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Spectacular Spider-Man annual #9Issue(s): Spectacular Spider-Man annual #9 Review/plot: ![]() I guess Peter's pictures of the battleships in Amazing Spider-Man annual #23 didn't go over well, since he says here that he hasn't sold a photo in "months". While he's there getting photos, Spider-Man bumps into Cloak and eventually Dagger, and gets into misunderstanding fights with the two of them. It's made easier by the fact that Dagger is currently blind. ![]() ![]() ![]() You see the guy in armor watching all of this from a nearby rooftop in the first scan. He's seen a couple of times in this issue. ![]() And we'll see him in future issues as well. I thought that he was going to turn out to be the Sub-Mariner keeping the illusion of his supposed death while still getting involved in the storyline, but there's never a reveal that confirms that and the MCP doesn't list him as a character here. After the initial fight with Cloak, Spider-Man gets dumped in Central Park with a group of homeless people who are considering going to a SOS shelter. ![]() We saw a little of this in the Amazing Spider-Man annual too. ![]() This is the last we'll see of the homeless theme in these annuals. From there, Peter goes to develop his photos, and he notices the same Mark of Set on one of the SOS workers wrists that he saw on She-Hulk. Meanwhile, Ghaur has identified Dagger as a potential Bride of Set, so Tyrannus charms her into coming with him. Spider-Man and Cloak bump into each other going back to the clinic, but when they split up again, Cloak finds Dagger held hostage by Tyrannus, and Tyrannus makes him go acquire a "Book of Kell" in return for her release. Which he does. In Cloak's defense, Tyrannus has a magically high charisma score that allows him to manipulate people. ![]() It was a long distance teleport to Paris, which by other accounts is beyond Cloak's abilities, but Tyrannus did show him a picture of it first, so maybe that helped. Or maybe Cloak's limitations are psychological and being under the control of Tyrannus allowed him to do it. Tyrannus reveals that his plan is to supplant Ghaur, and then he orders Cloak killed. ![]() Of course, Cloak can just swallow up all the Snake People. ![]() But they just keep coming, and Cloak is eventually overwhelmed. Eventually the armored guy helps out. ![]() As for Spider-Man, Cloak leaves him behind once he's rescued Dagger (jerk!), so he's captured by Tyrannus and taken upstate (i.e., to the Daredevil annual). ![]() ![]() The second story, by Glenn Herdling and Scott McDaniel (who is doing his best Todd McFarlane impression), features the Prowler. As Hobie Brown, working at a construction site run by Jerry Sapristi (Nick Fury's cousin!), he fails to rescue a falling worker. ![]() He works all night to develop automatic parachutes for construction workers... ![]() ...and his wife Mindy takes it to Justin Hammer, unaware that Hammer is a bad guy that Hobie, as Prowler, had to rescue her from in the past. Mindy is also unaware that Hobie is the Prowler, for that matter. So he goes out as Prowler to steal his design back, and winds up in a fight with a guy with a modified version of his gear who was using it to steal from one of Hammer's competitors. ![]() ![]() The story ends with the information that the guy who fell in the beginning died before he fell. ![]() Glenn Herdling will write another Prowler story in next year's Spectacular Spider-Man annual, but it doesn't follow up on this. The third story, by Gerry Conway and Dan Jurgens, has Mary Jane unnecessarily and unadvisedly tormenting Jonathan Caesar while he's in prison. ![]() ![]() ![]() There's also a Fred Hembeck feature showing the 25 most important women in Spider-Man's life (not just his love interests; Aunt May is #2). The Saga of the Serprent Crown for this issue says it's "inspired by a story by John Byrne", but i'm not sure which one. It shows the ruler of Atlantis some two millenia ago, named Ossem, going to Father Neptune in the aftermath with a battle against the "barbarians of Skarka" and begging him to help with the fact that many of the Atlanteans, including Ossem's son Balaal, are becoming bloodthirsty followers of Set. Neptune crankily refuses to help, but later intervenes before Balaal can sacrifice Ossem to Set. With Neptune's intervention, a portion of Set's lifeforce became trapped in a globe on Earth, under the sea, and it was named the Altar of Neptune's Wrath. Later, when Ossem was on his deathbed, he made another appeal to Neptune, afraid of leaving his people without anyone to guide them. So Neptune let Ossem die in peace and agreed to sit in Atlantis himself and rule the Atlanteans, which i guess explains some early Golden Age stories (and even some less goofy ones in the Silver Age) where Father Neptune was seen hanging around Atlantis. Jump forward to just 600 years ago, and we see a Lemurian locate the Serpent Crown that was lost after the Celestial attack (discussed in the previous Saga portion) and bring it to Naga. I haven't been covering the Serpent Crown Saga in detail the way i did with last year's High Evolutionary Saga because it has really been a series of references to previous stories with little new information, but since i'm not sure which John Byrne story the above information is supposed to have come from, i've tried to summarize it. Quality Rating: C+ Chronological Placement Considerations: This is part six of Atlantis Attacks; part seven takes place in Daredevil annual #4. Cloak and Dagger appear her during Cloak and Dagger #8, before the Acts of Vengeance prelude at the end. The Mary Jane portion of the story includes a big party with Spider-Man's entire cast and that includes Kristy Watson, which means that portion of the story should probably take place further ahead after she gets out of the hospital. But i'm not cutting this issue up for such a small scene so you can assume she was temporarily released from the hospital for whatever reason. Since Spider-Man is captured at the end of the first story, i guess the third takes place just prior to it. References:
Crossover: Atlantis Attacks Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (4): show CommentsDavid Ross is clearly a Steve Ditko fan, judging by the way he draws Spidey in some of those panels. Either that or we have another Rich Buckler situation. Posted by: Robert | October 17, 2014 5:33 PM The "inspired by a story by John Byrne" may refer to a plot JB gave them to tie up some events and they were giving him a shout out for it. I thought the mysterious armored man was revealed to be Namor in the concluding chapter of Atlantic Attacks? It's been over a decade since I read it, so maybe I'm remembering wrong... Posted by: Bill | October 17, 2014 5:47 PM You're probably right about the John Byrne credit, Bill, but all the other parts of the Saga have similar credits to other writers that i know refer to existing comics, so i'm waiting to see if anyone knows if there's a specific comic that they're referring to here. Namor definitely surfaces in the final part of Atlantis Attacks but i don't remember anything confirming that he was the armored guy in the other parts. I'll look more closely when i add the entry. The MCP does list him as appearing in the other issues where the armored guy appears, so i assume it is him and it's just a miss that he's not included here. I've added him as a character appearing. Posted by: fnord12 | October 17, 2014 5:57 PM Noticing the extent to which other Spidey artists were adopting / resistant to McFarlane's new template (bigger eyes, underarm webbing, knotty strands, "Spidery" poses). Posted by: Cullen | October 17, 2014 8:31 PM Regarding the backup story, we see the globe with Set's life force in the Avengers West Coast Annual. And that Annual was written by John Byrne. So probably Byrne handed in the plot for that issue and then Sanderson wrote the backup to explain where the globe came from. Posted by: Michael | October 17, 2014 10:32 PM I don't think fnord was saying she should be forgiving, merely that it might not be advisable to poke the caged tiger with a stick. Posted by: Erik Robbins | October 18, 2014 12:18 AM That's exactly what i meant, Erik. It might be human to want to taunt the psychopath that is obsessed with you, but it's not smart. Posted by: fnord12 | October 18, 2014 12:26 AM I'd agree with you, except that Caesar has continued to harass MJ no matter WHAT she does. If MJ thinks that Caesar will go after her no matter what, then she has no reason NOT to send him the picture. I can't stand the "Don't provoke the bully" argument when the bully CONTINUES to harass the victim, as opposed to "Don't get the bully angry now that he's leaving you alone", which makes sense. The "Don't get the bully mad while he's making your life hell" argument places the onus on the victim. Posted by: Michael | October 18, 2014 8:55 AM It's always pissed me off that we never got closure on that Prowler story. Posted by: Thanos6 | October 20, 2014 8:10 PM Really liked Ross' art here. he drew a beautiful Dagger. Posted by: Dave | November 30, 2014 2:32 AM "and i'm surprised that the FDA or someone didn't want to come in and inspect this miracle drug that they've been dishing out." Not so surprising if they were paid off by Tyrannus. ;) Posted by: clyde | July 16, 2015 10:03 AM If #1 on Hembeck's list is Mary Jane, we've since encountered evidence suggesting his top two is definitely in the wrong order... Posted by: Morgan Wick | March 16, 2017 2:04 AM Comments are now closed. |
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