Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1980-10-01 00:09:10 |
| Previous: Fantastic Four annual #15 | Up: Main | Next: She-Hulk #9-12 |
Amazing Spider-Man annual #14
Issue(s): Amazing Spider-Man annual #14
Cover Date: 1980
Title: "The Bend Sinister"
Credits:
Denny O'Neil - Script
Denny O'Neil & Frank Miller - Plot
Frank Miller - Penciler
Tom Palmer - Inker
Review/plot:
The (awesome) credit page just say that Denny O'Neil and Frank Miller are "co-creators".
Well, all you need to say about this is Frank Miller drawing some incredible Steve Ditko-esque mystical stuff...
...and nice shots of Spider-Man as well.
The whole book has a fairy tale/fantasy look to it. It's just really good.
The story itself is a little generic, with Dr. Doom teaming-up with Dormammu to... do bad mystical stuff.
But it's done well enough. Doom uses a schlumpy minion to do the dirty work.
One scene i didn't really love was where Doom was shown studying movie clips of Hitler, so that he could learn from them.
First, Doom has been shown to have no love for Nazis due to their persecution of gypsies, and second, Doom would never feel the need to study another mortal. But it's a quibble, i suppose.
Quality Rating: B
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP places this between Amazing Spider-Man #209-210. Peter is a TA and he's still blowing off dates with Debra Whitman. It's context free from Dr. Strange's point of view, except to say that neither Clea nor the Defenders are around. For Dr. Doom, this takes place after Fantastic Four annual #15 where Doom becomes active again.
References: N/A
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: Marvel Tales #200
| Previous: Fantastic Four annual #15 | Up: Main | Next: She-Hulk #9-12 |
Comments
This is supposed to be the high point of Denny O'Neil's Spider-Man run, but I'm not really seeing it. The monster sent out by Dormammu really isn't impressive. The presence of the punk bank Shrapnel(they really existed) doesn't help either--the band never went anyplace, and by 1980 their brand of punk was passe anyway.
An Aunt May backup was originally announced for this annual; no creators were identified.
The art here was absolutely fantastic.
I seem to recall an ad or a bullpen blurb for a Frank Miller Dr. Strange series. Would have been pretty cool, probably not worth losing his Daredevil for though.
The band Shrapnel didn't go any place, but the leader of that band, Dave Wyndorf, formed a new band much later named Monster Magnet. That band inserted a few Marvel Comics references in their lyrics, and wrote a song named "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" that Grant Morrison named a mutant after in his run.
so Shrapnel didn't "go any place", so what? have you heard "Combat Love"? that's a great song, dude! open your ears!
Not great enough to warrant their gratuitous appearance here. On the other hand, if another notorious CBGB's band, the Plasmatics, had appeared here instead...
What exactly does "one of two things" at the end mean?
Since one of the two is "evil", I'm assuming the other is puppies, unicorns, and relaxed federal drug law enforcement.
Doom watching Nazi films may be a nod to G. Gordon Liddy's autobiography Will, which was released at this time. In it, Liddy, without any apparent sense of a need to contextualize his behavior, described showing Riefenstahl's "cinematic masterpiece" Triumph of the Will to White House staff. And his children.
