Issue(s): Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #122
Cover Date: Jan 87
Title: "Father's night out"
Credits:
Peter David - Writer
Rich Buckler & Malcom Davis - Penciler
Mike Esposito, Bob McLeod, & Art Nichols - Inker
Adam Blaustein - Assistant Editor
Jim Salicrup - Editor

Review/plot:
Like last issue, another one-and-done story with a lot of extra help on art. This one has Spider-Man getting into a conflict with the very Irish Mauler over the custody of his child.

The first encounter has both of them out of costume.

The second is in a hospital. And the battle winds up destroying much of the building...

...and damaging its electrical system, even preventing the back-up generators from working, leaving Spider-Man having to seal up an operating room and donating his spider-light to help doctors delivering a baby (if anyone was on life support and dies due to the lack of power, we don't hear about it).

Peter David has a style that lends towards quips and puns, and that's great for Spider-Man, but it sometimes comes in conflict with the more serious stories. And i think the artists take a lighter-hearted approach knowing that David is writing, leading to goofy looking figures talking about serious topics.

Lt. Keating shows up at the end to berate Spider-Man for letting the Mauler go after he realizes that he's been acting poorly and isn't really responsible enough to care for a child.

According to the Checklist on the Bullpen Bulletins page for this month, this issue was going to feature the Hobgoblin and Dakota North.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The MCP place this in the same space during Web of Spider-Man #23 with a number of other Spider-Man comics. But in the beginning of Amazing Spider-Man #284, Spider-Man talks about the chewing out from Keating as if it had just happened, so i've placed this after the second half of Web of Spider-Man, directly before ASM #284.

References:

• Joy and Peter decline a ride from the cab driver they met in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man annual #5. Actually, the footnote is for Amazing Spider-Man #267, the cabbie's first appearance, but it's Joy who declines the ride, and she wasn't in that issue.
  

• There's no footnote for this, but Spider-Man met the Mauler in Marvel Team-Up #136.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I guess Gerry Conway later forgets that Pete can't speak Spanish during the Lobo Brothers arc, when Spider-man suddenly becomes masterfully fluent in the language.

Well, I'm sure Spidey took some Spanish lessons with the White Tiger, off-panel. It fits continuity just fine!

This was the first Marvel comic I ever read, and it got me hooked for life. Also, this is one of like two times the Mauler was used by someone other than David Michelinie.

Since you've noted the Latino cab driver's appearances in previous two issues, shouldn't he be tagged in the Characters Appearing section for all three? Or is he too minor a character to get a tag?

If you tag the cab driver, then you need to tag the drunken sailor, Nathaniel, from Marvel Team-Up #2 and Marvel Team-Up #13, and where does it end, Tuomas? Where does it end?!!

I'm sure Nathaniel got a surname in #13 at least.

I used to have a rule about not tagging characters who weren't given full names, but i've made so many exceptions to that rule it's not really operative anymore. So i've tagged both the unnamed cabbie and Nathaniel. (I couldn't find Nathaniel's surname in MTU #13.)

Nathaniel's surname is Richards. That Hickman, he plans YEARS in advance...