Spider-Man recovers quickly knocking the Kingpin out with a couple of well-placed punches. With another loud explosion, the Kingpin disintegrates as well.

Spider-Man struggles with the events of the past few minutes, and stumbles dazed through an alley. Behind him approaches Professor Smythe in his latest Spider-Slayer robot, a large spider-like robot. Spider-Man moves into action quickly trying to blind the Spider-Slayer by webbing up the observation dome. Sadly, his supply of web-fluid runs out at a critical moment. Unfortunately, the Spider-Slayer is equipped with its own webbing, and Professor Smythe quickly immobilizes Spider-Man by webbing him up and wrapping several metal tentacles around him.

As Professor Smythe crushes Spider-Man in the tentacles, slams him around the alley and gloats over his easy victory, Spider-Man's thoughts turn to Mary Jane. He realizes that Mary Jane is the one he really cares for, not Gwen Stacy. He rationalizes that Professor Warren's clone would be as infatuated with Gwen Stacy as Professor Warren, so he must be the original. This knowledge gives him the strength he needs to free himself from the Slayer's mechanical tentacles, and he makes short work of the robot and Professor Smythe thereafter.

Spider-Man returns to Dr. Conners' lab. He takes Conners' report and scatters it to the four winds secure in the knowledge that he's the original Spider-Man. The issue closes, promising a new era next issue.

Comments:

This issue is campy in every sense of the word, and I really enjoyed the change of pace. I'm reviewing this after a very long week of work while banging to Static-X, but I'll try not to let all that shade my review overly much.

Plot Analysis:

I can't be too hard on the writing in this issue. I mean, this really is quite the campy issue. The villain uses duplicates of other classic villains to attack the hero. Spider-Man, on the verge of defeats, thinks about the girl he loves and finds the strength to overcome the villain. I guess love really just conquer all. Not that I'd known personally.

Despite the change in creative teams, they're also continuing last issue's identity crisis, but having Spider-Man agonize over whether or not he's a clone. It's nice to see him take a proactive approach to the problem, and it's also nice seeing him utilizing his friends (in this case, Dr. Conners) to help him establish the truth. In too many issues, the writer focuses too much on having Spider-Man solve every problem that thrown his way by himself. This issue felt a little more true to life.

My only complaint, and its minor, is that Spider-Man was held helpless by the Spider-Slayer for three pages. One of those pages was entirely Smythe gloating over his victory, the second was Peter's internal agonizing over not seeing Mary Jane again, and the third is Spider-Man finally, slowly, freeing himself. Slap another page on there for their initial confrontation and the finale, and you've got 4-5 pages dedicated to a fight that was entirely secondary to the story. Again, and I complained about this issue, Peter and Mary Jane have been having a relationship crisis since Gwen Stacy returned, and we haven't seen them interact or even talk to each other hardly at all in the last 4 issue. It's implied that things are back on track between this issue and the last, but it might be nice to see some of that.

Art Review:

Gil Kane has a good talent for drawing facial expressions, clothes, and other 'slice of life' type stuff. The super-heroic in this issued looked a little flat. The action is done well, but Spider-Man looks really 2-dimensional in his costume. Sort of like really cheap animation. However, that goes along with the whole campy feel of the whole issue.

My major criticism in this issue is perspective. He seems to be going through the motions of drawing this issue without really picturing how different scenes are laid out. Like when the Vulture first calls out Spider-Man, Spider-Man looks out the window down at the Vulture perched on top of a water tower that's on top of a skyscraper. Where is Dr. Conners' lab and how many floors up is it? Another is when the robotic Spider-Slayer challenges Spider-Man. Spider-Man is walking down a narrow alley and all of the sudden this robotic monstrosity appears out of thin air. Anyways, like I said, the art fit the whole camping "interlude" feel of this issue.

Action Factor:

Well, we get plenty of action this issue. We see Spider-Man face off against robotic duplicates of the Vulture, Sandman, and the Kingpin. Plus, we see him square off against a robotic Spider-Slayer. My only complaint about the action is we see a lot of Spider-Man getting his butt kicked and not enough knock-down drag-out fights. The robotic duplicates are all disposed of in a shot or two, and even the Spider-Slayer is dispatched in a panel or two after knocking around Spider-Man for 3 pages.

Spider-Villain lessons 101:

Tip #1:
Gloating will always get you in trouble. If Professor Smythe spent more effort on securing his victory over Spider-Man rather than talking up his robots, he would've one. No matter how down and out the hero is, never stop to taunt or gloat.

Tip #2:
Robot doubles aren't a bad way to attack the hero. In fact, go one step further. If the hero can't tell the difference between a robot and flesh-and-blood, why not make a robot double of someone else to take the fall for you once all your other robots have been defeated. I think the Mad Thinker has been using this trick for years to stay out of jail. You'd think someone else would pick up on it.