BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #187

At about this time, I entered Sixth Grade in Elementary School, which would prove to be a year of some significance in my overall journey. I wound up once again in the same class as my comics-reading pal Donald Sims, the last time we’d share classes together, so already I was on somewhat firm and familiar ground. And I was in general smart enough and well-read enough that typical school subjects were easy for me to coast along on and still do well. My Father put a lot of emphasis on education and being prepared for the future, so the ability to get good grades was a bit of a necessity. But what this all meant is that I never really developed any strong studying habits–I hadn’t needed to–and so when I advanced into Junior High and eventually High School, where more actual work had to be put in, it was uncomfortable and unfamiliar to me.

But after those initial school days, once we got to Thursday afternoon, I was able to ride my bike down to the 7-11 and complete my weekly ritual of buying the new comic book releases, which were put out on that day. This issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was one of them. It wasn’t an issue that I especially liked as a kid, and looking at it today, I’m 98% certain that it started out as one of writer/editor Marv Wolfman’s “Marvel Fill-In Comics” stories, inventory jobs designed to be able to be used in multiple different titles as the need arose. This one paired up Spidey and Captain America and seems like it could have fit just as comfortably into CAPTAIN AMERICA or MARVEL TEAM-UP as easily as AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. But ASM was where it ended up.

Marv dialogues the opening so as to reflect recent events in the series, in particular the fact that only last issue, Spidey had been cleared of all of the assorted criminal charges that had been hanging over his head. And the artwork is pretty nice, owing primarily to the finishes by Bob McLeod, I think. Jim Starlin only did breakdowns on this job, so the storytelling is all his. But the relative new McLeod appears t have really worked to make the finished end product sparkle, employing a lot of zip-a-zone and texture effects to give the artwork an appealing lushness. Starlin’s Spider-Man always looked too large to my eye–like John Buscema and a few others, his natural figure sense leaned towards larger, more solid figures. So his Captain America was spot on. But his Spidey, consequently, didn’t have the typical wiryness we associate with the character.

The issue opens with Spider-Man making his way into the cordoned-off town of Indian Point. He’s there on behalf of Jonah Jameson, who dispatched Peter Parker to get some photographs and to try to work out why SHIELD has evacuated and sealed off this small township. Getting inside is no problem for the web-slinger despite the heavily armed SHIELD guards encircling the place. But as Spidey alights to get his bearings, he’s suddenly attacked–by Captain America. The Sentinel of Liberty has his game face on, and he orders Spider-Man to leave the area immediately. After a requisite struggle, the wall-crawler seems to do just that. With Spidey gone, Cap continues his own search and thinks back to the events that led him here.

It all started when the son of megastar film actor Robert Starr was bitten by a rat. The boy was sent to the hospital for testing–but before the results of those tests could come back, the boy was abducted for ransom. Cap and SHIELD have traced the kidnappers to Indian Point. And they’ve evacuated and cordoned off the area due to what the test results showed: the rat Barry Starr was bitten by was carrying the plague, and so now he’ll be contagious. Cap needs to locate him and get him into quarantine before the situation becomes a pandemic. This is why he shooed Spider-Man away, for the web-head’s own safety–Cap is willing to put his own life on the line in this matter, but nobody else’s. Unfortunately, it turns out that the kidnapper is Spidey’s old foe, Max Dillon, Electro, and he takes Cap by surprise, zapping the bejeezus out of him.

Of course, Spidey didn’t really take off, he just swung away a short distance and has been shadowing Cap ever since, unaware of the danger he’s exposing himself to. But he knows the score with Electro just as soon as he sees him, and he swings down to clobber his old enemy, giving Cap time to recover from his earlier jolt. Together, the two heroes double-team the overwhelmed Electro–who isn’t at his best because he’s unknowingly contracted the plague himself due to his proximity to the kidnapped boy. At this revelation, Electro flips out, plugging himself into the energy grid of the power station he’s been hiding out in. He’d apparently been paid to destroy it, but thought up the kidnapping as a side-hustle that would net him some more cash. Now, he’s hoping that the power he’s drawing from the station will make him strong enough to overcome the effects of the disease he’s been infected with.

Would it have? We’ll never know. Because Electro pulls too much juice into himself, causing him to lose control and for the feedback to cause the entire building to explode in an electrical discharge. Fortunately, Cap, Spidey and Barry Starr are all able to get out beforehand. But Electro doesn’t appear to have been as lucky. (But don’t worry, he’d return many more times over the years–so perhaps his makeshift treatment worked after all.) In the aftermath, the two heroes get inoculated to the disease, Barry is handed off to get medical treatment and everything wraps up nicely. The only thing left is for SHIELD to issue a cover story explaining why there’s been a massive power outage as a result of the detonation of the power station.