SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 9

DECEMBER 24th, 1979 – FEBRUARY 24th, 1980
FEBRUARY 25th, 1980 – MAY 24th, 1980
By Stan Lee & John Romita

Christmas of 1979 finds Peter Parker, as usual, with barely two nickels to rub together in a story arc the BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book called “Requiem for a Super Hero”. Embarrassed that all he can afford for Aunt May and Mary Jane are handkerchiefs, and sobered by Aunt May’s accumulating bills, Peter decides to cast off his costume, retire Spider-Man, and become Peter Parker full time.

But as usual, things don’t work out as planned for our hero. He goes looking for a job, but runs into the age old “experience required” trap. Peter discovers what I learned when I finished college many years ago: you can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. He also tries out for the ESU football team, but gets the boot. However, at the very least, Peter’s relationship with Mary Jane is looking up, as the specter of Spider-Man no longer pulls him away from her every night — but soon, as Spidey’s enthusiasm dies down and stops bleeding into Peter’s personal life, our hero becomes brooding and dull, pushing MJ away.

Further, Peter bumps into a few situations where he has no choice but to act heroically even without his costume. In the first, he saves a young child on the verge of falling from an under-construction building, then later, after Aunt May is kidnapped by a group of bank robbers, Peter pursues them and secretly uses his powers to save her.

But in the end, it’s learning that a child saved another child from drowning because he knew Spider-Man would have done the same thing that convinces Peter to don the webs once more.

This is an odd one. On one hand, it has the distinction of being the only storyline so far where Peter spends pretty much the entire thing out of costume. There’s still some action, but for the most part it’s just our hero dealing with mundane problems as he struggles not to become Spider-Man again even though every setback life throws at him seems to be telling him he was meant to wear the costume.

But at the same time, he doesn’t really reach any sort of satisfying conclusion to his personal quest. He wants to set aside Spider-Man so Peter Parker can make some money and become a productive member of society. In the end, he realizes Spider-Man is too much a part of him to ever give it up, but he’s still stuck in the same position as before with no cash and, apparently, no employable skills.

Beyond the above, I should also note some tidbits about Peter’s school life. One, can graduate students play on the football team? For some reason I always thought that was only for undergrads — but I know nothing about collegiate sports, so I’m honestly not sure.

And two — at one point, Peter runs into Harry and Flash on the ESU campus, and Flash appears to be carrying a textbook. I thought they owned a disco? I mean, they certainly could do that while also attending classes during the day, but if Peter, who is the same age as them, is a grad student, then what are they? The comics had all Peter’s friends done with school while he continued on to his graduate studies. I suspect Lee and Romita just weren’t considering that when they produced this strip, but it’s the sort of thing that drives someone like me nuts.

(That said, my No-Prize solution is: As in the mainstream Marvel Universe, this Flash took some time off school to serve in the Army. He’s now back, the G.I. bill covering his studies, and finishing college while Peter is a grad student… and Harry, who is not holding a textbook in the strip, just dropped by campus to meet Flash for lunch and discuss important disco business.)

Moving along, Carole returns to Peter’s life after more than six months out of the picture, finally believing the terror of the Cult of Loomis is behind her. But when a photo of Spider-Man chatting with Carole makes its way to the recently paroled Kingpin, the crime lord gets some of his men to masquerade as cultists, allowing him to step in and “rescue” Carole, thus earning her trust and setting her up as bait in a trap for Spider-Man.

Unwittingly aiding the Kingpin in this endeavor is Mary Jane, who provides some of his men with info on where to find Carole. (Coincidentally, she lives just around the corner from the Kingpin!) The Kingpin’s men catch up with MJ on the Empire State University Campus, where she’s seen toting a book under her arm… so is she a grad student too?? Seems highly unlikely for a girl like MJ. Obviously Lee and Romita aren’t paying any attention to who should and should not be in school, but for another No-Prize, I’ll suggest that MJ routinely takes breaks from her studies to pursue her show biz career. After all, she spent, by my count, a year and a half (late 1977 to mid 1979) touring with Kraven!

A note about that timeline: Lee is still scripting this strip as if it’s taking place in real time. Remember during the previous Kingpin storyline, where he manipulated events from behind bars, Peter noted that Mysterio had impersonated him “last year” in Hollywood. Now, as the Kingpin’s early parole comes down and he leaves prison, he notes that he hasn’t seen his wife, Vanessa, in “over a year.”

Anyway — everybody still hilariously calls the guy “Kingpin” as if it’s his name. I still don’t know exactly when the character was identified in the comics as Wilson Fisk, but the absurdity of, say, a TV reporter calling this guy “Kingpin” to his face during their sit-down interview is amazing to behold. Oh, and it’s neither here nor there, but the Kingpin is seen living next door to the disgraced Richard Nixon upon his return home!

So, Kingpin baits a trap for Spider-Man by hosting Carole in his house, but it’s Peter Parker who shows up searching for her. The Kingpin invites Peter to dinner, leading to a tense few scenes that evoke some of the better drama between Peter and Norman Osborn from the original Lee/Romita comic book run. Eventually Kingpin suspects that Peter might be Spider-Man, but some trickery on our hero’s part keeps his secret safe and allows him to “rescue” Peter, expose the Kingpin to Carole as a threat, and get her out of harm’s way.

Notably — and this came up in the first Kingpin arc as well, though I don’t believe I mentioned it then — Vanessa does everything she can to keep her husband from “becoming a murderer”. She knows he’s a criminal, knows he hates Spider-Man and will continue to challenge the web-slinger no matter what, but she’s somehow convinced herself that he’s never killed anybody… which seems a stretch even for someone in denial over the true scope of her husband’s criminal activities. Unless the idea is that she knows he’s ordered deaths, but doesn’t want to see him get his own hands dirty and maybe go up the river for the rest of his life. That, at least, I could buy.