Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
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Amazing Spider-Man #171
Issue(s): Amazing Spider-Man #171
Cover Date: Aug 77
Title: "Photon is another name for...?"
Credits:
Len Wein - Writer
Ross Andru - Penciler
Mike Esposito - Inker
Review/plot:
The murder mystery is solved thanks to anagrams acronyms acrostics! Because when you're being murdered by a super-villain, who doesn't have time to arrange the pages of a calendar so that the first letter of each month spells out the murderer's name?
Is that even an anagram? One of the "clues" was that Rich Rider's uncle was big into anagrams, but i'm not sure if this code qualifies as one. In fact, i'm pretty sure it doesn't. To hell with you, anagrams!
The quality of Amazing Spider-Man, once Marvel's top book by a large margin, is really sad to behold at this point. It may be due to the crossover with Nova, but there is very little space devoted to the sub-plots and supporting characters that made the book so much more intricate than other titles. There is a brief interlude with Harry Osborn telling Liz Allan that he won't set a marriage date until after he's sure that he's over his mental illness, though.
It is rare to see Spidey going up against AIM agents though, so that's something.
The uninspired villain Photon...
... turns out to be the guy from the Maggia, but the police arrest the AIM agent and the ruthless businessman for good measure as well.
Quality Rating: C-
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: Continues directly from Nova #12.
References:
- A reference to AIM's Manhattan headquarters is given a footnote to "Current issues of Ms. Marvel". They were most recently seen in Ms. Marvel #7.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
It's an acronym, not an anagram. I suppose the use of A.I.M., an acronym-using organization, as the bad guys is a subtle way of cuing the solution.
(And in Charles Rider's defense, it's not as if he had anything to write with.)
This was the first Marvel comic I ever owned, so... go to Hell.
Surprising this was a regular issue of ASM instead of Team-Up. Were they that desperate to flog Nova's book?
I've always thought it funny that the initial letters of five consecutive months spelled out "JASON". Nice to see someone else had the same realization and made it a questionable clue in a mediocre murder mystery!
It's not an acronym, it's an acrostic!
I'm sure fnord's just gonna love me for saying this, but shouldn't Photon and all the Photon suspects who appeared here and in Nova 12 be listed?
Grumpily added the characters and updated the acronym line. :-)
No, fnord! Don't give in to the pressure! An acronym is, in fact, formed from the first letters of a series of words, like SCUBA, NATO, or LASER. An acrostic is formed from the first (or last) letters of a series of sentences.
An acrostic can be any recurring feature in a list or text; it need not involve full sentences. And an acronym is a name for the thing the component words make up; "Jason" here is not a name for the group of months. Because the "answer" does not relate to the meanings of the component words, this is more an acrostic than an anagram.
Ah. Now I get it. That's the "nym" part in "acronym".
The Molten Man also appears in this issue; you can tell him by his footprints.
Added Molten Man. Thanks.
There ain't enough time on the calendar for this shit!
