Issue(s): Spider-Woman #25
Published Date: Apr 80
Title: "To free a felon!"
Credits:
Michael Fleisher - Writer
Stephen Leialoha - Penciler
Stephen Leialoha - Inker

Review/plot:
Jessica's aspiring actress friend Lindsay is hired to dress up as Spider-Woman. She doesn't realize it's part of a criminal plot...

...until Spider-Woman gets her alone and has a talk with her. Then with the help of the ol' switcharoo, Spider-Woman brings the bad guys to justice.

Pretty straightforward stuff. The straight crime stories were avoided in the early issues of Spider-Woman in favor of the bizarre/mystical elements to avoid comparisons with Spider-Man, but it was never really pulled off. Anyway, this book really has become a vehicle for Leialoha relatively unique art style, which i enjoy.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Cross-over: N/A

Continuity Implant? N

Reprinted In: N/A

I never read this title, but I remember Fleisher's run on it coming up briefly in testimony in the lawsuit he filed against Harlan Ellison and the publishers of Comics Journal. His claim was that his reputation and livelihood had been harmed by Ellison's references to him in an interview as crazy (it was more colorfully phrased than that), mostly based on his work for DC's The Spectre and a novel. Shooter (a frequent target of CJ himself) testified on Fleisher's behalf, and one of the attorneys for the other side asked him something like "Is it true that when Mr. Fleisher was writing your Spider-Woman comic, the main character was constantly being tied up in every issue?" implying that this happened with such frequency that it said something disturbing about Fleisher. Shooter just replied that the hero getting captured and tied up wasn't so unusual in comics.

What's interesting is that looking at cover scans of this series, three of the first ten issues have Spider-Woman tied up on the cover, and that was long before Fleisher was writing it!

http://www.supermegamonkey.net/2011/09/were_not_that_kind_of_blog_boo.shtml

So sorry, fnord12. Can you remove my comment(s) on the ish...or, rather, you have my blessing to do so. I didn't realize this was some ongoing skeevy thing. I just recalled that exchange from the transcript in the CJ's issue devoted to the case.

Todd, the info you provided on the Fleisher/Ellison trial is interesting, and i wasn't accusing you of anything untoward. ;-) I even suspect that whoever was searching for those phrases was just looking for commentary on the subject; it really is an obvious phenomenon as you go through the issues.

So your comment stands, you skeevy bastard.