AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #22

"DRUG WAR RAGES"
By Tom DeFalco, as told to David Michelinie
Photos: Mark Bagley & Mike Esposito
R. Parker, signs on | B. Sharen, in the red | J. Salicrup, indicted
T. DeFalco, shrieks

The Plot: Spider-Man beats up some drug dealers at Manhattan's Pier 7 and leaves them for the police. But a rival gang arrives first and kills the men, leaving Spider-Man to take the rap. Matt "Daredevil" Murdock vows to get to the bottom of the case. Meanwhile, the Kingpin of Crime orders his men to capture one of the High Evolutionary's Purifiers, which have been patrolling New York in recent days. Elsewhere, young Robbie Baldwin and his mother arrive in Manhattan to take in some Broadway shows.

Daredevil and Spider-Man cross paths at Pier 7 and join forces to clear the web-slinger's name. Elsewhere, Robbie is accosted by a group of muggers and transforms into Speedball, his kinetically charged alter ego. A group of Purifiers arrives and kills the muggers, and Speedball follows them back to their base. While Spider-Man and Daredevil comb the city for clues as to who killed the dealers, the Kingpin interrogates a captured Purifier and learns of the High Evolutionary's plans. Speedball also gets wind of their plot, which involves a transmitter atop the Empire State Building.

At Kingpin's order, one of his men plants himself at a seedy dive and waits for Spider-Man and Daredevil to show up and continue their interrogation roadshow. The man tells them that the drug dealers were killed by a new gang headquartered atop the Empire State Building. The heroes head there and find the Purifiers' transmitter. While Spidey and Daredevil fight the Purifiers, Speedball also arrives at the building and heads to the top floor to disable the transmitter. The Purifiers succeed and Speedball carries out his task but nearly plummets to his death; his life saved by Spider-Man.

Knowing Daredevil and Spider-Man will be after him for the planted information, the Kingpin arranges for the wall-crawler's name to be cleared, to get them off his back. Spider-Man is embraced as a hero once more and all returns to normal.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #252

"HOMECOMING!"
Plot: Roger Stern | Script: Tom DeFalco
Pencil Breakdowns: Ron Frenz | Finished Art: Brett Breeding
Letters: Joe Rosen | Colors: Glynis Wein | Editor: Danny Fingeroth
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: One week after disappearing into the huge alien structure in Central Park, Spider-Man emerges from it in a new black costume, with Dr. Curt Connors in tow. After returning Connors to his family, the web-slinger catches up on his personal life as Peter Parker and patrols the city in his new outfit. While out and about, he bumps into a pair of quarreling teens and takes them up above the city, letting them see the environment, good and bad, that they take for granted.

The Sub-Plots: Spider-Man's black costume is somehow alive, responding to his thoughts by disappearing and changing into street clothes when necessary.

Despite having taken several photos of his adventures on Battleworld, Peter decides that he can't sell them to any respectable newspaper or magazine, both because Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four advised all the kidnapped heroes to keep their adventure a secret from the general public and because the photos are simply too unbelievable to be taken seriously.

Peter also gives Aunt May a call to check in and agrees to join Nathan and her for Sunday dinner.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #251

"ENDINGS!"
Plot: Roger Stern | Script: Tom DeFalco
Pencil Breakdowns: Ron Frenz | Finished Art: Klaus Janson
Letters: Joe Rosen | Colors: Christie Scheele | Editor: Danny Fingeroth
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter

The Plot: Spider-Man and the Hobgoblin continue their fight within the goblin's burning warehouse as firefighters battle the blaze outside. Hobgoblin gets the drop on the spider-senseless wall-crawler, subduing him and escaping the scene in his battle van. But Spide-Man grabs hold of the fleeing vehicle and eventually makes it inside for a rematch with his foe. As the van rockets through the city under control of an auto-guidance system, Spider-Man's spider-sense returns, allowing him to turn the tables and stun the Hobgoblin. But when the van drives into the Hudson River and begins taking on water, Spider-Man is forced to evacuate. He dives back into the water to search for the Hobgoblin, but finds only his mask drifting to the surface.

Later, Peter Parker has dinner with Harry Osborn and assures him that all proof his father was the Green Goblin was destroyed in the warehouse fire. After Harry leaves, Peter suffers an agonizing blast of spider-sense and follows it to the Sheep Meadow in Central Park, where an enormous futuristic structure has appeared. The web-slinger is drawn to the bizarre edifice and as soon as he enters it, he vanishes.

The Sub-Plots: Jonah Jameson, having printed his confession regarding his role in the Scorpion's creation in the Daily Bugle, steps down as the newspaper's editor-in-chief, turning the job over to former city editor Robbie Robertson.

THE UNBOXING - JUNE 2014

Two books arrived this month, and they're both thick trade paperbacks from Marvel. First is NOVA CLASSIC, volume 3. I'm not sure why Marvel felt the need to pad this series out to three volumes. The original NOVA series ran for 25 issues. NOVA CLASSIC, volume 1 contained issues 1 through 12, plus an AMAZING SPIDER-MAN crossover issue. You'd think that volume 2 would then contain issues 13 through 25 and that'd be the end of it, right? Not so. Instead, the second volume gives us issues 13 - 19, plus three totally unnecessary issues of DEFENDERS which barely feature Nova, as well as an annual each for FANTASTIC FOUR and a MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE. Now, volume 3 covers NOVA 20 - 25, plus ten issues of FANTASTIC FOUR which wrap up Nova's story, but most of which involve Nova himself very little. Plus, all those FF issues were already collected a few years ago in a book called FANTASTIC FOUR: IN SEARCH OF GALACTUS, which can be found for bargain basement prices these days.

Nonetheless, since I bought NOVA CLASSIC volume 1, I went ahead and picked up volumes 2 and 3. And, regardless of my misgivings on some of the content, I am looking forward to reading these original seventies adventures of the Human Rocket.

A book with which I'm much more satisfied, however, is the SPIDER-MAN EPIC COLLECTION: GHOSTS OF THE PAST. This volume collects a chunk of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz -- issues 259 - 272, to be precise. Note that the SPIDER-MAN BY ROGER STERN OMNIBUS ends with issue #252, and the upcoming SPIDER-MAN: THE COMPLETE ALIEN COSTUME SAGA volume 1 will cover, among others, issues 252 - 258. I love when Marvel sets up their collections this way. All three books together will contain an uninterrupted AMAZING SPIDER-MAN run of issues 226 - 272. It's a great time for Marvel collected editions, and especially for Spider-Man, whose classic (but post-Stan Lee) material was vastly under-represented for a long time.