THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #158
"Hammerhead Is Out!"
Featuring:Plot Summary:We open immediately after last issue. To answer your burning question: No, Spider-man has not learned how to fly. After being dropped from a helicopter by Doctor Octopus, Spider-Man is plummeting to his death. Thinking quickly, Spider-Man decides not to spin his famous web-parachute because that would simply lower him the ground and strand him in the rural areas outside of New York City. Instead, he fashions the first bona fide, handy-dandy, all-purpose, web-constructed hang-glider allowing him to glide back into the city proper. Gliding over New York, he bails out before the glider carries him out over the Atlantic Ocean, and attempts to rescue himself with a webline. The bad news is that he misjudges the speed of his decent and fires a webline too late. The good news is that he's saved by a convenient placed dumpster. A messy rescue is better than no rescue at all. And on that sartorial note, we cut to Peter Parker's charming Chelsea apartment sometime the following morning. Peter sits sewing up his costume reflecting on how he couldn't track down Octopus' and Aunt May's trail yesterday. Today's plan involves hanging out at home listening to the police band hoping Octopus crawls out from under his rock. Pete's thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door. The costume is quickly tossed in the bedroom as Glory Grant has stopped by with a freshly-baked cake and invites herself in for coffee. She admires Pete's 'furnishings' (basically a single chair, rug, and portable radio and wanders into the kitchen when a buzz at the front door indicates another visitor. Pete looks out his 2nd-story window to see Mary Jane standing at the front stoop below. When she comes up, she tells Pete that she was just dropping her Aunt Anna off and that May's apartment is a disaster area! Furniture has been overturned, a big hole is in the wall, and Aunt May is nowhere to be seen (all courtesy of Dr. Octopus last issue). Mary Jane sees Glory out in the kitchen and heads out there to admire her outfit. The phone rings ("What's next... a singing telegram?"). Robbie Robertson is calling Pete down to the Bugle for an emergency assignment. Peter slips into the bedroom to put his costume on under his clothes, and then heads off to the Bugle. He asks the ladies to lock up when they leave. And in little more time than it took me to turn the page, we join Peter with Robbie Robertson at the Daily Bugle offices. Peter asks what the emergency is; did Ronald Reagan change his brand of toothpaste again? Apparently Robbie's big emergency is that the Bugle's competitor, the Daily Globe, has acquired a new publisher, one K.J. Clayton (Who? I don't know!). Apparently, Mr. Clayton has been raiding the Bugle's staff and hiring them away to work at the Globe. Robbie wants to know if Peter's been contacted. This conversation gets interrupted by an eruption from J. Jonah Jameson shouting at his new temp secretary (while Betty Brant is honeymooning in Paris). We have an amusing interlude watching the new secretary, Miss Pringle, misdial phone calls, run down legal documents, and finally, dumping a cup of cold coffee in J.J.J.'s lap. Our interlude at the Bugle ends with Miss Pringle being fired by Jonah and Peter telling Robbie that he wouldn't leave the Bugle for the Globe unless, of course, the money was good. News flash from one of the gofers around the office: "Doctor Octopus is holding some old lady hostage out at Brookhaven Labs!!!!" Taking his cue, Peter runs out of the office. 
Brookhaven National Laboratory, on Long Island's thriving North Shore: Usually these quiet buildings are merely devoted to extensive research in the field of atomic energy, but today they are an arena, a burgeoning battlefield destined to witness combat of a most unlikely nature! In one corner we have a crack of well-trained commandos from the Suffolk Country's SWAT (Special Weapon and Tactics) team, and in the other, Dr. Otto Octavius -- A.K.A. Doctor Octopus, super-villain supreme and sworn protector of Aunt May. Octopus tells May to ignore the cops and their bullhorns, and May comments that she knows he is there for the best of reasons. After all (flashing back to their helicopter ride), she saw Hammerhead's ghost manifest itself and threaten Doctor Octopus. It was at this time that Octopus realized that the atomic explosion caused Hammerhead's current manifestation and decided to set course for the atomic labs at Brookhaven. May doesn't understand why Otto wanted to hang out in the laboratory, but Otto, assembling machinery with his tentacles, tells May to be patient and everything will become clear shortly. That would actually put Aunt May one up on her favorite nephew for a change because right now, our friendly neighborhood web-slinger is traveling around in a thick mental fog. Speaking of our hero, we view him hopping off a car that he apparently hitched a ride on out to Brookhaven. Swinging in the trees over the cops patrolling the area, he wonders why Octopus has decided to make his stand here. He hides in the trees watching the movements of the cops and commandos and wonders how Octopus intends to get out of these labs alive! He vows that if Dr. Octopus harms one hair on Aunt May's head, Spider-Man won't leave them enough to bury! But, if he intends to threaten Dr. Octopus, he'll have to wait his turn in line as we view Hammerhead manifesting himself inside the lab. Somehow, the irony of him threatening Octopus and in the same panel, laughing off Dr. Octopus' threats because, "I'm a ghost now, remember? There's no way you can hurt me" is lost on Hammerhead. When Dr. Octopus vows to destroy Hammerhead in a manner of minutes, Spider-Man interrupts the tirade by crashing in through a handy skylight. Octopus vows to protect Aunt May and attempts to swarm Spider-Man with three of his tentacles. Spider-Man nimbly dodges the tentacles and catches the Doctor with two feet to the face and a "Take that, you dirty rat!" causing May to fall from Octopus' forth tentacle. Spider-Man rushes over to check and make sure May Parker is all right but she cowers in fear from the webhead. Octopus, hearing May's cries, grabs Spider-Man and flips him out of a nearby window. Spider-Man snags the building with a web line and swings back in through the shattered window, but not before he's spotted by the SWAT team below. Rejoining the fray, he spots Dr. Octopus taunting Hammerhead to step into the machinery the Doctor has assembled. Our hero drops swoops low kicking Dr. Octopus' meticulously placed machinery around. When Dr. Octopus moves to stop him, Spider-Man brings him down with some webbing to the goggles and a couple of well-placed punches. Spider-Man has Octopus on the ropes when a scream from Aunt May brings them both around. They turn to see Hammerhead's ghost menacing Aunt Man. Instinctively, Spider-Man fires a webline at Hammerhead, but it passes harmlessly through his incorporeal form. Hammerhead continues to laugh and gloat how since no one can hurt him, he's going to take over New York (hard to see how he's going to do this while being unable to physically interact with anything, but we won't worry about that). Dr. Octopus reminds Spider-Man that he had a plan to destroy Hammerhead once and for all, and the two team up to quickly reassemble the machinery that Spider-Man knocked over. Once the machinery is reconstructed, Dr. Octopus again taunts Hammerhead and dares him to come closer. Hammerhead accepts Octopus' challenge and steps forward with a look of glee. It's this look of glee which tips Spider-Man off to Hammerhead's plan. As Spider-Man leaps forward to warn the Doctor, Octopus swats him out of the way with a tentacle and clicks the "on" button. Caught in the energy field, Hammerhead remains still for a moment and suddenly he materializes. Instead of destroying him forever, Doctor Octopus has inadvertently brought Hammerhead back to the land of the living! 
Comments:Listening to a Black Sabbath tribute album, sitting at home, still Sunday morning. Y'know, since I'm kinda documenting what's topical in my life in these pages I'd just like to say that this week, I saw the "Bourne Identity" which is an excellent spy flick even if they did radically change the plot of the original book. Also, I'm really looking forward to a date with Meghan on Tuesday. Of course, she's not reading this since I really haven't talked about my comic book addiction with her yet, but if ever someday she does, we'll know that the date went really well on Tuesday. Plot Analysis:All right, we open with Spider-Man plummeting to his death. Okay, I can accept Spider-Man webbing together a safety net between two buildings. If I must, I can handle his putting up a web parachute, but a web glider???? Sheesh... Why stop there? If he had thrown together a complete web-helicopter, he could've continued the chase. Too bad he can spin a decent web page because then I wouldn't have to waste so much time doing it. Seeing 'domestic Peter' was kind of cool. I especially liked his bachelor pad with its rug, chair, and radio. Apparently crime-fighting doesn't leave much time for accessorizing your apartment. Thinking about it though, it makes a weird sort of sense because he's a part-time photographer. If that is your only source of income and you're trying to afford a decent one-bedroom in New York, I imagine your budget for furniture is stretched pretty thin. Of course, a geeky part-time photographer always has babes hanging around the apartment like Glory Grant and Mary-Jane Watson. Peter looks pretty good in his tighty-whiteys as well. Now, one question I had during this scene is "Why does Peter run off to the Daily Bugle?" I mean, he's sitting by the police radio hoping to hear some word about Doc Ock. If he thought that the Daily Bugle was the better place to await a sign of the good doctor, why didn't he go there in the first place? I mean, supposedly it's been a whole day since he's seen Octopus, you would've thought he could've gotten his laundry done last night and headed on the hunt first thing in the morning. Through the whole issue he seems to make token gestures showing his concerned about Aunt May, but aside from the token "I hope Aunt May is all right", his action and conversations don't strike me as that of someone worrying about a loved one. For instance, how is going to explain to Mary Jane his blasé response to finding out May's apartment is destroyed when Mary Jane finds out that May really was in danger and wasn't 'out with a friend' as Peter insisted. Ahh... Plot holes, what fun would comics be without them? Oh, and what is the start of a parade of bad temps filling in for Betty Leeds (nee Brant) is cute. I wonder how many bad secretaries they can set Jonah up with. Well, it looks like Peter's visit isn't complete loss as the writer finally decides to get back to the main plot. Aunt May performs another significant task this issue, besides being a senile, unconscious hostage. She regains consciousness enough to have a conversation with Doctor Octopus which lets the reader know what the Doctor has been doing since he cut Spidey loose from the helicopter last issue. We find out that the Doctor has planned to rid himself of Hammerhead haunting him. Thankfully, we're spare ALL the details of the past twenty-four hours as I have no desire to think about Aunt May's nocturnal activities. It's also interesting to see SWAT teams on site since so often during a major super-villain rampage, all we see are single cops trying to bring down the villain or managing the scene. It was a nice detail to see a county organizing a hostage rescue team. I'm wondering if Spider-Man should've considered a more stealthy method of trying to rescue Aunt May rather than crashing in and demanding her release. Probably not since May seems more than willing to hang out with Otto and no doubt would've panicked if Spider-Man approached her. Anyway, Aunt May fulfils her role of helpless hostage well, and surprisingly enough manages to stay conscious for an entire issue! And Hammerhead plays a menacing spirit well. However, he continually makes threats about getting revenge, harming Aunt May, and taking over New York, but it's not clear how he intends to accomplish this. I mean, permanent intangibility is a two-way street: No one can do anything to you, but you can't do anything to anyone either. Eventually Octopus convinces Spider-Man that destroying Hammerhead's spirit is the way to go. Apparently, Hammerhead is much smarter than Octopus, especially in the field of atomic energy, as Hammerhead knows that the energy field Octopus creates will return him to corporeal form where Octopus mistakenly thinks it will destroy him. Regardless of everyone's intentions, Hammerhead returns to the land of the physical at the end of the issue. 
Art Review:Ross Andru's backgrounds bothered me a bit more in this issue than in past. I mean, he depicts realistic locations well like Parker's apartment, the Daily Bugle's office, and such. However, his depiction of the interior of the atomic laboratory reminded me more of a gymnasium than a lab. The equipment that Octopus sets up looks more like some sort of weird fans or workout equipment than anything that could generate and atomic energy field. Now, I know such stuff really doesn't exist, but I feel confident saying that, if it did, it wouldn't look like that. Action Factor:Ok, well, we start off with Spider-Man rescuing himself with a web-glider which really wasn't a good action sequence and annoyed me on a variety of levels. There really wasn't a lot of action to speak of otherwise. Spider-Man spends a couple of pages dancing with Doctor Octopus in the lab. Unlike last issue though, Otto looks mostly ineffectual in a fight. His one good shot on Spider-Man involves wrapping him up with a tentacle and tossing him out a window. He doesn't really seem all that threatening here, and he certain doesn't instill a lot of fear or suspense that a good villain should. It just annoyed me to see him treated so well last issue and so lame this issue. Spider-Villain lessons 101:
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©2002 Samuel Smith
Spider-Man ™ and all images © 2002 Marvel Characters, Inc.