Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1991-11-01 00:09:30 |
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Web of Spider-Man #83
Issue(s): Web of Spider-Man #83
Cover Date: Dec 91
Title: "Entrepreneurs"
Credits:
Kurt Busiek - Writer
Chris Marrinan - Penciler
Don Hudson - Inker
Danny Fingeroth - Editor
Review/plot:
Kurt Busiek's third and final Web of Spider-Man fill-in is more on the humorous side than the previous two, but continues the focus on random minor characters to give us interesting perspectives. The focus in this issue is a guy named Bob Robbins, who is running a failing PR company. He gets the idea to turn around the public perception of a high profile superhero who gets bad press all the time (i.e. Spider-Man)...
...but Spidey isn't interested.
But another opportunity presents itself in the form of Hypertron 1.0. This refers to a not-so-high tech high tech suit. I mean, its operating system is stored on a cassette tape.
But it does also take 3.5" floppies (which were more cutting edge at the time; my only experience with using cassette tapes for computers was on my friend's older brother's Commodore 64).
Hypertron is initially robbing a bank when Spider-Man encounters him. Spidey stops him, with some help from Bob. And Bob winds up with the suit, deciding that if he can't be the PR agent for a super-hero, he'll try being a super-hero himself. He considers calling himself Captain Bob, the Bob-Man, and Bobtron 4000.
The creators of the Hypertron suit turn out to be former AIM employees that were laid off due to the recession.
And of course they want the suit back from Bob.
Spider-Man has to help Bob deal with the ex-AIM guys.
And then save the AIM guys from Bob when Bob activates a weapon in the Hypertron suit without knowing what it does.
After a scolding from Spider-Man, Bob agrees to give up the suit and go back to his life and money problems, but we do see at the end that he's made a copy of the suit's schematics.
As with Busiek's previous two issues, it's a simple disposable story but it's good because of the care that Busiek puts into the character work. There is also a nice little scene where Peter sees Hypertron on TV and rushes off, making a quick excuse to Aunt May. May tells Mary Jane that she "knows" Peter's secret, which she thinks is that he really rushes off to take crime photos and doesn't want to agitate her. She says that he's a "sweet boy" for doing so.
Chris Marrinan's art seems to be improving compared to his work on Doctor Strange so far.
Quality Rating: B
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A
References:
- Thinking about Bob's PR offer, Spider-Man flashes back to his origin story from Amazing Fantasy #15 when he originally was using his powers to make money.
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
Good thing that Negative Vortex takes about 20 hours to fire, god forbid you make an ultimate weapon that actually hits it's opponents.
I had a "Make your own comic" coloring book version of this story as a kid, which reprinted several of the panels with blank speech bubbles. I remember balking the first time I saw the official colors of the Hypertron armor, as they were nothing like the colors I chose!
Wow, by pure chance I owned all of the Busiek fill-in Web stories as a kid. I liked them because I enjoyed straightforward storytelling and felt it was refreshing than Part 3 of 1000 stuff going on in other Spidey comics.
I hope he kept his computer cassettes and personal listening cassettes in different places. "Battle Mode" could be mistaken for a heavy metal awesome mix tape.
Reminds me of the Avengers issue where the Red Ronin pilot who had a "DESTROY" setting on his battle helmet.
