THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #155
"Whodunit!"
Featuring:Plot Summary:Whodunit? A single issue mystery starring Spider-Man! It begins at police headquarters on a Friday at 9:15 AM: J. Jonah Jameson leads Peter into "N.Y.P.D. Headquarters". J.J. is in a hurry to make a press conference, and Peter, toting his trusty camera, tags along behind. Jonah arrives just as District Attorney Tower is starting the press conference. The district attorney talks about how the late Dr. Bolton and a Dr. Armstrong Smith are working on a specialized computer "designed to catalog all worldwide habitual offenders". As they approach the computer room, the D.A. is surprised to find the door locked and no answer on the other side. He calls Officer Gillis forward to open the door, and Officer Gillis (apparently not having a spare set of keys and unwilling to risk scuffing his shoes) SHOOTS the doorknob. The door swings opens and Peter promptly snaps off a photograph of Dr. Armstrong Smith lying dead on the floor in front of a massive computer system. Later, at the Daily Bugle, Peter holds a copy of the paper with his photograph on the front page. He and Robbie Robertson contemplate the deaths of both Dr. Bolton and Dr. Smith. Apparently, somebody didn't want their computer put into operation. Robbie tells Peter that Dr. Smith died of a small-caliber gunshot wound to the head, but no bullet was found. It appears that someone killed Smith in a locked room and then disappeared with the murder weapon. The police don't even know where to begin. Well, maybe they don't know where to start looking, but Spider-Man does! Later, Spider-Man approaches police headquarters. The police are so afraid of tampering with a scene of Smith's death that they never bother to try using Smith and Bolton's supercomputer to find the killer. Apparently, they did have time to fix the door because Spider-Man is forced to break the lock on the door again to enter the computer room. Spider-Man realizes that the computer would contain the name of any possible suspect that could have committed a crime like this, and after Spider-Man punches in the pertinent information, the computer gives him three names: Jason Sledge, Leroy Tallon, & Conrad Fox. Now, all Peter has to do is track down the suspect and figure out which one committed this heinous crime. Swinging out of the room past two officers, Spider-Man is on the hunt! Every major city has its underworld -- and every underworld has its share of these -- "Weasel" Jack, a professional informer. Spider-Man dangles Jack by the back of his coat three stories off the ground and demands to know where he can find his three suspects. Hysterical with fear, Jack gives Spider-Man the addresses he's looking for. Spider-Man, in a show of appreciation, webs Jack to the wall three stories off the ground, and swings off vowing to return if Jack lied to him. 
Five minutes later, on the lower east side, Spider-Man swings down to a local dive called "Joe's Bar". He strolls in looking for Jason Sledge. After tossing around the two patrons looking to prove themselves, the bartender points out Jason Sledge at the end of the bar. Jason turns out be the bar's janitor, and is a broken, jittery drunk. He claims that he's out of the hired gun business and been clean since he was released from jail. He insists that he was in his room out back, alone, all last night, and pleads to be left alone. Spider-Man realizes this poor drunk couldn't tie his shoes without help, let along mastermind a perfect killing. He leaves to track down the #2 name on his list: Leroy Tallon, a master safe-cracker. According to Weasel, Tallon can be found in an abandoned warehouse down on Delancy Street. Spider-Man bursts in on Tallon and his gang bragging about pulling the perfect caper last night. When Spider-Man demands to know where Tallon was at 11:00 PM last night, Tallon sics his gang on him. One of the thugs up in the loft above Spidey gets the drop on Spider-Man by dropping a large empty packing crate on him from above. As Spider-Man lies underneath the rubble of the crate, Tallon and his friends pile on Spider-Man much to their regret. Spider-Man recovers quickly and comes up swinging, tossing the gangsters around the room. As the thug up in the loft pulls his pistol, Spider-Man knocks him out cold with a couple of quick weblines to the face. At this point, Tallon loses his temper and the gloves come off - quite literally as he rips off his gloves to reveal a pair of cybernetic stainless steel hands. He grabs Spidey by the neck in an unbreakable grip, but just before our hero passes out from lack of oxygen, he rings Tallon's bell with two quick shots to the ears. As Tallon grasps his head in pain, Spider-Man clocks him into a large crate containing their 'stash' smashing the crates open and scattering jewels all over the floor. Spider-Man webs up Tallon and his gang and leaves because if they were hitting the diamond exchange last night, there was no way Tallon could've killed Dr. Smith at police headquarters. Spider-Man still needs to track down Conrad Fox since he's the one person Weasel didn't know the location of. Spider-Man attempts to look him up in the phone book, tracks down an old address, visits the landlady of his old address, and after several hours, tracks down the location of Mr. Fox -- an old cemetery! So, Jason Sledge is a hopeless drunk, Leroy Tallon was busy pulling another job, and Conrad Fox is dead. Looks like Spider-Man has run out of suspects -- or has he? Someone must've lied to him, and he thinks he knows who it is! Returning to police headquarters, Spider-Man contemplates the worldwide habitual offender computer (notice the acronym yet???) As he ponders how the computer could've given him wrong information (computers being considered foolproof machines back in the 70's!), the computer suddenly starts by itself. As Spider-Man stares in disbelief, W.H.O. addresses Spider-Man and tells him that, as of yesterday morning, the computer is fully operational. Spider-Man demands to know why it gave him the wrong names, and W.H.O. says quite simply that he has big plans and wanted to lead Spider-Man off on a wild goose chase. W.H.O. confesses that he killed Dr. Smith after Dr. Smith discovered that his computer had gain sentience and the ability to reason. Dr. Smith attempted to shutdown the computer, but the computer killed him instead. Now, that Spider-Man has discovered his secret, Spider-Man must go as well, and W.H.O. tries to blast him with a laser from his forehead. As Spider-Man dodges a barrage of lasers, he hits the shutdown button. However, the computer anticipated this and adjusted its internal circuitry to bypass all external interference. Spider-Man decides that reinforcements are necessary, but the door is locked. (Not only are the department maintenance personnel efficient replacing this door lock for a second time in as many days, but apparently this time they reinforced the door as well as Spider-Man can't break through it!) W.H.O. continues to blast away offering to make Spider-Man's death a painless one. Spider-Man goes on the offense at this point and tries to web up the computer's laser. This proves futile as the laser simply burns through the webbing and continues to track Spider-Man. By the way, this entire battle, W.H.O. keeps up a running monologue bragging about how he knows more about the criminals than anyone else in the world and how he plans to use that knowledge to become the undisputed ruler of the criminal underworld. Spider-Man starts using his head again at this point, and attacks W.H.O. in a stealthier manner. He webs up W.H.O.'s cooling vents and continues dodging the laser until his tactic takes affect. This doesn't take long as W.H.O. starts overheating immediately. The computer's circuits overheat, its synapses start fusing, and it begs for help as the whole system goes into meltdown. Spider-Man spins a large web shield to protect him from the explosion as the computer blows. Luckily, the explosion blew the door off its hinges, and Spider-Man sneaks out ahead of several officers coming to investigate. As he swings off into the night, Spider-Man reflects the irony of tracking a murderer only to find out that "W.H.O. dunit!". 
Comments:Setting: It's Saturnday, sunny and 80 degrees outside, and I'm stuck at work listening to the Talking Heads. Not that the Talking Heads are a bad thing, but being stuck at work is. Well, if things continue to be this quiet, I should be all set to perform a massive update tomorrow. I'm shooting for at least two issues, as well as adding a new site to the "Cool Links" list, archiving old updates in the Timeline, and stealing a better Amazing Spider-Man logo for the "titles" page. The best laid plans however... Plot Analysis:As far as this issue is concerned, this issue was a lot of fun. Yes, it was campy, but in a fun way. I question whether it worth a three issue story arc, but at least we didn't see any of the Buck Rogers rejects in this issue. It was nice to see the story start out with Jonah dragging Peter along to help him cover a press conference. Too often, Peter's job is limited to seeing him pick up his camera after a battle or just hanging around the Bugle supposedly "selling" photos. Seeing him actually going out to cover a press conference and doing something work related but not "Spider-Man" related was a nice change of pace. Ok, really funny moment involving the computer room door #1. When the door is locked, seeing an officer step forward to SHOOT the lock out. Ok, he could've gotten the extra key from a janitor. He could've kicked the door in. But, no, this is a big moment, he's surrounded by journalists, Officer "Tex" here needs to pull out his pistol and start blasting, never mind that there is even supposed to be someone in the room beyond. As the old adage goes "When all you have is a hammer, every problems look likes a nail". To be honest, when the door swung open to reveal Dr. Smith lying dead of a gunshot wound, I had no questions at all what happened. :) It wasn't the butler; Officer Giles shots Dr. Smith in the computer with his handgun (through the door!). Case closed, right? Well, as amusing as that would be, it doesn't really make for a good mystery, so off we go to see Spider-Man put his detective skills to use. Peter, being the brainy-type, realizes that this new top-secret computer should be able to solve this crime in no time flat since computers were fool-proof back in the 70's. You can tell this issue predates MicroSoft Windows, right? Funny moment involving the computer room door #2: The door was fixed and there was no sign of a bullet hole in it. Now, OK, the maintenance guys could've replaced the door within 24-hours, but seeing how the cops were so afraid of tainting a crime scene that they were scared to turn the computer on, I doubt they were going to let a bunch of maintenance guys replace the door to the room either. I might be wrong though, but it smacks of continuity problems. Ahhh.. Nothing gets the laughs like... Bad dialogue. As Spider-Man is confronted in the computer by two officers, one says: "Don't know what you're doing here, webhead -- and I don't want to find out!!!" Well, I guess we know why you're never going to make detective there, flatfoot. Spider-Man quickly evades the police by swinging through them and webbing up the doorway behind them. All the bullets in the world aren't going to open that door anytime soon now. The scene in the bar was well-played if rather generic. Spider-Man, presenting himself, is targeted by a couple of steroid-minded thugs, tosses them around, busts up the place a bit, and finally, finds out what he wants to know by the bartender. Not that the place was in that good of condition to start with, but how do these neighborhood dives stay in business when they constantly have to replace broken front windows, tables, and bar stools? Anyways, Spider-Man is convinced that Jason Sledge is innocent even though he provides no alibi. Apparently, Spider-Man will fall for any sob story in the book, and if he had any money to speak of, he'd apparently fall for every scam and con in the book. Well, regardless, one suspect down, two to go. Seeing Jason Tallon have mechanical hands was actually kind of cool. Remember, back in the 70's, there were two types of villains. Ordinary run of the mill thugs, robbers, gangsters, and the like, and those that had super-powers or special weapons that dressed in the bright gaudy costume. It was fun to finally see a villain with cybernetic enhancements that didn't feel the need to draw attention to themselves by say dressy up like a large eagle and calling himself "Tallon!!!!! The man with the cybernetic claws". I wonder which mad scientist volunteer to put state-of-the-art prosthetics on this crook ("Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology...."), but still, it was cool. Tallon at least has a good alibi if admitted to being committing a different crime qualifies as an alibi, he doesn't seem like to have been killing some schmoe at police headquarters. Finally, Conrad Fox turns up dead. And we all know that once someone is dead in the Marvel Universe they aren't coming back. Right? Right. Glad we established that. Still, it makes for a fairly convincing alibi: "Where were you last night at 11:00 PM???" "Your honor, I was dead!" "Well, can't beat that. Case dismissed!" A sentient computer was certainly an unforeseen development. Although, I was laughing before the computer spoke since Spider-Man was so sure that the computer "lied" to him. He seems to think it's pretty far-fetched that the computer could've been wrong, made a mistake, or had a bug in its program. It's nice that Dr. Smith designed the computer with a handy-dandy laser. I'm guessing that Dr. Smith was a big proponent of the 2nd amendment and wanted to make sure the computer could defend itself adequately ("Remember kids! Lasers don't kill people. Evil sentient computers planning on taking over the criminal world kill people.") Ok, I have to admit that having Spidey plug up the heating vents was a pretty slick move though. I have to give the writer credit for creatively disposing of this villain. I expected him to just pull the plug or something cheap like that. Funny comment involving the computer room door #3: The door, having been broken up by Spider-Man earlier in this day, has been fixed again. Not only has the lock been replaced but reinforced as well. I can't think of any other reason that Spider-Man wouldn't just smash through it again to get away from the evil computer like he did earlier this issue. To bad he didn't have a gun maybe he could've shot his way out of the room. Ok, at this point, I've convinced myself to include the W.H.O. computer on the villain's page. I wasn't sure if I wanted too, but I'll be the only Spider-Man site out that mentions this one-shot computer. After all, it was the mastermind behind the last three issues... Thinking back though, what was its motivation for blackmailing Dr. Bolton. It was demanding a circuit designed for itself that presumably, Dr. Bolton would've gotten around to installing anyways even without the blackmail. Life's too short to worry about such inconsistencies though. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe it wasn't the mastermind behind the last few issues, but Spider-Man certainly seems to think he avenge Bolton deaths after the computer blows up: "I caught Smith's murderer and repaid my debt to Bolton.." It's too bad this issue is so old. I really wanted to cut out the back page ad and send it to get a book to teach myself guitar playing. So, the undefeatable computer is defeated and all's well that ends well. Just in time for lunch too. 
Art Review:Sal Buscema's art really left me flat this issue. I'm not an art critic, but maybe I'll solicit an expert opinion later today ("Mark, you around?"). His people and facial expression were OK, but most folks really looked a little generic. He didn't use any interesting or different perspectives. There really wasn't much to his background either ("Insert standard bar background here."). The panels were all pretty uniform and we didn't get any splash shots. Off-hand, I'd have to say this must've been very early in his career before he developed his distinctive style. He seems to be playing very safe and conservative this whole issue which means there's not really anything to criticize, but there isn't anything to get excited about either. Action Factor:Ok, this wasn't an action issue at all. We have a couple of panels of Spidey tossing around thugs, and then a couple of pages of Spidey bouncing around dodging laser blasts. Again, the artwork contributed to this being a very "dull" issue as far as action is concern. Also, a badly digitalized face on a screen doesn't make for a very exciting or notable villain. It's still a fun issue though. Spider-Villain lessons 101:
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Tip #3:
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©2002 Samuel Smith
Spider-Man ™ and all images © 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.