![]() | |||||||||
Web of Spider-Man #10Issue(s): Web of Spider-Man #10 Review/plot: ![]() Hearing that Spider-Man has helped Fortune (for the second time, after Marvel Team-Up #120), Steele decides he needs to recruit help, so he travels to the apartment of Herman Schultz, aka the Shocker. The Shocker's neighborhood is shoddy... ![]() ...but he's renovated his apartment to look like a "palace" and arranged a demonstration for Steele. ![]() There's a complex contract signing process (who enforces assassination contracts?) and then Steele leaves without having a cigar or a drink with Shocker. Shocker correctly decides that Steele thinks he's a "loser". Steele indeed describes Shocker of being of "low caliber". ![]() We soon learn that Steele/Van Lundt is a former Nazi, so i wonder if Shocker is meant to be Jewish and there's an anti-Semitic angle to Van Lundt's assessment, but there's nothing explicit in this story, and i think the idea is just that Shocker is and has been pretty low on the totem pole of super-villains and is being a little pretentious with his fancy apartment, especially after he was double-crossed by Egghead. Shocker has also upgraded his powers so he's not dependent on his wrist-units, which was a nice twist... ![]() ...but Spider-Man responds by stripping the guy naked. ![]() Pretty humiliating. Fortune, meanwhile, fends off Steele's non-powered goons, but winds up collapsing and having to get carted back to the hospital again, to the chagrin of his straight-laced, uptight son. ![]() Steele, meanwhile, has Shocker's apartment blown up to ensure that the authorities can't connect the Shocker to him. And then he decides to head off to Europe. We're left with a tease that Steele is in a relationship with Sabbath, Fortune's old girlfriend and the object of his current quest. We're told that mystery will be unravelled "some other day". ![]() Ten issues in, after rotating creatives teams, it's worth wondering whether this book was an improvement over Marvel Team-Up (especially since there's a guest star this issue). I'd say the issues have all been of middling high quality, which is better than the long term track record for Team-Up, but i think it reflects a general overall increase in quality for the Spider-Man line (Team-Up went out on a strong note). I don't know if the change to Web caused a permanent sales increase, but it's worth factoring in the fact that Marvel gave up the try-out/spotlighting capabilities of Team-Up with the switch. Creatively, while again the book has been decent, it doesn't really have a distinct voice or "reason to exist" beyond being "yet another Spider-Man book". Quality Rating: B- Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (3): showCharacters Appearing: Dominic Fortune, Elena Von Lundt, Shocker, Spider-Man, Wolfgang Von Lundt CommentsThe Baron is solving a Rubik's Cube about five years after that craze had passed. I guess we can either say, "Well, he's old," or file it as a minor entry among pop-culture references/trends on which Marvel was tardy in the 1980s (books featuring a disco diva and a trucker, respectively). By 1985-86, showing a character to be a whiz at chess had once again become the go-to "genius" shorthand. You always come back to the basics. Posted by: Todd | October 29, 2013 3:36 AM Am I reading too much into the scene where Dom makes a remark to Pete about acting "like SPIDER-MAN" (emphasis theirs, meaning, Marvels) suggesting or setting up that he may suspect Spidey's secret identity is right in front of him? Posted by: George Gordon | March 1, 2014 7:46 PM This issue has always seemed really weird to me with its handling of the Shocker, who is usually portrayed as a blue-collar thief. I guess Fingeroth needed a Spider-villain of some kind to make the plot work, but....the Shocker? As an assassin? With a fancy office? Posted by: Omar Karindu | October 14, 2015 2:39 PM We soon learn that Steele/Van Lundt is a former Nazi, so i wonder if Shocker is meant to be Jewish and there's an anti-Semitic angle to Van Lundt's assessment Y'know, fnord, that's a really interesting idea. It's too bad that something like that was never actually pursued in a Marvel Comics story. Screaming Mimi aka Songbird is Jewish, and on several occasions she worked with the second Baron Zemo, but unlike his father he was more of a generic fascist who didn't appear to be especially motivated by any specific anti-Semitism. Obviously there was also Magneto, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, refusing to work with the Red Skull, a Nazi war criminal. But Magneto is not really a "super-villain" so much as a terrorist / political revolutionary. Offhand I cannot think of too many Jewish bad guys in the Marvel universe. But it could make for an interesting story to have an otherwise-unrepentant costumed criminal who happens to be Jewish suddenly finds himself working with one of the various neo-Nazi super-villains who inhabit the Marvel universe, causing him to start having some serious second thoughts. Posted by: Ben Herman | March 14, 2016 11:57 PM the idea of Shocker being Jewish would be an interesting angle.I'd always wondered why an American character got such a stereotypically German name as Hermann Shultz (I know there are loads of German Americans, but in the comic book world everyone remotely german is secretly a nazi, excepting Shocker and Nightcrawler.) Posted by: kveto | March 19, 2016 3:24 PM Shocker prides himself on being a PROFESSIONAL criminal, and that professionalism would logically carry over to how he maintained his office, in spite of the surroundings. Posted by: Brian Coffey | May 24, 2017 11:10 AM Unfortunately, this was Shocker's next appearance after his stint in the Masters of Evil where Egghead used him as a disposable pawn. I feel like those issues (Avengers 228-229) began the "Shocker is a loser" trend, and this follow-up further solidified it. Steele's treatment of the Shocker don't come off as anti-Semitic, just as arrogance and aloofness, and Shocker getting beaten and not completing the kill, plus Steele destroying his hide-out just really made it look like the Shocker wasn't getting respect from anybody. Posted by: mikrolik | May 25, 2017 1:18 PM Schultz is generally an ethnic German name, not Jewish, but anything is possible. However, I think the general assessment of Steele is just that the Shocker is low class, not a racial or religious slur. The Shocker doesn't really do anything for me as a villain, but his Romita designed costume is classic. I'm actually surprised he is not used more whenever someone needs a generic goon. If there is a role for the Shocker in the greater Marvel universe, a hired thug to deal with potential superhero threats wouldn't be bad. He is just powerful enough to be a real threat to most of the street level Marvel heroes (Spidey, DD, PM& IF, and many others). I never like it though when villains get tarred with "loser" status (unless they were originally meant as joke villains) because a threatening opponent is essential for the hero to look good. But being a "loser" and being on the lower end of the totem pole are two different things. Even a thug can be well written and menacing. Posted by: Chris | May 25, 2017 3:28 PM Comments are now closed. |
|||||||||
![]() |
|||||||||
SuperMegaMonkey home | Comics Chronology home |