Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1976-04-01 00:06:10 |
| Previous: Avengers #145-146 | Up: Main 1976 / Box 10 / EiC Upheaval | Next: Daredevil #131-132 |
Amazing Spider-Man #155
Issue(s): Amazing Spider-man #155
Cover Date: Apr 76
Title: "Whodunit!"
Credits:
Len Wein - Writer
Sal Buscema - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker
Review/plot:
Never let a 'witty' idea for a title dictate a story plot. In this case, Spider-Man solves a murder mystery...
...in which WHO (the Worldwide Habitual Offenders supercomputer) dunit. Stupid.
This book is getting really bad, really fast, under Len Wein. Sal Buscema takes over for Ross Andru this issue so it may be a real fill-in.
The WHO computer is introduced by the new district attorney Blake Tower, who has replaced Foggy Nelson.
Most of the issue has Spider-Man following up on false leads supplied by WHO.
As Mark notes in the comments, one of the fake suspects supplied to Spider-Man by the computer has cool metal hands, but Leroy Tallon has no further appearances.
Statement of Ownership Total Paid Circulation: Average of Past 12 months = 273,773. Single issue closest to filing date = 261,930.
Quality Rating: D+
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A
References:
- The WHO computer is the one the ex-football player from Amazing Spider-Man #153 helped design, although the murder victim, Dr. Armstrong Smith, had been working on crime computers since Daredevil #124. This issue puts the kibosh on the idea of using such a computer by having the computer turn out to be a murderer.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: Marvel Tales #132
| Previous: Avengers #145-146 | Up: Main 1976 / Box 10 / EiC Upheaval | Next: Daredevil #131-132 |
Comments
There's a villain in the book called Leroy Tallon who had cool(at the time) metal hands, but I don't know if he ever rated a notation from Marvel or not.
I like the fact that Leroy Tallon's name is a play on the word Talon - claw, since he has metal hands.
I wonder if the doctor who replaced Tallon's hands was supposed to be Jonas Harrow?
It says a lot about this issue that we're all talking about an incidental character in it.
Also, there's a letter in this issue that fits nicely with fnord12's review:
"Len Wein, eh? Well, I don't know, but....no. the trouble is that I do know. That is, I'm familiar enough with Wein's style to fear he's not going to work very well on SPIDER-MAN. His famous wordy captions, overloaded dialogue, affected self-consciosuness a la Mike Friedrich, and penchant for melodrama have their place, I suppose. But a fast-paced, action-oriented strip like Spidey? I don't think so."
Practically a checklist for this run, isn't it?
