PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #11

"A Life Too Far"

• Writer: Chris Claremont
• Artist: Jim Mooney
• Inker: Mike Esposito
• Print Date: Oct, 1977

Featuring:

Plot Summary:

Ugh, Medusa (and possibly the rest of the Inhumans). This could be more boring that Morbius storyline. What is with the lame villain / guest stars appearing in Spectacular? I probably could've had this review up sooner, but after reading through this once, I needed a break before trying to put together a page for it.

The story opens in the evening in an operating room of the Manhattan-South Medical Center. Peter Parker stands in the atrium and watches the surgery performed on some kid who apparently went through a truck's windshield. We have no idea what is going on here, but it seems a safe assumption that we'll find out. A doctor tells Peter that on top of the child's injuries, he also absorbed a deadly toxin. Luckily there is an antidote. There's ALWAYS an antidote where deadly toxins in comics is concerned. Otherwise, what would be the point?

Although the issue would've been significantly improved if the doctor had simply told Peter: "Sorry, he absorbed a lethal chemical toxin. There's no antidote and nothing we can do for him." Then Peter goes home and has a quiet evening in with Mary-Jane.

Nope, instead we go into flashback mode as Peter recalls the kid pushing him and Mary-Jane out of the path of a speeding truck.

The doctor tells Peter that the boy is stable, and the antidote is en route from Downstate Medical. While the doctor's back is turned, Peter runs off.

I'm two pages in, and nothing has convinced me this is going to be anything but a lame, contrived story. I can't even get started on the "But why..?" questions that popped into my mind during the course of this issue.

Peter runs off to change into his costume. He apparently spoke to his chemistry professor and found out that the neuro-toxin works like certain variety of snake venoms. It attacks the nervous system causing a quick and agonizing death. According to his professor, the boy has 2 hours to get the antidote. Peter's concern is that the ambulance is not going to be able to get through rush-hour gridlock in time to save the kid's life. He swings off to provide an escort to the ambulance and guarantee that it arrives in time.

How is he going to pinpoint one single ambulance threading its way through New York traffic? And why, with the urgency, couldn't they have simply flown the antidote by helicopter? And the kid went through surgery to pick a ton of glass out of his system, why did they wait until after the surgery was finished to send for the antidote? Were they waiting to see if survived the operating table?

As Peter crosses the city, he thinks back to earlier in the afternoon when he and Mary-Jane were enjoying a Central Park sidewalk art show. Peter's spider-sense warns him of out-of-control van heading straight for them, but not in time for Peter to pull Mary-Jane out of the way without using his Spider-Power. Luckily, a stranger pushes them aside before crawling into the van and steering it out of the crowd. The van crashes smashing the boy against the windshield and splashing its cargo of toxic chemicals all over him as well. Peter pulls the unconscious hero from the wreckage just before the van explodes.

I'm not even sure where to begin with the eye-rolling moments in this flashback. Ok, Peter has enough time to notice the truck, but his first concern was his secret identity so he hesitates instead of pulling MJ out of the way. However a non-super-powered stranger has enough time to leap in and pull the pair to safety? Then said stranger crawls inside the speeding van and steers it out of the crowd before crashing. And apparently Peter, again, was too concerned about his secret identity to fire a webline or something and stop the truck himself? No wonder Peter is at the hospital. His selfish concerns indirectly caused the death of the driver of the vehicle and caused this kid to be serious injured. He is lucky someone else was present to rescue Mary-Jane or it might be her on that operating table.

Peter thinks: "The driver looks like he's had it" before dragging the kid away from the burning truck. Well, if the driver wasn't already dead the subsequent explosion surely finished him off. Probably a good thing though, otherwise we might have had _two_ people requiring this life-saving antidote, and where would we be then?

Naturally, Spider-Man finds the ambulance smashed and its drivers unconscious just outside Downstate Medical. One of the drivers tells Spider-Man that someone smashed the ambulance and stole the serum. Spider-Man spots someone fleeing over the rooftop. Spider-Man tackles his mysterious adversary and finds it is Medusa who stole the serum. Rather than explain why she is stealing the antidote, she simply attacks Spider-Man claiming "my need is desperate". Medusa and Spider-Man battle which ends when Medusa's hair rips apart a chimney and pummels Spider-Man with a barrage of bricks.

Have I used the words contrived and cliched yet to describe this story? Can we throw hackneyed into the mix? Naturally no one can take a few moments to sit down and explain their actions, but instead they feel compelled to participate in a protracted fight.

Apparently Spider-Man was out for a good 30 minutes or so because the child at the hospital only has 60 minutes to get the antidote. Luckily Spider-Man tagged Medusa with a Spider-tracer so he can follow her. I'm used to comic-book retcons, but it is not often where the writer re-writes part of the story in the same issue. We see a shot of Spider-Man being tossed into a brick chimney as it happens. Then, when he regains consciousness, Spider-Man recalls the exact same scene only he is tagging Medusa with a spider-tracer while being smashed about.

The tracer signal leads Spider-Man to Coney Island. He ambushes Medusa with a web, but she manages to escape. Medusa flees and begins to climb the roller-coaster scaffold. After another scuffle, Medusa tosses Spider-Man onto a passing roller coaster car where Spidey spots some damaged track (from the fight) up ahead. With a heroic effort, Spider-Man manages to stop the train before it crashes.

I swear, this comic reads like a "TOP 10" list of overused comic contrivances. Misunderstanding pits normally hero folks against each other? - Check. Too busy to talk but not too busy to fight? - Check. Innocents in danger forcing the hero to rescue them? - Check. Deadline and running clock? - Check.

Medusa arrives at a derelict pier on the far end of Coney Island. Inside she finds Karnak, Black Bolt, and the rest of the Inhumans. She passes the antidote to Karnak for an injured inhuman named Falzon. However, Spider-Man crashes in and takes out Medusa and Triton quickly. He battles Gorgon while Karnak and Falzon work on high-tech looking device. Finally when Spider-Man is faced with Black Bolt's passive nature, he explains what he needs the serum for. Karnak tells him that Falzon did not require much of the serum and Spider-man is welcome to the remainder. Since Spider-Man cannot make it to the hospital in time, Black Bolt takes the serum and flies off.

And our climatic ending where the boy gets the antidote and lives? Yeah, that happens completely off panel in-between pages.

Later everyone gathers at the hospital. Apparently the boy is going to be OK. Also, the Inhumans explained they were trying to defuse a Kree Anti-Matter Warhead that fell into the sea recently. The Inhumans recovered the bomb and were in the process of defusing it when Falzon tripped a booby-trap and collapsed under the Kree nerve gas. The serum was the only antidote.

Good grief, this is such an awful story, I can't even make fun of it properly. Again, it is like the script is check-list of comic book cliches. I can only presume this was some sort of 'in joke' of Chris Claremont's or something.