I thought it was weird Todd had even drawn Paladin twice.

I'm also 80% sure this issue did not need to be reprinted at the time; it was probably widely available in quarter bins and such. From 1989, Marvel Tales #231, reprinting 1981's Marvel Team-Up #108, "Something Wicked This Way Kills!" Plot by Tom DeFalco, script by David Michelinie, pencils by Herb Trimpe, inks by Mike Esposito. New cover by Todd McFarlane.

Todd did Marvel Tales covers from #223 to #239, starting with reprinting the classic Doc Ock/Death of Captain Stacy storyline, then shifting to mostly Marvel Team-Up issues with mutants. This would include a trifecta with Dazzler, so you've got Todd doing a pretty sharp classic Dazzler, with a bunch of hacky jokes about her, being a mutant, and/or disco. She doesn't make the cover this time, but Paladin does; and I remembered Todd had drawn him on the cover of Amazing #321...and had forgot about #320. Huh.

Anyway, this issue. This was back in the day when Peter Parker was a teaching assistant at Empire State, and here he catches an earful from a coach for flunking a star player. The guy only answered three questions out of fifty; so yeah. Spidey's also on the trail of a strange "street stalker," who seemed to be sucking the heat out of his victims; and Peter Parker was also trying to get back on top, since Lance Bannon had been getting the big pictures lately. Patrolling the park, Spidey of course gets into the traditional Marvel misunderstanding brawl with Paladin, who was working the case for cash, but ditches out for a date, leaving Spidey to get a victim to the hospital: predictably, Lance gets a picture of Spidey holding the victim, which J.Jonah Jameson just adores. It of course won't last, but JJJ is ridonkulously happy, like that Vince McMahon meme: "Pictures!...Pictures of Spider-Man!...Pictures of Spider-Man, committing a crime!...Pictures of Spider-Man, committing a crime, NOT from that weasel Parker!"

Spidey catches up with Paladin outside a fancy restaurant, where he was meeting his client; and Spidey has to suffer the indignity of being forced to wear a tie to get in. The client was the stalker's husband, and she tells a sob story of a lab accident involving microwaves, a radiation-absorbing suit, and vitamins? Sure, why not. Spidey isn't sure he would be able to help, which Paladin assumes was a bargaining ploy for a better payoff: Paladin has a hearty laugh when he finds out Spidey didn't do that for cash, which feels like a missed shot for an "action is his reward" crack. Later, as the increasingly unstable scientist takes up the name "Thermo" and kills a co-worker he thought was going after his wife; Spidey and Paladin get serious...seriously beat-down. Dazzler has a cameo, since she'd be in the next issue; but she decides to see what the hubbub is about after she finishes her makeup, while Thermo drains the heat out of Spidey...!

Read more!

A very surprising dollar bin find from Entertainmart: from 1988, Incredible Hulk #340, "Vicious Circle" Written by Peter David, art by Todd McFarlane. It wasn't a completely mint copy, but not bad. Maybe better than the one I've had for thirty years!

This is the grey Hulk's rematch with Wolverine, but there was more going on here: for instance, Dallas is hit by a snow storm, and the X-Men are on their way there possibly to die, in the Fall of the Mutants. The Leader asks a hypnotized U.S. general where the country's newly minted gamma bombs are being kept, and Betty Ross compares her and Bruce to "two ships passing in the night" and wonders if she can break the cycle. And David writes a pretty solid Wolverine: he was trying so hard to restrain his berserker rages, but man they came in handy sometimes.

The new rules for the grey Hulk are largely set up here as well: although smaller and less strong than the green Hulk had been, Wolvie realizes the Hulk had a healing factor not unlike his own. But made of cancer. That was novel at the time: aside from Wolvie, not everybody had a healing factor back then. I don't think this was the first time we see the Hulk's blood as green, but we see a lot of it this issue. (Presumably because it's gamma-irradiated, not copper-based like Spock's!)

I bought this off the spinner rack, but didn't start reading Hulk regularly until #345, McFarlane's last issue. And I would keep reading, up until Peter David's last issue.
Read more!

I guess $3.95 in 1994 is like fifty cents today...

There's a dollar store by my house, where I often get cleaning supplies and grated cheese product stuff; and they occasionally have two-pack bags of comics. For some reason, along with old Crossgen comics or in this case, an issue of Robotech Masters; there have been multiple copies of 1994's Spawn-Batman. Written by Frank Miller, art by Todd McFarlane, and letters by Tom Orzechowski. (So many letters he deserves a bigger credit!)

This was so hyped up at the time; that it would've had a hard time living up regardless. The inside cover proclaims "Spawn vs. Batman is a companion piece to DC Comic's The Dark Knight Returns. It does not represent current DC continuity." That's a bold statement. The GCD synopsis simply reads "Spawn and Batman fight." That's pretty much it.

The art is undeniably dynamic, though: that still holds up, even if there's the occasional stylistic tic of Todd's here and there like the disposable villain or the overly gaunt Alfred or Batman's occasional underbite. He also nails Batman's scary grin, something not always done well on the rare occasions it's used. Orzechowski's letters are a master class in the art; but Miller's story...ugh. Even putting aside the plot, involving Soviet cyborgs and a persuasive humanitarian out for the peace of the grave; most of the issue is a "Marvel misunderstanding" type fight then team-up with Spawn and Batman. Except Batman is a total dick, referring to Spawn and just about everyone else as either a "punk" or a "twit." The dialogue and narration wants to be more hard-boiled than Miller's Sin City, but just goes over the top and keeps going.

Spawn comes off OK here, but this book seems like a bad example that was followed for years to come: Batman as a controlling, overly driven, overly grim bully who often puts down his friends and allies for not being as obsessive as he is. Batman lost his parents, and that trauma drove him to become what he is so no one else would have to suffer as he did. Miller's Batman uses heroism as the thinnest of justification because he just wants to beat people up until he feels better, which he never will.

Bats also threatens to come back and take down Spawn someday--since he does himself witness Spawn kill at least three people--but he never does. Still, the last page is so petulant and dickish that even Spawn seems unable to do anything except laugh. A pity McFarlane Toys never got to put out a "Batarang-Face" Spawn variant. And in our annual Christmas strip, Deadpool references it to Spawn!



Read more!