Marvel 1989 Week--Amazing Spider-Man #314

I've said it before, I'll say it again...people bitch a lot about comics in the 1990's (and often with good justification). But most of the trends they find distasteful started in the 1980's.

Which brings us to:

I mean, look at that cover! Look at Spidey's impossibly shaped feet, look at Mary Jane's impossibly long coat, look at all the incredible detail that distracts from the overall flow and design sense of the cover--the very miss-the-forest-for-the-trees art approach that swallowed and engulfed the 90s.

And whom can we thank for this?

Ah, Todd McFarlane, the man who famously left Marvel because he didn't want to draw characters that he didn't own--only to basically give up drawing to end up with a lucrative career making statues of characters he doesn't own. Irony indeed.

Back to our story...as you can see by the splash page and the cover, it's Christmas time, and Peter and Mary Jane have been evicted.

A note for all you younger readers: once upon a time, Peter Parker was married!! I know, crazy, huh? How could Spider-Man ever be popular...with a wife?!? How could you ever do a story about power and responsibility, about having to live with Aunt May, about stopping crime--if Peter Parker were married?!?

OK, OMD ranting done. What's going on here?

Well, there was this insane billionaire stalking Mary Jane, and he tried to kidnap her...and when that failed and he ended up incarcerated, he apparently found a way to contravene New York landlord/tenant laws and evict the Parkers, with zero notice (and on Christmas Eve, and on a Saturday, to boot!), from their condo in the building which he owned. Whatever shall they do?

Aunt May offers to taker them in, but no soap--Peter's being a prideful butthead.

Meanwhile, I've got to pick on David Michelinie a bit here, because what follows here is perhaps the stupidest thing he's ever written:

Really, David? Howell Thurston III? A dumb Gilligan's Island joke in 1989?!? (A good one I could have accepted...). Sheesh. Anyway, this scene is to set up the silly "overworked accountant decides to get his own by robbing the boss on Christmas Eve" storyline that provides the only real action in the book.

Well, not the only action, as Spider-Man does spring into action against a mugger:

You know, McFarlane did draw a good Spider-Man...so why don't I like any of the other characters he draws? Is the overly-cartoony style somehow more appropriate for Spidey's costume and physicality? Or am I just nuts?

Oh, and we can't forget--if it's McFarlane, there's going to be web porn:

Anyway, Parker hits the old friend/Xmas party circuit, looking for a place he and Mary Jane can crash. But the old Parker luck kicks in, and everybody is full up or has too many of their own problems for neurotic Parker to impose upon...except Flash Thompson:

Whatta stand-up guy (well, not anymore)(sorry). Now Pete feels so guilty he's gotta go visit Uncle Ben's grave:

Damn, I love unnecessary splash pages that feel compelled to show every single leaf and every single wind line because the artist had no idea of how to actually draw a static scene without tarting it up...

Meanwhile, our page-consuming robbery subplot is getting ready to collide with our hero's angst...but first the villains have to take a special hostage:

And the great coincidence machine is running full blast, because the bad guys decide to take a shortcut through that very same cemetery (because there's no other way these storylines could possibly intersect).

So it's time for our THIRD lecture this issue on power and responsibility yada yada...

Hey, look--more web porn:

Now this is a Spidey I'd be scared of:

But surprisingly enough (if you haven't been paying attention, or haven't wondered why Santa was taken hostage), Webhead is NOT the one who kayos the final bad guy!



After more uneasy juxtaposition between cartoony and menacing, Peter discovers that he's not the only one visiting Uncle Ben that night.



Yay!! Peter's going to have sex with his wife in his childhood bed within earshot of the woman who raised him!! How creepy/exciting!!

And next issue:

DAMN!! Missed it by this much!! Oh, well...

And I'm still not gonna forgive Michelinie for that Howell Thurston III bit.

One interesting aspect of the Marvel books of April 1989, as no fewer than 7 of the ad pages were dedicated to video games and accessories.

I wouldn't have thought so much advertising would have been going on back then...but the games companies were fighting fiercely for their shares of the NES pie. How fiercely?

Yup, in 1989 they were trying to convince us that Pac-Man was still rad.

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

At this point Spidey had 2 other mags, Spectacular and Web Of. He was pretty popular, and Marvel was intent on making good use of that. First, this label was sprayed on the cover of all his mags:

Give 'em bonus points for the ability to mock the sprawl of their own mutant mags. But they also liked to guest-star Spidey all over the place, namely:

You see, kids, before the She-Hulk was the product of "biological material" from the Hulk and an alternate future Thundra...(more seriously, I loved Byrne's She-Hulk. Where the hell is the Essential Sensational She-Hulk?!?) And look, kids, you can do cheesecake without fish-nets or ass close-ups...

Oh, yeah, and She-Hulk had her head cut off this issue...