Friday, August 26, 2016

Not unlike the Hulkbuster armor, I think it's had more action figures than comic appearances...


I may have confused it with some other armor--possibly the Hulkbuster--or maybe a sarcastic comment I took at face value, but I swear I thought the Spider-Armor only lasted like three pages. It lasts at least eight, in 1992's Web of Spider-Man #100, "Total War" Written by Terry Kavanagh, pencils by Alex Saviuk, inks by Joe Rubinstein.

With the Kingpin currently out of the picture, it's gang war season in New York City again, and currently the New Enforcers are trying to destroy the Foreigner's evidence against them. New Enforcers? What happened to Montana, Ox, and Fancy Dan? This new group was a grab-bag of villains, including old pros like the Vanisher, the Eel, and Plantman; newbies like Thermite and Tangle; and robot types Dragon Man, Dreadnought, and the Super-Adaptoid. (The Super-Adaptoid by itself should've been plenty!) While Spidey's trying to deal with that lot, Richard Fisk--the son of the Kingpin, and former crime boss the Rose--has taken the identity Blood Rose and was going vigilante against the criminals plotting to take his father's place. Richard's motivation was always a bit questionable--was he plotting to destroy the Kingpin, or for his own power?--and was further complicated by his friend Alfredo, who had helped him as the Rose, then betrayed him and took his place. Alfredo was brought down, but then came back with a mysterious gauntlet stolen from another vigilante, Nightwatch. Alfredo named himself Gauntlet, and was coming back for revenge against Richard.

The whole thing comes down to a slugfest, with Spidey's new armor--an "experimental hard-web agent" that had to cost Peter Parker a few bucks--giving him enough of a edge to mop up most of them. Several of the New Enforcers, Richard, and Alfredo are all left for the cops; although Spidey is confused since Richard and Alfredo look very much alike, and he had thought Richard had been shot. Nightwatch recovers his power gauntlet, and the rest of the issue is the new hero's origin, where a young man is saved by a dying vigilante, who appears to be an older version of himself! This origin may have been retconned some time later...

I picked up the Web-Trap Spider-Man last month, but there have been a few versions. He's got a pretty good spring-loaded launcher arm, too. I don't recall if I bought it before the comic here, though.

2 comments:

Mr. Morbid's House Of Fun said...

I don't know about you but I LOVED The Name of the Rose storyline. Hard to pin down exactly why, but I just do. After the the last chapter I stopped collecting WEB, as I used to buy that Amazing, and Spectacular on a pretty regular base.

And for the armor....jesus it was bad. The true definition of the word gimmick if there ever was one.

I've only seen one figure of the armor, but you said there were multiple versions?

googum said...

Oh, there was a Minimate, and some in the smaller figure lines like for the cartoon, and a Marvel Universe one. This is the only one I have, but it's done pretty well for like one appearance!