X-Men Gold tried to do for Mesmero what Alias did for the Purple Man: take a longtime third-string villain and turn him into a credible threat, when you realize his power is creepily effective. XM:G didn't go as hard as Alias did, though; and Mesmero may have had more in the loss column than Purple Man had, too. Like today's book! From 1980, Amazing Spider-Man #207, "Mesmero's Revenge!" Written by Denny O'Neil, pencils by Jim Mooney, inks by Pablo Marcos.
Mesmero appears to be making a legit, if mean-spirited, break this issue; as a stage hypnotist. (The captions say on Broadway, I would suspect at least one off- there.) Peter and his date Debby Whitman don't think making a volunteer cluck like a chicken is funny, and they have a point. When a fire breaks out, Peter stops it without being seen, but Mesmero realizes Spider-Man saved them, and sees an opportunity. He asks Spider-Man to meet him after the show, and Peter blows off Debby to do so, which is both rude, and stupid: someone might realize Peter and Spidey were both there, way to protect that secret identity.
Mesmero offers Spidey $400 a week for fifteen minutes in his show, and broke as usual, Spidey doesn't see a reason not to, if Mesmero wasn't currently up to any bad stuff. Still, the reviews for Mesmero's show have come in, and they weren't kind: in fact, rather than the usual pan, the Globe's review may have been a hatchet job to build up the reviewer at his expense. Peter was freelancing at the Globe at the time, so he's there when the
Peter sets up a date with Debby, which he would end up breaking: he would get electrocuted by Mesmero, in a trap that seemed to know the rules of his spider-sense. Cash+money clip+electric generator: perfectly harmless, until he touches it and completes the circuit. Mesmero makes Spidey perform, while hypnotized critics throw rotten fruit at him, in a theatre doused in gasoline! It's not as dangerous as it sounds. I don't think Mesmero even tried his power on Spidey, either. And "Debby" was usually Debra; and I don't think there's a Debra Whitman story that turns out well for her, ever. Usually, the first time Peter broke a date to go be Spidey was the last time with a girl, yet he did it to her dozens of times. Her brutal lack of self-esteem enabled Peter to keep stringing her along, though; to the point that later writers even characterized her as mentally ill. She deserved better, but this was back in the day when a secret identity was concrete; and with her luck, if Peter had confided anything in Debra she would've been killed on the next page...
No comments:
Post a Comment