SPIDER-MAN NEWSPAPER STRIP PART 18

MARCH 22ND, 1984 - AUGUST 11TH, 1984
By Stan Lee & Fred Kida w/Floro Dery & Friends

Our next storyline is the final one that was collected in that old BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book I've mentioned here so many times. It was also the most then-recent arc in the book. Most of the strips therein were from the Lee/Romita heydey, with only the Muffy Ainsworth story and this one from the post-Romita period. And this storyline, from 1984, was only two years old when the book saw print. However, its presentation in that volume was unique. All the other story arcs in the book were printed in black-and-white -- even the Sunday pages. But this one was printed in a special color section, which included only the Sunday strips, with brief summaries of the dailies that ran in between. So while I have sort of read this one before, I've never read it in its entirety.

The arc, which the old book titled "The Imposter Must Die!", picks up a thread from our previous storyline. I didn't mention it last week because it was incidental to the plot, but throughout the Eliminator/Braxton story, there was a sub-plot about the Daily Bugle running a "Who is Spider-Man" contest, with a grand prize of $50,000 for the person who could prove the Wall-Crawler's secret identity. That plot now takes center stage in this arc. And by the way, I think this is the first time I can remember the strip doing something like this. Aside from the more "window-dressing" type stuff, like whether or not Peter and Mary Jane are an item at any given time, the strip has rarely, if ever, carried continuity through its story arcs in this fashion. Usually every arc is a "done in one" deal, with most plot threads resolved in time for the next story to begin. So kudos to Stan and/or his ghost plotter (more on that in a few weeks) for going a bit more sophisticated with his writing at this point.

So -- we begin on a melodramatic note, as Peter finally works up the courage to pop the question to Mary Jane. But, while MJ has forgiven him for the situation with Dolly, she still turns Peter down. She's been transferred to Europe by Compton Computers, to set up and manage their London office. It's the opportunity of a lifetime for MJ, who has historically been shown in the strip drifting aimlessly from job to job while pursuing her show biz dreams. She leaves, and Peter is heartbroken.

I know we've barely started, but let's take a brief moment to talk about the evolution of MJ and Peter in this strip. When it started, they were dating, but it was pretty clearly a casual thing. Mary Jane would leave now and then for modeling or acting work, and Peter would pursue other girls, most notably Carole and Tana, in her absence. But every time MJ came back to New York, they'd rekindle their romance. But a couple storylines back, things got much more serious between them. It became clear through Stan's scripting that they had matured, and were in love with one another. Mary Jane stopped flirting with every guy she saw, and while beautiful women continued to appear in the strip, Peter did less flirting and more thinking about MJ. It's been a nice progression up to this point, and assuming Stan continues to depict them both in this way, the road to their marriage in 1987 (less than three years away at this point) seems perfectly laid out. But of course there will be bumps along the way, and MJ heading off to Europe is just the first of these.

At the same time Mary Jane leaves, the arc's main plot picks up. A man named John Garcia dons a Spider-Man costume, enters the Daily Bugle from an upper story ledge, and unmasks himself as Spider-Man in a live television broadcast arranged by Jonah Jameson. But Klug Manton, a convict sent up the river by Spider-Man and just released from prison, reads about Garcia and his son, Joey, in the paper, and -- well, you can sort of see where this is going. Klug (possibly the greatest name Stan Lee ever devised, and that's saying a lot) finds Garcia and attacks him, but Spider-Man saves him.

Meanwhile, Peter, on the rebound following Mary Jane's departure, has hooked up with Klud's sister, Maggie. When Klud makes his next attempt at Garcia, at his apartment, Maggie tries intervene and Klud accidentally pushes her down the stairs. She's rushed to the hospital, while Spider-Man takes Joey Garicia to stay with his "friend's" Aunt May for safekeeping (thus resolving a sub-plot that began for May in the prior story arc, in which she was feeling useless). Spider-Man heads for the hospital, where Klud finds him. They battle again, in the hospital's boiler room, and this time Klud is killed when he tries to climb a pipe after the wounded Web-Slinger.

At the same time, Garcia goes to the Bugle and owns up to his mistake, telling Jameson that he's not the real Spider-Man. Peter arrives with Joey, and suggests that in order to save face, Jameson should write an editorial owning up as well, and should offer Garcia a job to create some good publicity for himself. Jonah agrees, and all's well that ends well for John and Joey Garcia. But when Peter goes to visit Maggie at the hospital, he finds her raving about how she hates Spider-Man because he killed her brother, and realizes their relationship must end.

I like this one. Between this and the previous Braxton story, we're firmly back in the lower stakes, "primetime TV" mode -- though Klud does have a steel claw for a hand, making him just a bit of a super-villain. We're also back to the "romance of the episode" thing for Peter, but like I said a moment ago, he's on the rebound following MJ's departure, so it kind of makes sense that he would go after Maggie for a casual fling after having his heart broken by MJ. Remember, this is comic strip Peter -- far more outgoing and flirtatious than his comic book counterpart. When he first sees Maggie, waitressing in a diner, he asks when she started there. She says it was weeks ago and she's waited on him several times, but he never noticed because he was always with Mary Jane. Peter then hits her with a pickup line: "She's left the country. Look, I'm Peter Parker! What say we make up for lost time?" Very next panel, Maggie is seated right behind Peter on his motorcycle as they take off for their date.

(Of course, by the end of the arc, also in classic comic strip Peter fashion, our hero has decided that Maggie means way more to him that he ever thought and he's fallen in love with her -- so his heart is broken again when he's forced to leave her. Remember, this guy has wanted to propose to three girls throughout the strip's eight-year run so far: Tana, Carole, and Mary Jane.)

A change comes on the artistic front during this arc, as well, though it actually started earlier. During the Eliminator storyline, there was a brief period where Fred Kida's name vanished from the daily strips, and Stan Lee's was the only one attached, with ghost artists handling the illustration chores. Later, there was a period where Floro Dery filled in on dailies for a couple weeks. Now, through the bulk of the Klud Manton story, we're back to Stan's name alone on the dailies. The introduction to IDW's collection of these strips states that Kida took a sabbatical and members of the Marvel Bullpen pitched during his absence. So I guess there was no single artist for this arc to share the credit with Stan.

But interestingly, Kida's name never returns to the strip, at least as far as I can see. So it seems his "sabbatical" turned into something more. I read someplace that he quit the strip because he found it too violent, though that seems an odd concern to me. When drawing the adventures of a super hero, of course there will be some degree of violence -- but there's never anything graphic in the strip, and it's only typically one bad guy who dies in any given arc, at its conclusion.

Anyway -- for our next post or two, I'll have no idea who's doing the daily art!

Only one arc covered this week, though it was of relatively normal length. But that's because last week's storyline was so long, at seven months, and next week's will be as well! Catch you then.