Marvel 1995 Week--Amazing Spider-Man #403!!

OK, so, you know the old sci-fi chestnut of the superior race of beings who put humanity on trial to see if they deserve to survive, or to learn about good & evil, or some nonsense? Trek Classic did it at least 3 times, Lost In Space did it, MST3K made fun of it...

Anyway, what if, instead of an omnipotent alien race, we had, say, the Phantom Stranger as the judge? And Charles Manson as the prosecutor? And Ted Bundy as the defense attorney? And the inmates of Arkham as the jury?

It might go a little something like this:

Oy...

I wasn't a reader of Spider-Man at this time, so this issue--as much of it as I could follow--is all new to me. But it definitely is akin to what we've seen from the rest of Marvel 1995--a mini-event (that was really part of a maxi-event) in its own little fiefdom.

At this point Spider stories were locked in even tighter unison than Superman books during the "shield" days. Each story ran through all 4 books--Amazing, Spectacular, Adjectiveless, and Web Of--each with its own creative team, but each just working on different chapters of the same story. It was literally impossible to read just one Spider-Man book if you wanted to follow what was going on.

How insular was the Spider-kingdom at this point?? You no longer got Marvel Bullpen Bulletins...you got Spider-Man bulletins!!

No other Marvel mag is even mentioned (except New Warriors, which for some reason was a "prelude" to the next Spider-event). As far as the Spider books were concerned, there was no Fantastic Four, no Hulk, no Avengers...it was a hermetically sealed world. Which makes sense, because you probably needed to quarantine this mess.

Amazing Spider-Man #403 was part 2 of 4 of The Trial Of Peter Parker. Kaine (who, at this point had not yet been revealed as a clone of Peter Parker's) had been going around killing Spider-villains, but unfortunately leaving his fingerprints behind--which, of course, were the same as Peter Parker's. D'oh!!

So Peter is arrested for murder and on trial right now. Peter's other clone (sigh), Ben Reilly, is standing in for him at the trial, while Peter tries to hunt down Kaine and bring him to justice, and prevent Ben from being convicted.

Unfortunately, Peter and Kaine ran afoul of...the Judas Traveller!! Huh? Who he? As described by sometime Spider writer Glenn Greenberg, "no one – not the writers, not the editors – seemed to know who or what the hell Judas Traveller was. He was seemingly this immensely powerful, quasi-mystical being with amazing abilities, but what was the real deal with him?" Just think of him as the Phantom Stranger in Marvel drag, you'll get the idea. He would show up, offer and do seemingly impossible things, and then vanish.

This time, he ambushed Spider-Man and Kaine while they were fighting, and dragged them to the sub-basement beneath Ravencroft, Marvel's usually-forgotten attempt at their own Arkham. And then Peter wakes up, to a parade of faces...

...most of whom I frankly don't recognize--but, as we saw in Captain America #441 this week, why bother to inform the casual reader of anything?

But all is (kinda sorta) explained on our splash:

Oh, dear. Who created this mess?

Hey, I love De Matteis and Bagley--and, since the story they're telling has to tie in with the rest of the mags, it's surely not even their fault, mostly--but this story premise was a ridiculous cliche 20 years before this comic was published. There's really no way to take the stink of this turd blossom, is there?? I mean, look at this:

Aaghhh, this is a bad 1980s Batman story stuck onto 1990s Spider-Man! Does he cause the nuts to be villains, and if he died would they return to sanity?!?! AAAGGGGGHHHH!!! Combined with the quasi-mystical-mysterious stuff, this is so everything I do not want to read in a Spider-man story.

Of course, it gets stupider:

You know, for an all-powerful omnipotent type, Traveller seems pretty freakin' clueless about how to find out "the truth," doesn't he?

Kaine, for one, isn't taking this crap:

Except, of course, that you can't fight the Phantom Stranger:


At this point, I should point out that it is later revealed that Judas Traveller is really...sigh...just a mutant with the ability to alter perceptions, except that he believes all this is real, and he's just being manipulated by Norman Osborn, and....and...and my soul is shattering. Ugggghhhh...

Meanwhile, at the real trial, Mary Jane is having a tough time defending Peter while she's on the stand:


I'm not sure who Peter/Ben's lawyer is here--they never mention it in this issue, and where the hell is Matt Murdock when you need him?--but you'd think he'd object, or redirect, or something...instead of being silent while the world's meanest prosecutor shreds MJ:

I said GOOD DAY, sir!!

Meanwhile, the asylum trial goes pretty much as you'd expect--the villains whine about Spider-Man:


Kaine's cross-examinations tend to be a little bit violent:


And Carnage knows a little something he (and all the other psychos) shouldn't:

And of course, as always in this cliched storyline, the trial is unfair on its face, not letting the defense put on a case before the verdict:

And the sentence:


But Kaine won't let that happen:


And that's when the Traveller finally steps in for the "ironic god-like-being-talking-to-Kirk" reveal:

And our punchline?

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!

So, the fact that Kaine was willing to sacrifice himself proved that Spider-Man was good?!?! What a crock of #$%^!! Peter would have been willing to leap into a dogpile to prevent any skel from getting murdered--does that prove that every villain is good, because Peter would risk his life to save him?? Plus, Kaine was essentially rescuing himself, so that's kind of invalidates your asinine theory--did the Traveller somehow not know Kaine was Peter's clone?!?!?! AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! How lame can this ridiculous story be?!?!?!

You know, after those Classic Star Trek stories, I prayed we'd get a Next Generation story where we'd go and find the Metrons' planet and blow the living frak out of those arrogant bastards...that's how this story leaves me, wanting to hurt people...

Breathe, snell, breathe...

Before he leaves, Judas Traveller does does do one solid by Parker:

And that's pretty much it. But, as we've seen this week, July 1995 was in almost every case soon followed by something much worse. Doubly (triply?) so in this case:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

OK, I'm stretching this tie-in in a little bit...but the recent Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon was run by Greg Weisman, and Greg was also the co-creator producer of THIS cartoon:

I never read these comics. I really have no knowledge of how good they were, or how closely tied in with the series. But never mind...I'm just using this as a good excuse to proselytize for the Gargoyles cartoon.

Gargoyles originally aired from 1994-1997, and was a ridiculously ambitious and wonderful animated series, with complex and sophisticated continuity and a heavy emphasis on characterization. Damn, this show was good.

Season One and the first part of Season Two are available on DVD, but Disney is being stupid and won't release the last half of Season 2. But if enough people rush out and buy it, well, they might just see the light! Trust me, these are worth it (Season 2 part 1 has 26 episodes on it--26!!). But, if you don't want to spend money without sampling first, the discs are available on Netflix. And, if you're all into the "I won't try anything unless it's free" vibe, well, all of the episodes are available on YouTube!! And Disney XD is running episodes at 4AM, which is why God invented TiVo.

Look, I don't want to oversell the show, except I'm going to. It's awesome. So if you want an insane cross between sorcery and science, evil clones and good robots, the true story behind MacBeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream with Brent Spiner as Puck (!), King Arthur, 20th century cops fighting the fairy invasion of NY, insane billionaires marrying exotic super-criminals, and more swooping than you can shake a stick at, you really need to give this series a shot.