Thursday, August 15, 2024

I feel like Spidey himself knows like twelve people that could pretend to be She-Hulk; shouldn't be a surprise.

I don't know if I see old She-Hulk issues very often, but I need to keep my eye out for issues guest-starring Spider-Man, since I think he still pretty consistently gets on her nerves. There's a fun (and mean!) bit in Heroes Reborn: the Return with them, and we saw a bit of slapstick with them guest-starring in Howard the Duck, but we've got one on Spidey's side today: from 1990, Spectacular Spider-Man #168, "Sleeping Dogs" Written by Gerry Conway, art by Sal Buscema.
Spidey is swinging along, minding his own business, when he gets a shout from She-Hulk, who says the Avengers had been trying to reach him for days, so come on. (There's also some techy narration, that knows Spidey's secret identity.) She leads Spidey to a crumbling tenement, recently purchased by Wilson Fisk, which has a weird, sealed-off hole in the basement, with a dedication plaque indicating it had been sealed since 1890. The two struggle to open it, like it was heavier than it seemed...or didn't want to open; and She-Hulk implores Spidey to go in while she holds it, then open the chest he finds there. Which he does, despite his Spider-sense going off, and releases a black cloud, that looks a lot like a Venom symbiote but I don't think is. She-Hulk thanks him, then lets go, trapping him!
Four pages of subplots (and some ads!) follow, to build up the suspense: Mary Jane has a lunch with Joy Mercado, because she needs to talk to someone, about the creepy guy hounding her, a plotline with a few more issues in it. And in his civilian identity of Thomas Fireheart, Puma ponders what he was doing with his life: he had bought the Daily Bugle and was rehabilitating Spidey's image with it, to pay him back as a matter of honor; but was he really honorable? Couple more issues for the answer there, too. Meanwhile, Spidey does the old traditional rally-to-lift-the-big-heavy-thing to get out, then goes to Avengers Mansion, to slug She-Hulk! Who has no idea what Spidey's on about, and the other Avengers confirm, she had been there all afternoon! Spidey seems put out there, like sure, take her side, and splits; leaving the Avengers concerned something bigger might be up; and it is, as the Space Phantom reports to his boss, while working his own plan as well. Spidey returns home, where MJ throws herself in his arms, seemingly worried about another man: it wasn't like that, but the aforementioned creep who seemed positive MJ would be his. Nah; their marriage was pretty solid in that run.

1 comment:

  1. God bless Sal! Seriously, he was one of the main reasons why I bought & read Spectacular Spider-Man for as long as I did when I was a kid. While he wasn’t as flashy as some of his peers and contemporaries or as detailed as his brother, he was still a very solid master of storytelling, both in terms of how he portrayed action & emotions.

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