SONS OF THE TIGER PART 15 - MEANWHILE...

And now we wrap up the saga of the White Tiger with a couple of "reruns" from the earlier days of this blog. Way back in 2014, I looked at one of my all-time favorite Marvel runs -- Roger Stern's tenure on SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN from the early eighties. As part of his work on the former title, Stern decided to revisit Hector Ayala and, at least at the time, give his story a conclusion. Stern did a story about a hero-killing vigilante called Gideon Mace, and I suppose he needed to show that Mace was serious business, so he decided to have him cripple Spidey's pal from SPECTACULAR's earlier days.

When I read this at the time (and previously, in my younger days), I didn't think much of it since the Tiger was a curiosity and not a character with whom I was terribly familiar. But now, with the benefit of having seen his earliest appearances in DEADLY HANDS and some of his struggles in SPECTACULAR, Stern's callous treatment of the Tiger and his family, characters into whom Bill Mantlo clearly had invested a great deal of his energies and interest (and into whom George Pérez had injected biographical tidbits from his own life and family), reads differently, and is perhaps a blemish on his otherwise wonderful run.

But I'll let you decide! Following are my looks at the White Tiger backup serial Stern used to set up his Gideon Mace tale, and then Spider-Man's battle against Mace himself, originally posted here way back in the summer of '14:

PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN: THE WHITE TIGER SERIAL
PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #52

But if, after reading these stories, you think Roger Stern was rough on the Tiger, just remember that a couple decades later, in the pages of DAREDEVIL, Brian Bendis had him framed for a crime he didn't commit, after which he was gunned down and killed by cops while trying to clear his name.

So that's it for the White Tiger, but we're not quite finished with this saga yet. There's still one last big dangling plot left over from the final days of DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU, so I broke out the Comicraft fonts and prepared a little "primer" to get you ready for it:

X-MEN: INFERNO PROLOGUE

Hardcover, 2014. Collects 1988's X-FACTOR #27 - 32, X-FACTOR ANNUAL #3, UNCANNY X-MEN #228 - 238, UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL #12, NEW MUTANTS #62 - 70, NEW MUTANTS ANNUAL #4, and material from MARVEL AGE ANNUAL #4 and MARVEL FANFARE #40.

As noted in December's THE UNBOXING, I recently acquired Marvel's newly released X-MEN: INFERNO PROLOGUE hardcover volume. This book fills a long-present gap in Marvel's collections of the UNCANNY X-MEN series and its related titles. The full details are on my X-MEN COLLECTED EDITIONS page, but the short of is that, thanks to this book bringing us issues 228 - 238, we now have the entirety of UNCANNY X-MEN, issues 220 through 306, collected in oversize hardcover format (and issues 220 - 337 collected in some format or another, between oversize and standard size hardcovers and trade paperbacks!).

But that's not all -- INFERNO PROLOGUE also brings us X-FACTOR issues 27 - 32, NEW MUTANTS issues 62 - 70, plus a few assorted annuals. That means, for those keeping track, via previous books plus this one, we now have X-FACTOR 19 - 40 in oversize hardcover and NEW MUTANTS 55 - 73 in the same format (in fact, thanks again to various trade paperbacks and other collections, most notably the NEW MUTANTS CLASSIC series, every issue of that title is collected save for issues 74 - 85 -- not bad!).

So for completists, the issues contained in this book are greatly appreciated. But what about the quality of the material and the volume itself?

PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #52

"THE DAY OF THE HERO KILLERS!"
Writer: Roger Stern | Penciler: Rick Leonardi | Inker: Jim Mooney
Letterer: Jim Novak | Colorist: Ben Sean | Editor: Denny O'Neil
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The White Tiger's body is dumped outside the Daily Bugle building just as Peter Parker is on his way out. As the car which carried the Tiger speeds away, Peter tags it with a spider-tracer before turning his attention to the ailing Tiger, who has a note reading "This is the first" pinned to his chest. An ambulence arrives and carries the Tiger and Peter to Bellevue Hospital, where Blackbyrd appears to watch over the Tiger as the emergency surgeons work on him. Meanwhile, Peter changes to Spider-Man and goes in search of his spider-tracer.

The web-slinger eventually tracks the car to a junkyard where Gideon Mace's men are disposing of it. Spider-Man takes the soldiers out and speaks with Mace over their radio. Mace brags that he and his men are headquartered at the decommissioned East Side National Guard Armory, and the wall-crawler heads there immediately. He allows Mace's men to believe he has been killed by their land mines, thus sneaking into the building and getting the drop on them. After working his way through several armed soldiers and their howitzers, Spider-Man comes face to face with Mace. The webbed wonder gets the upper hand on the villain, but Mace orders his men to open fire, even if it means taking him out. Mace is gunned down as Spider-Man dives for cover. Later, Mace is wheeled into Bellevue just as the White Tiger is removed from the operating room, in stable condition.

A week later, Hector Ayala removes the tiger amulets, declaring that the White Tiger will be no more. He and his girlfriend Holly move away from New York to find someplace where they can live once more in anonymity.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN PART THIRTEEN - EXCALIBUR CLASSIC, VOL. 3

Issue number 12 of EXCALIBUR begins a storyline called "The Cross-Time Caper" -- labelled on the cover as part 1 of 9. "Cross-Time Caper" ends in issue #24. Even with one inventory issue along the way (#20), that still means this supposed 9-part storyline actually clocks in at twelve parts! Chris Claremont is known for "writing to the moment" and abandoning his established plans when an apparently better idea comes to him. Presumably, that's what happened here to lengthen "Cross-Time".

Unfortunately, the result is a story which long overstays its welcome. Never mind that sending the heroes of a relatively new series off on an extended trains-dimensional romp, away from their supporting cast and home environs, before they've even hit a dozen issues, is probably not the best-conceived idea -- making that story about two times longer than it probably should've been only exacerbates the problem.