Spider-Man: The Anniversary Syndrome

Next week, Spider-Man celebrates his 50th anniversary, and Marvel's commemorating it with the giant-sized Amazing Spider-Man #692, by Dan Slott, Humberto Ramos, and a bevy of other creators.  Obviously, Spider-Man's celebrated a few anniversaries before.  For his 25th, he met Venom for the first time; for his 40th, Amazing Spider-Man returned to its original numbering just in time for #500.  But the biggest deal Marvel's ever made over a Spider-Anniversary was back in 1992, for his 30th.  Of course, in 1992, Marvel would take any possible excuse to add on a shiny cover and some extra features, so it's perhaps no surprise that this was such an event.  There were four-count-'em'-four ongoing Spider-Man books at the time, so each one got a super-sized anniversary issue, complete with backup stories, a pull-out poster, and a holographic cover.  Holograms get a bad rap, but these are actually very nicely done, although as can be seen below, they don't actually scan very well.

All of the covers look like this, with varying background colours, so I'm just gonna scan this one.

The Metamorphosis of Dr. Kafka

With issue 185, J.M. DeMatteis took the reins of Spectacular Spider-Man, kicking his run off with the dark, creepy The Child Within, a story that focused on Harry Osborn becoming the Green Goblin again, and on the escape of the cannibalistic rat-man, Vermin.  In the first few pages, we're introduced to Vermin's therapist, Dr. Ashley Kafka.  As seen here, Dr. Kafka is pretty clearly middle-aged.

" - get six figures worth of plastic surgery before my next appearance!"
(Spectacular Spider-Man #184, written by J.M. DeMatteis, art by Sal Buscema)

She kept turning up beyond that story, and became a full-blown Spider-Man supporting character.  And it is not a good thing to be a Spider-Man supporting character.  All sorts of things can happen to you; you could become a supervillain, or you could marry a supervillain, or your son might become a werewolf, or maybe you'll just get chucked off a bridge and die.  But something even stranger happened to Dr. Kafka.

Amazing Spider-Man #407 is always gonna be with you.

Well, better than the one-stroke penalty you get when you hit your ball into Hydro-Man.

I was reading The Complete Ben Reilly Epic, volume 2 (available at all finer booksellers now, from the good people at Marvel's Trades Department), and the lead issue, 1996's Amazing Spider-Man #407, really grabbed me.  The issue centres around the people of New York City (and specifically, the Human Torch, Silver Sable, and the Sandman) getting used to new Spider-Man Ben Reilly, and around Ben Reilly getting used to his new job in a coffeehouse (because 1996).  It's not the best thing DeFalco's ever written or the best thing Bagley's ever drawn, but it made me smile in that goofy "oh, comics" way that Tom DeFalco does so well.  Specifically, it made me smile three times.

Who Watches the Nightwatch Part 3: Crossoverkill

Hey, remember those new-character 1993 annuals I was talking about in our last installment?  Well, Web of Spider-Man had one, too, introducing not one, not two, but three new characters!  Vortex, Dementia, and Shard are...the Cadre!  Who?  Yeah, pretty much.  Forget about them, they suck.  Marvel annuals of the late '80s and early '90s were jam-packed with backup stories, and this one is no different.  One of those just happens to be another Nightwatch story, written by Terry Kavanagh with art by Mark Powers and Hector Collazo.

And then...OBSCURITY!

Action is his reward.

I know what you like.  Don't think I don't see that the top half of the Popular Posts list is all Archie sex metaphors and lesbian harems (and, uh, Alpha Flight).  You want the S-E-X.  Scanner's still broken, so let's see what I've got on my hard drive...

1992's Amazing Spider-Man #357, written by Al Milgrom with art by Mark Bagley and Randy Emberlin, is the penultimate issue of the truly ridiculous Round Robin: The Sidekick's Revenge storyline, which involves the Secret Empire, the Seekers (not Starscream et al, but some goofy Iron Man villains), obligatory '90s guest stars (Darkhawk!  Nova!  Night Thrasher!), and Moon Knight's presumed-dead-but-actually-an-evil-cyborg sidekick Midnight (hence the title, because Moon Knight is kinda like Batman and his sidekick is kinda like oh ho ho my sides).  Anyway, Spider-Man's taking a break from looking for Nova, who got himself captured because he is a dope - but after a little something something, he gets a call from Moon Knight:

Amusingly, the following panel reveals that Moon Knight heard
this entire conversation.  I bet he spent their next teamup snickering under his cowl.

Peter, you dork.  You're lucky she didn't sell your marriage to Mephisto after that.