BHOC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #190

After a few shaky months following the successive departures of both writer Len Wein and artist Ross Andru, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN finally felt like it was back in the groove again. New writer Marv Wolfman had started up a number of running subplots in Peter Parker’s life, making it feel nuanced and textured again, and the sense of the title as an ongoing soap opera about the life of a young super hero was restored. There was still a bit of shakiness on the art front, which is why John Byrne, one of the fastest pencilers of the era as well as a top flight storyteller, stepped in this time to lay out the issue, which was then finished by Jim Mooney. In this way, you got John’s excellent pacing and choreography without him needing to do all of the heavy lifting. Mooney had been a finisher on Spidey on and off going back to the Romita years, so his versions of all of the characters were very much on point.

Last issue, we saw the web-spinner come to the aid of his perennial nemesis, Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson when the newspaperman was attacked by a strange figure swathed head to toe in bandages. This, it turned out, was the Man-Wolf, Jameson’s own astronaut son who had been changed into a lupine creature through contact with a strange moon-stone years before. As this issue opens, having flattened Spidey momentarily, the Man-Wolf continues in his attempt to make off with his father. The now-recovered wall-crawler moves to intercept, but he’s slowed down by the fact that he’s run out of web-fluid, necessitating a multi-panel replacement of a fresh cartridge in his web-shooters. But this gives the Man-Wolf the time to build up a lead.

As Spidey races to catch up, he’s observed by a flying drone, and by following its transmission back to its source, we learn that the true string-puller here is Spencer Smythe, the scientist who had once created the Spider-Slayer robots for Jameson before himself embarking on a life of crime. Smythe, though, is dying, exposure to the radioactive isotopes needed to power his robots has infected him, giving him only a short time to live. In the time remaining, he intends to get his revenge on both Jameson and Spider-Man. He’s been the one behind the recent activities of the Chameleon and Electro, and he’s the one who stole John Jameson out of the cryonic chamber that was halting his own march towards the grave thanks to the moonstone embedded in his chest, and turned him into Smythe’s own mindless engine of destruction.

As Spidey catches up to the Man-Wolf, he and the beast engage in a running battle all the way across Manhattan. The web-slinger is hampered in his actions by Jameson, who doesn’t want his son to be harmed, and by the assorted civilians that the trio encounters as they make their way through the city, and whom Spidey needs to keep out of the line of fire. Elsewhere in the city, we cut to the offices of the Daily Globe, the Bugle’s chief competitor, where an obscure character from long ago, Globe editor Barney Bushkin, is getting instructions from the newspaper’s shadowy new owner, K. J. Clayton, to hire Peter Parker away from the Bugle, as it’s his photographs that are selling the newspaper. So this is one more subplot ball that writer Marv tosses into the air for the future.

Back at the fight, Jonah has managed to pick up a gun that Spider-Man threw away from a neighborhood cop who was trying to help out by firing on the Man-Wolf. As Spidey is trying to stop the creature but also keep him alive, that was a non-no. But now, as the Man-Wolf comes back to grab up Jameson again, the publisher finds that he can’t bring himself to shoot his own child, even if he’s become a dangerous monster. As the pair lope off towards whatever destination Smythe is guiding them towards, Jameson instead tries to reason with his son, recounting to him about all of the time in the past that they spent together. But it’s not really doing any good. And afraid that his own ravaged body is going to give out before he can see his revenge, Smythe orders the Man-Wolf to carry Jameson to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge.

But by this point, Spider-Man has shown up again, and launches himself between the Man-Wolf and his prey. But his action might not be necessary, as Jameson’s heartfelt words appear to have reached his son within the beast, and over a four-panel sequence, he returns to his human form again, the danger past. This, of course, enrages the dying Smythe, who lashes out, determined to take at least some measure of flesh from those he hates. He triggers the control implant within John Jameson, causing the astronaut to plummet off of the bridge.

By this time, though, Spider-Man has plenty of personal experience with people being hurled off of bridges, and he leaps downward, grabbing John Jameson and stopping his fall. But Smythe isn’t finished yet, and as he presses a button, John vanishes in a burst of light. Is he dead? Teleported away? Spidey has no way of knowing. What’s more, Jonah didn’t see this happen, and so as the web-slinger returns to the top of the bridge empty-handed, Jameson lashes out at him for having allowed his son to die. I don’t know that this all quite lives up to the cover blurb promising an amazing surprise shock ending, but still it was relatively effective. Although Marv steps on the final moment a little bit with a last narrative caption that is positively massive and which gilds the lily of the moment a little bit.