BHOC: PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #33

There was really no disguising the fact that, for most of its long run, PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN was at best a secondary title, and often a series that wasn’t being given A-list resources to succeed with. While there were some bright spots along the way, the series was constantly operating under the handicap of being the second Spider-Man title. This meant that AMAZING SPIDER-MAN invariably had stronger and more experienced creative teams and also set the direction for the web-slinger’s life and adventures. The folks doing PETER PARKER had to be content with simply producing “more Spider-Man stories”, often of relatively little consequence. This particular three-parter is a good example of what typically filled the book’s pages.

Writer Bill Mantlo is well-remembered these days in particular for the work he did on series such as ROM and MICRONAUTS as well as his long run on INCREDIBLE HULK. But starting out, Bill was the king of the emergency fill-in. If a title needed a plot written that day, Bill was always ready to jump into the breech. So his work was fairly inconsistent. He really loved Marvel’s super heroes, though, and coveted writing ongoing series, so whenever fate conspired to put him at the helm of one, he gave it his all. But for all that, this run on SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN was fine, but secondary. Mantlo attempted to fill out a secondary cast in Peter Parker’s life that he would have more immediate command over, but the characters never evidenced the staying power of those featured in AMAZING. Most of the plots, meanwhile, were relatively basic. I had been enthralled by the long-running Carrion mystery, largely because it was the first instance of the mystery villain plotline that I got to experience in real time. But thereafter, something was missing.

Along the same lines, the artwork on this particular issue was provided by Jim Mooney and Frank Springer, both of whom were long-standing veterans of the industry by this time. Accordingly, their work is fine, heavy with the kinds of medium shots that incoming EIC Jim Shooter preferred in his comics. But it wasn’t spectacular. Because Mooney had been in the business for so long, he didn’t have any particular attachment to these stories; they were just another assignment to put food on the table, and he was a craftsman practicing his craft. And he really did a nice job, it’s simply that intangible extra plus factor that makes fan favorites that’s missing here. Mooney also had a habit during this period of drawing Spider-Man’s head almost like it was a balloon, with no real sense of there being a skull inside of that head. This made the character look wonky.

So we’ve got an enthusiastic but journeyman writer and a competent but under-engaged artist. What did they come up with for this issue? Well, it’s the second part of a three-part story that introduces the Iguana, who is effectively Spider-Man’s old foe the Lizard with all of the interesting bits cut away. The issue opens with the wall-crawler confronting is reptilian foe in the reptile wing of the Bronx Zoo, where Curt Connors has disappeared a short time earlier. At first, Spidey had thought that this new menace was Connors once again manifesting his Lizard persona, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is something new. Spidey and the Iguana’s fight leads to the other reptiles in the wing being released from captivity and pouring out into the zoo, causing a panic. Ultimately, the best that the wall-crawler is able to do is to drive the Iguana off by turning up the lights, and then escaping with Connors in the confusion.

Once all of the shouting has died down, and Peter Parker has put in a requisite appearance with his supporting cast who were at the zoo, thus justifying the name PETER PARKER in the book’s title, Spidey swings over to Curt Connors’ laboratory to get the lowdown from the scientist on the Iguana. It turns out that a mistake made with the Enervator, a device that Connors once used to help save Spider-Man’s life, is responsible for transferring a portion of the Lizard’s own life essence into a hapless iguana, causing it to evolve into human form. The Iguana had hypnotized Connors into forgetting the events of his creation, but the scientist now remembers–and he and Spidey dope out that if the Iguana possesses a portion of the Lizard’s persona, then he’s likely to go after Connors’ family. Ad Spidey races out to try to get to the Connors family first, Curt, thinking that he’s got no other choice, deliberately exposes himself to the effects of the Enervator in the hopes of becoming the Lizard once again and thus being able to face the Iguana head-to-head.

But we’re in the back half of the issue, which means that it’s time for the fighting to begin! We cut to the Connors’ apartment, where the Iguana has cornered young Billy and his mother. But Spidey arrives just in time to pull the monster away from the family, and the battle is joined. As Spidey and the Iguana trade blows and strategies across the top of the building, we cross-cut to the Lizard drawing ever closer, intent on punishing the one who had dared to steal his essence and identity. This all builds to a final page splash where, with the wall-crawler on the ropes, the Iguana’s attention is caught by a voice calling him out–and turns to see the Lizard scaling the building towards him with revenge in his heart. And that’s where this issue is To Be Continued!

So, yeah, the issue runs the bases just fine, but it doesn’t really have anything else to offer beyond that. The Iguana is a paper-thin adversary who’s just not three issues interesting, Mantlo’s use of recent continuity with the Enervator feels more strained than plausible, like an exercise in doing the sort of cross-title continuity that other writers were doing without having a particularly good reason for it, and even Connors’ choice to become the Lizard again both feels obvious as well as under-motivated, and it’s tipped off so early on in the issue that the final splash page, when it comes, isn’t any sort of a shock, for all that it’s competently drawn. It’s a pretty dull comic book all around, and was a good exemplar of the sort of fare that PETER PARKER, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN was going to be offering for the next year or so.

The letters page this time out mentions that a Jon Green of Ronkonkoma, New York was the first reader to puzzle out the true identity of carrion, and this was of particular interest to me because I lived at the time in Farmingville, one town over from Ronkonkoma. I was always on the hunt for other people who shared my obsession with comic books, and so I had an interest in meeting this fellow who had proven to be so insightful in his reading of earlier issues. But I never did–I was far too shy and self-conscious to reach out to him unannounced. A few years later, my friend Israel Litwack, who likewise lived in Ronkonkoma, told me that he knew of Jon Green, who was a year or two older than us, but indicated that he wasn’t somebody that I really wanted to meet. I trusted his judgment in that, and never pursued the matter any further after that.