Monday, July 07, 2008
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Posted by
Craig
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7/07/2008 02:41:00 PM
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Way Back Machine 101, pt. 2
More comics that should be required reading for anyone that likes comics:
Every now and then I mention a book that wasn’t actually mine back in the day, but I only got to experience vicariously from the neighbor kid’s collection. This one was the most painful to have so close yet always out of reach; only when I was very lucky was I allowed to flip through the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #122.
I’m about to commit heresy with this next sentence: While Miller and Moore wrote some incredible stories with Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, they didn’t actually bring anything new to the table. All the credit they get for deconstructing the superhero concept and bringing darker, more adult themes to comics-- well, Stan Lee got that ball rolling in 1961 at Marvel, and it peaked right here. I hadn’t yet entered kindergarten when this book blew me away with it’s very adult depictions of drug use, murder, grief and single-minded revenge. By the time the Punisher was introduced in this title seven months later the pendulum was swinging back to tamer, more family-friendly fare, but for a few years culminating with this very issue the Marvel universe had been a pretty dark place.
Starting with the most prominent point: a character who had been a major part of the series for many, many years has just died! The book opens with Spider-Man holding Gwen Stacy’s broken body atop the George Washington bridge while the Green Goblin circles, gloating. A modern reader wouldn’t bat an eye at this development; we’ve seen enough deaths and resurrections in these books over the years for us to be good and jaded. But this was the first time cold, hard, mortality had made a significant impact on a comic’s status quo, and it was as big a change as if Lois Lane had fallen from that bridge. Anyone care to name a major character in a comic series that had died before 1973? (I can think of one that had two different death scenes, but I’m not telling.)
 Check out the background in that splash page. Gil Kane captures the dizzying height of the bridge, as well as the far-reaching depth of the city beyond. Both he and Ross Andru after him did a splendid job of creating an environment these characters moved through, rather than dispensing endless pinup shots like most modern artists; as a kid I had a sense of what Spider-Man’s New York looked like, from this infamous bridge to Times Square to Rockefeller Plaza. I was a kid living in the Midwest, but New York lived and breathed for me through the pages of these books. I can’t say that flavor is captured by any present-day book, not even the precious Gotham of a Batman comic. Here’s my childhood hero, right after he’s handed over his girlfriend’s lifeless body to a waiting ambulance. Things go sour pretty quick with the police who want to take him in for questioning; after he swats them away, they actually empty their sidearms at him! Anyone who doubts this sort of storytelling was way ahead of the curve, let me remind you that Batman was still playing charity baseball games for Commissioner Gordon over in the DCU.  The somber tone of this issue darkens even more when Peter Parker goes to visit his best friend, Harry Osborn, in order to try to learn the whereabouts of Harry’s father, the Green Goblin. Problem is, the Goblin’s appearance was precipitated by Harry’s latest descent into drug abuse. When Peter arrives to see his pal, Harry is having a bad acid flashback and can’t offer much help. Given an opportunity to help his best friend or continue his search for revenge, Peter turns his back on Harry as he begs for help. This scene is more chilling than anything I’ve seen in any comic, ever.   (Let me add that I was hugely disappointed when the second Spider-Man movie showed Harry Osborn with a more socially acceptable drinking problem. A thirty year old comic had the stones to show a character dropping acid, but a recent movie found the issue untouchable.) With Joe Robertson’s help, Peter tracks the Goblin to a disused warehouse owned by Osborn. The final battle ensues, which quickly evolves into the kind of one-sided fight I enjoy as Spidey gives the Goblin a thoroughly savage beating, nearly killing his foe before finding his inner hero and restraining himself. As Spider-Man promises to drag the villain to jail, however, the Goblin manages to do himself in with his own damaged glider (yeah, I bitched about this kind of “convenient accident” in superhero movies recently, but this was my first exposure to it). As Spider-Man stands over his foe’s corpse, he remarks that seeing his girlfriend’s murderer die only leaves him feeling empty, adding a layer of futility to the grief that pervades the book.   An editorial later explained the necessity of this story; after years of their on-again, off-again relationship, the characters of Peter and Gwen were in a rut, so they wisely decided to do something radical to shake up the status quo and let newer, more unpredictable storylines emerge. Up until this point, Mary Jane Watson had been painted in her infrequent appearances as a shallow, thoughtless party girl whose only function was to make (her boyfriend) Harry Osborn’s life hell. The story closes with a series of panels which offer new possibilities for this cast of characters. Labels: way back machine
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