Marvel 1985 Week--Amazing Spider-Man #262!!

Let's see...my schedule is pretty light this week, I've been a little DC heavy lately (not that there's anything wrong with that!), and I've got my lucky blogging shirt on. That can only mean that it's time to travel back 25 years and enjoy

MARVEL 1985 WEEK!!!

And what's up on our hit parade this week?

Whoa--photo cover!! More than just a stunt, this photo is an accurate representation of what's on the inside. The actor playing Peter Parker is stuntman/stunt coordinator/2nd unit director Scott Leva, who was actually considered for the Spider-Man role when Marvel and Hollywood were throwing around the idea of a movie in the mid-eighties. I couldn't find who played the photographer in the photo...(the actual photographer who took this picture was writer/artist/editor/jack of all trades Eliot Brown).

Hey, wait a minute--what's that banner at the top? "Special issue"?!? Man, that can only mean a lousy stinking fill-in story, right?

Right. Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz were the regulars on Amazing those days, but obviously they needed a catch-up month, so Jim Shooter went to the old "inventory story" file. How come I always end up with a fill in story?

Anyway, on we go:

Why is Spidey at the Newark airport? To get a picture of Ronald Reagan when Air Force One lands there! But Peter Parker isn't the only photog hanging around:

Now, if nothing else, this issue confirms one unalterable law...

...Bob Layton makes every character with a mustache look exactly like Tony Stark. Fact.

Anyway, Jones decides to duck into a storage closet, and finds--

AIEEEE!!! (Note to the youthful--this was pre-9/11, when apparently anybody can wander into international airports and changes clothes in airport offices and storage areas, even on days when Air Force One is landing there...). Jones has his camera with him, and:


Now, another note to all you punk kids--this is pre-digital, internet accessing cameras...so Jones had to actually take the "film" from his camera and have the "negatives" "developed" before he could actually see what was in his pictures. I know, I know, so very Flintstone. If this happened today there would be no need for the chase, as he would already have them uploaded to Flicker or his blog and Twittered to 50,000 people and...

Now, Layton really wants to emphasize what a scuzball Jones is, so he has him try to kill innocents bystanders as part of his plan to escape:


Nice guy. Both Jones and Parker watch the sunset, as they contemplate their next move:

Jones decides the mob will pay bigger bucks for his picture than the newspapers, so he heads for a dive. And, in a very Joe Chillesque moment:



Wow, criminals really are stupid. Fortunately, their boss is a tiny bit smarter:

So they track Jones down at his crib, and...

Luckily, Spider-Man had tracked him down, too, and:

Jones, a creep to the end, bolts:


Sadly, this just isn't his day, as the mobsters decide that he deliberately led them into a spider-trap:

Now, Spidey thinks to himself (briefly) that if he just lets nature take its course, he's home free. But this as a Spider-Man fill-in issue, so we are legally obligated to flashback to the first time Peter was selfish:

Congratulations, Bob Layton--that was officially the 10,000th unnecessary-yet-space-filling retelling of Spidey's origin!! Anyway, Spidey knows he has to a) rescue Jones, b) get the negatives, and c) somehow get Jones to be too frightened to expose the Parker identity. Result: Spidey decides to go all Batman!!







Cool...so Jones does decide to leave town, at least until the heat dies down. Still, give Layton credit for realizing something pretty obvious:


Unless your secret identity is as someone famous, there's relatively little chance someone's going to be able to find your face in a city of ten million.

Or, you could just make a deal with Satan to protect your ID. Whatever works.

Well, that was mildly entertaining, albeit disconnected from anything else going on in the Spider-Man universe...Hey, wait a minute--Parker never got those pictures of the President!! I hope he won't get fired...

ELSEWHERE IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE:

Spider-Man only had two titles those days (although a 3rd, The Web Of Spider-Man, would be debuting the next month). What was going on in the other book?

Well, it was all sorts of fun. Written and drawn by Al Milgrom, Spidey was a) fighting the Kingpin, b) fighting The Spot, c) breaking up with the Black Cat, and d) about to have the black costume symbiote re-enter his life after a brief separation. All this, and more, in a jumbo-sized issue #100.

Which leads me a serious question--how do you guys out there organize your collections? Would you put this under P, for Peter Parker, or under S, for Spectacular Spider-Man? Or would you keep all of your diverse Amazings and Webs and Spectaculars and Adjectiveless under S for Spider-Man?? I can never make up my mind...