THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #224

"LET FLY THESE AGED WINGS!"
A tale tastefully told by our Amazing Spider-Team:
Writer: Roger Stern | Artists: John Romita, Jr. & Pablo Marcos
Letterer: Joe Rosen | Colorist: Glynis Wein | Editor: Tom DeFalco
Seeker of True Happiness: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Spider-Man foils a bank robbery while the Vulture escapes from Bellevue Hospital after a chance meeting with Nathan Lubensky in the physical therapy ward. Vulture goes on a days-long crime spree in the diamond district while hiding out as one of Nathan's fellow tenants in the Restwell Nursing Home.

Eventually Peter Parker shows up at Restwell for lunch with Nathan and Aunt May, and recognizes the Vulture. Peter changes to Spider-Man and fights his winged foe inside the nursing home, but the Vulture eventually escapes after briefly taking Nathan hostage before realizing he considers Nathan a friend and letting him go.

The Sub-Plots: No sub-plots per se, though we do get an appearance by Peter's rival photographer at the Daily Bugle, Lance Bannon, who was introduced to the series about a year earlier by Denny O'Neil and John Romita, Jr.

PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #61

"BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOONSTONE"
Story: Roger Stern | Dialogue: Bill Mantlo | Artists: Ed Hannigan & Jim Mooney
Letters: Jean Simek | Colors: Ben Sean | Editor: Tom DeFalco
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: After saving a hapless child from falling to his death while trying to emulate him, Spider-Man arrives at Empire State University, where he spots a mysterious figure breaking into the science building. The wall-crawler moves to investigate and the intruder reveals herself as a villainess named Moonstone. In the ensuing fight, bystander Marcy Kane, working late into the night, is injured. While performing CPR on Marcy, Spider-Man allows Moonstone to escape with a piece of equipment stolen from the lab of Dr. Curt Connors.

Soon after, Spider-Man speaks with Connors about the stolen device, the portable enervator pak, which Moonstone intends to use to supercharge her powers for a crime spree with the ultimate intention of attracting the eye of a potential new employer. Connors provides Spider-Man with a tracking device which allows the web-slinger to track Moonstone down. This time Spider-Man bests his foe, knocking her out and removing the enervator from her before it can, as expected by Connors, harm her. The enervator explodes, Moonstone is captured, and Marcy makes a full recovery at St. Luke's Hospital.

THE INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS

When I was a youngster, I enjoyed the occasional Marvel comic, mostly Spider-Man stuff. But it was a very casual relationship up until around age 13 or so. I became a regular reader of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN with issue 360, cover dated March of 1992. Only a few months later, I was reintroduced to the larger Marvel Universe when a school friend showed me his copy of THE INFINITY WAR #1, a series somewhat along the lines of SECRET WARS, which I had loved as a child due to the epic scope and the sheer number of superheroes involved. So basically, you could say that I owe my decades of Marvel fandom to Jim Starlin's "Infinity" franchise. I'm sure I would've branched out beyond Spider-Man on my own; I was already familiar with the other Marvel characters -- but INFINITY WAR jump-started that transition.

This book isn't about the THE INFINITY WAR, however -- this Omnibus collects the previous, first series in Starlin's "Infinity" series -- hence, THE INFINITY GAUNTLET OMNIBUS. And while I view WAR as a superior installment, both nostalgically and storywise, THE INFINTY GAUNTLET is nothing to sneeze at -- nor is this book which collects the full epic.

DANGER GIRL: BODY SHOTS

Story: Andy Hartnell
Pencils: Nick Bradshaw w/Jonboy Meyers & Billy Dallas Patton
Digital Inks & Colors: Jim Charalampiois | Letters: Comicraft
Assistant Edits: Kristy Quinn | Edits: Scott Dunbier
Danger Girl Created By J. Scott Campbell & Andy Hartnell

Well, I'm not sure why the series is called BODY SHOTS. No one suffered a blow to the stomach or chest, and nobody drank liquor off of another person. But, misleading name aside, this is another fun outing from the same creative team that brought us BACK IN BLACK. The story is perhaps a bit overly complex and twisty, but the characterizations are fine, the action is exciting, and the artwork is excellent.

The premise this time is that a terrorist named Arthur Franco has acquired a gizmo called the Master Key, which will allow him to detonate any nuclear device on Earth from anyplace he happens to be. He demonstrates this ability to the world by setting off two such explosions. Franco's deranged end goal is to destroy all the world's nuclear weapons, ultimately making it a safer place (the environmental fallout from a planetful of nukes exploding is never mentioned by any character in the story). Abbey and Sydney, with aid from Agent Zero and support from Deuce and Valerie, must track Franco down before he can do any further damage.

Following a teaser sequence set in Japan, the action follows the girls briefly to Australia, where Sydney is buying a house, and then to Madagascar, Italy, and a nondescript location "somewhere in Africa", with the adventure culminating in the United States. Franco's scheme is revealed as a scam, though it turns out he was unaware. He believes the Master Key works, but in reality it's a non-functioning dummy device, while suicide bombers have detonated the missiles for him at the precise moments he has used the Key, as part of a manipulative plot by a corrupt U.S. General. Like I said -- a bit overly complex.

PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #60 - PART TWO

"THE BIRTH OF A LEGEND!"
Writer: Roger Stern | Penciler: Greg LaRocque | Inker: Bob Wiacek
Letterer: Jean Simek | Colorist: Glynis Wein | Editor: Tom DeFalco
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: While attending a demonstration on ways to safely control radioactivity, Midtown High School student Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider. Peter soon realizes that the spider has passed along to him its proportional strength, speed, and agility, as well as an extra-sensory "spider-sense". After building a set of web-shooters to complete his power set, Peter becomes the amazing Spider-Man, a nationwide television sensation. But when his own selfish actions eventually lead to the murder of his beloved Uncle Ben at the hands of a burglar he could have stopped days earlier, Peter learns that "with great power there must also come great responsibility" and leaves his celebrity behind to devote Spider-Man's life to the protection of the innocent.

The Sub-Plots: As a retelling of Spider-Man's origin from 1962's AMAZING FANTASY #15, there are no sub-plots per se in the issue, however Stern does retroactively flesh out certain aspects of the character's history, most notably the fact that Peter Parker's jock rival, Flash Thompson, was also Spider-Man's biggest supporter back in high school; a fact originally added to the character subsequent to his first appearance.

PETER PARKER, THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #60 - PART ONE

"BEETLEMANIA!"
Storytellers: Roger Stern, Ed Hannigan, & Jim Mooney
Letterer: Diana Albers | Colorist: George Roussos | Editor: Tom DeFalco
Grand Vizier: Jim Shooter

The Plot: The Beetle easily outclasses the weakened Spider-Man one-on-one, forcing the webbed wonder to retreat. Beetle kidnaps the Gibbon and departs as well. Later, Beetle sends out word for Spider-Man to meet him at the Kreller Building in Manhattan or the Gibbon will die.

Spidey arrives at the Kreller Building, which Beetle had previously rigged with a revolving roof, to find Gibbon manacled to a large "X". The web-slinger fights Beetle while also trying to free Gibbon. Eventually Spider-Man gets lucky and snaps off one of Beetle's antennae, which overloads his battlesuit and stuns him. Gibbon, now free, decks the Beetle with one punch and receives the public's accolades as Spider-Man heads home to rest.

THE SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON

Living in the Bay Area, San Diego is only about an eight-hour drive south. And in between my sophomore and junior years of college, I made that pilgrimage for the first time with a couple friends -- Chris, with whom I had attended both middle and high school, and Brian, a friend of Chris's from his college. It was 1999, and it was a simpler time. We bought our con tickets online, but we needn't have bothered -- badges were still on sale at the door when we arrived. The whole affair only took up part of the convention center, which seemed enormous at the time.

That year was my first SDCC, and though it remained relatively small for a few more years, that was the last time it really felt like a comic book convention, in the traditional sense, to me. I bought a ton of back issues while I was there; I was going through a Mark Gruenwald CAPTAIN AMERICA phase and plugged some big holes in that run. I got head sketches from several artists during signings at the Marvel booth, including two of my favorites, Alan Davis (at the time the regular artist and plotter of X-MEN) and Terry Dodson (then the artist on GENERATION X). I also paid for a full-figure commission of Moon Knight from Ron Lim, who has, for as long as I can remember, had the most consistently reasonable convention commission prices of any artist I'm regularly interested in.