ohtani's jacket

It was from all sides, but since Conway wrote two of the books it stood out more. Conway was only on the books for a few years, but his Mary Jane went through probably a dozen iterations. Some of them were good. It's a shame they didn't give her a single focus point during his run.

Amazing Spider-Man: Parallel Lives (1989) This would have been Marvel Graphic Novel #46 if the books were still being numbered. It basically fleshes out the retcons about Mary Jane that Tom DeFalco introduced during his run on Amazing Spider-Man, namely that Mary Jane had known Peter was Spider-Man for a long time, and that her mother and sister had been involved in abusive relationships and that Mary Jane developed her devil-may-care attitude to hide the pain. Conway reveals that Mary Jane discovered Peter was Spidey on the night that Uncle Ben was murdered. We're treated to a retrospective of Peter's early years as Spidey while gaining insight into what was happening with Mary Jane during the same time period. Just as Peter had been avoiding being set up on a blind date with MJ, Mary Jane also fakes her way out of dating Peter. Saviuk works overtime paying tribute to both the Ditko and Romita eras, building up to the iconic Romita panel where Peter meets Mary Jane for the first time. The first two thirds are okay. The Spider-Man stuff isn't particularly interesting for anyone who's read the original material. There are some new scenes that weren't in the original books, but nothing earth shattering. The Mary Jane pages are what long time readers will be interested in. Mary Jane has always been divisive. A lot of people didn't like the marriage, and there were people who disliked the retcon that she had always known that he was Spider-Man. Mary Jane fans will no doubt feel that her backstory adds depth to her character instead of her appearing to be some air-headed party girl. It certainly changes certain scenes like Peter lashing out at MJ when she tried to console him over Gwen's death. He told her she wouldn't care if her own mother died. Here we see her heartbroken over her mother's death. Where the novel falls apart is in the final third. Doc Ock is shoehorned into the story so that there can be a villain, and Conway tries to draw a parallel between Peter finding love with Mary Jane and Doc Ock being denied a life of happiness with Aunt May. Conway flashes forward to the wedding, and then creates a totally new battle between Spidey and Doc Ock that is incredibly weak. I thought the novel would have been much stronger if it had continued focusing on the relationship between Mary Jane and Peter during the period where they dated, and built to the moment where she told Peter that she'd always known that he was Spider-Man. Structurally, I think the problem was that final part of the story was supposed to happen within the present day timeline (i.e. in line with the 1989 Spider-Man continuity), but that isn't made clear and the shift from retrospective to present day action is clunky. The story is told through first person narration, but it's not clear who Peter or Mary Jane are speaking to -- is it to each other? The reader? As with most Marvel graphic novels, it's a swing and a miss. Saviuk's art gets nicer treatment than the monthly newsprint, but Marvel didn't quite understand the power of the graphic novel. Too often the pitches didn't justify the format. On the other hand, if they'd produced a story told entirely from Mary Jane's perspective with no bad guy and limited involvement from Spider-Man, would anyone have bought it? Honestly, I think the writers were struggling with the marriage. Perhaps this was an attempt to solidify Mary Jane as "the one." It's ironic then that one of Conway's final acts was to tempt Mary Jane into cheating on Peter. Conway's Mary Jane was all over the shop. She changed focus at least a dozen times. It was clear that he didn't want to portray her as a damsel in distress, but he couldn't write a strong Mary Jane either. One issue she'd be crusading against injustices, and the next she'd be throwing a tantrum because nobody cared about her problems. I'm reading Kirkman's Invincible at the moment, and for all its flaws, he tends to handle the female characters better than they're handled in mainstream comics. Lessons learned, perhaps.

I've been working on a list of my ten favorite singles from '86, and discovered this relatively obscure Canadian group.

I was today years old when I discovered Randy.

Web of Spider-Man #69-70 (1990) Conway's run on Web finishes with a silly two-part story involving The Hulk and the brother of the villain from the classic Fantastic Four story "This Man... This Monster!" Spidey spends the second half of the story transforming into Spider-Hulk whenever he's angry. Kind of a fun gimmick. I'm surprised it hasn't been used more. It appears to the reader that Saviuk is having fun with it. I'm not sure how this story fits into Peter David's Hulk timeline, but Conway and Saviuk's Hulk was murderous. He straight up killed one guy and almost murdered Spidey, and he's only in the first issue. There was a surprisingly high body count in Conway's Spider-Man stories, but I was kind of surprised to see The Hulk so nonchalant about killing someone. It was announced in the letters page that Conway had taken a position as story editor on Father Dowling Mysteries. The original plan was that Conway would take a five issue break from Web to get his schedule sorted then return to the book. He never returned, but planted a few seeds for future storylines such as Kristy being a live-in babysitter for Liz and Harry's kid, Betty Brant becoming a reporter for Jonah's magazine, and the return of one of the Lobo Brothers. As far as I'm aware, the longest run on Web after Conway left was Terry Kavanagh, who steered the book through The Clone Saga, and Howard Mackie. The rest was a bunch of fill-in issues. It lasted until 1995 and ran for over a hundred issues, but it was always the red-headed stepchild of Spidey comics. Saviuk stayed on the book until issue #116, but his art style seemed to fall in line with Bagley's house style and didn't seem as striking in the issues I flicked through. Age of Apocalypse was my jumping off point for Marvel (one man's jumping off point being another man's classic childhood storyline), and whenever I see a Marvel comic from the mid-90s, it looks like something from outer space. It's completely unrecognizable to me in any way, shape or form. The art style is cartoony, the computer coloring is garish, and the fonts look like something some kid messed around with on an early version of Adobe on Windows 95. 1988-90 was the sweet spot for me. Of course, Marvel was better before 1988, but I can't help when I was born. The Andrews people were making changes, but the books were still being edited in similar fashion to the Shooter years. Once the speculator boom hit, and editors became addicted to pre-order numbers like they were crack cocaine, was when everything turned to shit. I moved on with my life, but I kind of miss those days of flicking through the latest comics at a stationary store or at a dairy (the New Zealand equivalent of a convenience store.) Hell, I miss the days when you'd get lucky and an older kid had stuck a porn mag inside an issue of 2000 AD. Simpler times. Again, it wasn't a classic run, but it was good comic book storytelling and it helped that Conway had a consistent artist in Alex Saviuk. I'm happy I took the time to read it. If you liked Conway's Bronze Age stories, I think you'll find his return to Spidey intriguing even if it's not as good as peak Conway and Andru.

Web of Spider-Man #63-68 (1990) Issue #63 was a weak story that served to reintroduce Betty Brant into the fold. The cover pissed people off because it made it seem that either Venom or The Punisher would guest star (two of the hottest properties in comics in 1990.) Instead, it was a crappy Scarecrow knockoff named Mister Fear, who Spidey had fought in an issue of Marvel Team-Up alongside Hawkeye. The only upside to the story was that Conway was trying hard to re-establish Betty as part of the supporting cast and help her overcome the mental trauma that other writers had put her through. The conclusion that Betty reaches is that she needs to overcome her fear of being alone and stop relying on men to protect her. That was after they heavily teased that Flash and Betty were an item. The execution left a lot to be desired, but at least Conway was trying to make Better stronger and more independent. A lot of people weren't thrilled with the way Glory Grant fell head over heels for the werewolf guy, so I suppose this was a step forward. Next up there's a two part story where Conway addresses some of the criticisms people had of Acts of Vengeance, but having a special follow up story where The Chameleon hires all of the villains that fought Spidey and offers them a 100k if they bring him Spidey's head. The hook is that Spidey has to fight them de-powered. I like that there was an actual aftermath to Acts of Vengeance, as too often these crossovers come and go with no lasting consequences, but I do wonder what Conway's motivations were. Peter David was openly critical of the Acts of Vengeance crossover at the time and mentioned that other writers felt the same way as him. I can only assume that Conway had his own criticisms of the crossover, or perhaps was responding directly to reader feedback. In any event, it's a fun idea, but Conway doesn't come up with any interesting ways for Spidey to take his foes down, and the fight scenes are disappointing. The most interesting part is the first issue cliffhanger where Graviton sends Spidey high into the sky until finally he begins plummeting back to Earth. Conway liked putting Spidey in these unusual predicaments. Following that storyline, there's a three issue arc where Conway pulls another of his favorite tricks -- goofy team-ups. In this case, it's Spidey teaming with The Molten Man and The Green Goblin (Harry was trying to play superhero at the time.) Conway brings Tombstone back into the mix, and gives him super powers in the most convoluted of fashions. Hey, at least he's respecting traditions. It's unclear why Tombstone needed powers, or why Conway gave them to him just as he was about to leave. Perhaps he was worried about what other writers would do to the character after he left. I can't imagine the next guy wanting to do much with Hammerhead, The Chameleon, and Tombstone, but who knows. We find out in this storyline that Tombstone is actually a black albino. The weird part about the story is the middle issue where Spidey attacks Harry to stop him from being a superhero. A lot of people weren't happy that Spidey attacked Harry without any provocation, but we've seen Conway have Peter act in strange ways throughout his runs on both books. Conway quit writing Web before he left Spectacular, but he was clearly winding down at this point. One of the most fascinating parts of Conway writing both titles is that they don't flow together seamlessly. I believe that was intentional on Jim Salicrup's part as he didn't want readers complaining that they had to fork out for an issue of something they didn't usually buy or subscribe to. Occasionally, you get little teases of what's happening in the other comics, but for the most part they can be read separately. It does lead to some annoying recapping, though, like the lengthy flashback sequence showing Robbie and Tombstone's entire backstory that ran in the pages of Spectacular. Salicrup grew tired of including footnotes as well, which led to a hoo-hah in the letters page when someone accused him of being lazy for not putting a footnote for the story where Doom stole the Silver Surfer's powers. One more storyline to go, but it's not fully scripted by Conway. Then I may take a look at his Parallel Lives graphic novel since that's also penciled by Alex Saviuk. Conway did all the annuals during his run, but I'm not a big fan of Marvel's annuals format during this era. I loved them as a kid, but I ate up everything they served me when I was young.

You could argue that they spent more time killing off the different members of the Seven than they did Butcher.

I thought the final season was alright. I agree that there would have been a huge backlash if they'd used the ending from the comic, and I also agree that they should have dealt with Homelander in the penultimate episode and not rushed Butcher's ending,

Web of Spider-Man #58-62 (1989-1990) Web of Spider-Man #58 is a perfect example of the type of story that Conway excelled at. He brings back ex-professional wrestler, and one time Jackal lackey, The Grizzly, and tells a great little story about a down-on-his-luck bad guy trying to get one last crack at beating Spidey. Conway had a fondness for bringing back characters from his Bronze Age run on Spidey and adding a few extra wrinkles. I don't know how many readers had a fondness for Conway and Andru's Grizzly, but the story is well-told and has a great ending. It would have made a great send-off for the character, but of course they brought him back. Next we have the Acts of Vengeance. I already bitched and moaned about how much I hated this storyline when I wrote about Conway's run on Spectacular Spider-Man, so I won't complain too much about Spidey shooting laser beams from his eyes and all of that other crap. Instead, I'll try to extenuate some of the positives. I enjoyed Conway's selection of Titania, Goliath, and Dragon Man as Spider-Man's Acts of Vengeance opponents. Titania and Spidey had history from Secret Wars that Conway directly referenced, Goliath had this cool wrinkle where every time Spidey hit him, he kept getting bigger until he was like 200 foot tall, and Spidey fighting Dragon Man in New York subway tunnels was a cool visual that Alex Saviuk did a great job of rendering. We all know that the Acts of Vengeance concept was flimsy, and made the villains look stupid as they took loss after loss, but if you had to choose three random C-list villains to fight Spidey, those are pretty good choices. Personally, I think AoV would have worked better if they'd all bandied together to beat the shit out of a superhero the same way the Masters of Evil did when they attacked The Avengers mansion. One glaring flaw with it is that while it pitted superheroes against villains they'd never fought before, it also pitted writers with villains they'd never written before, and Conway can't but help write them in a generic way. He's not even that good at writing The Kingpin in his regular appearances in the Spidey books let alone Doom or Magneto. Coming out of Acts of Vengeance, Conway brings back the Molten Man. The Molten Man, along with Shocker, Electro, and Tombstone, was a villain that always appealed to me whenever I saw them on the cover of these Spidey comics as a kid even though I didn't regularly collect either Spectacular or Web. Spidey and Molten Man have a strange fight where the Molten Man locks Spidey inside of a refrigerator and tries to murder him by throwing him down an elevator shaft and then riding the elevator down in the hopes of crushing him. I thought this was an odd choice by Conway since the entire point of the issue was that The Molten Man was trying to go straight. Spidey ends up smashing his way out, though he claims the effort almost tore his back out. Another example where Spidey's strength depends on who the author is (don't get me started on Conway's notorious use of Spidey's spider sense.) Elsewhere, we meet Kristy's neglectful and unloving parents, who Mary Jane rips a new one, hear why Kristy developed an eating disorder, and get some overly dramatic Aunt May panels where Peter tries to get her advice about his new cosmic powers. That leads to Aunt May getting philosophical about death and her own mortality, and she waxes lyrically about each phase of life being like the seasons, but hey, at least she gets to be the wise counsel for a change instead of the doddery old bird who has misplaced her medication. These issues were steady. They're obviously not classic Spider-Man, but they bring back a lot of happy memories from the 1988-89 era of Marvel that I loved as a kid before everyone lost their minds during the speculator boom.

Web of Spider-Man #53-57 (1989) Conway was hitting his stride at this point writing both Spectacular Spider-Man and Web of Spider-Man at the same time, and having subplots carry over from one title to the other. It's interesting because there had been a lot of complaints when Kraven's Last Hunt crossed over between all three Spider-Man titles, and editorial had promised that it wouldn't happen again (Kraven's Last Hunt was originally meant to be a Spectacular Spider-Man storyline.) Conway had apparently done the same thing when he was writing Batman at DC. I don't know how his Spider-Man work compares to his Batman run, but the way they handled it at Marvel was that essentially the Robbie and Tombstone stuff happened in Spectacular while the Gang War and Chameleon/Jonah stuff happened in Web, but there were "interludes" and cliffhangers that pointed you to one book or the other if you wanted to learn more. You didn't have to pick up the corresponding title since everything was recapped in Shooter-esque style, but they very much encouraged you to. Honestly speaking, I can't understand why there would be anyone who only read or subscribed to Web, but I guess there were one or two oddballs out there. I didn't enjoy the Gang War stuff as much as I thought I would. The art was messy for some reason. I thought it was the inker's fault, but then it was fine a couple of issues later, so I figure it must have been rushed somewhat. Conway also couldn't set his subplots aside for a moment to deliver a full-on action story. There's also the problem of The Arranger, who should have been killed off earlier, IMO. Conway does this weird thing where Peter walks out on people at the most inopportune time. In one issue, Mary Jane has a terrible tantrum about how everyone else's problems are more important than hers, and Peter's like "sorry, I've got to go", and then in the next issue Glory Grant confesses that her werewolf boyfriend is a criminal, and Peter is like, "sorry, figure it out yourself!" I'm not sure if Conway was deliberately writing Peter as immature or he had too many fish to fry, but in any event, his Spider-Man has a hard time juggling personal relationships and his crime fighting career. I suppose that was always the case, but Conway has Peter make some bonehead decisions at times. After the Gang War storyline is settled, Conway tries to tie up the Mary Jane's cousin has an eating disorder subplot while tacking the issue of racism. Conway had written about social issues in other stories, but here he tackles the issue of neo-nazism. Basically, it's a story about a while supremist character called Eddie the Cross who targets Rocket Racer, and his family, and gets turned into a monster called Skinhead the White Redeemer by an experimental dose of Spidey's web fluid. It's slightly more detailed/convoluted than that, but essentially that's what happens. Conway doesn't write Spidey as very sympathetic to Rocket Racer, and some people have accused Conway's Spider-Man of speaking from a position of white privilege, but I'd prefer to think it was well-intended but poorly written. Editorial may have interfered as well as there is a scene where Spidey has a thought bubble that defends all skinheads from being racist. It appears that Marvel didn't want their flagship character having strong views on racism, etc. He gives a speech at the end about people's essence, but makes a corny joke about the sleazy tabloid photographer that he's been at odds with. It's not the first time Conway has written Spider-Man as insensitive, and his Mary Jane is all over the place at this point (she literally seems like a different person from issue-to-issue at this point), but again there was a lot going on. So much so that a scene where Peter is recounting everything that's happening between the two titles ends with Peter wishing Mary Jane was there to give him a little relief before he wakes up to find her sleeping in his lap. When Alex Saviuk returns from whatever forced him to take a break, and gets back into the swing of things, he takes the memo about making Spidey look McFarlane's model to heart far more than Sal does. Every panel that involves Spidey web-slinging is McFarlane to a tee. He even makes his Mary Jane look like Todd's, though he draws her better than the Toddster did.

Web of Spider-Man #50-52 (1989) Conway's run on Web begins in earnest with issue #50. It was fairly enjoyable as far as anniversary issues of a third tier title go. The main plot centers around everyone thinking Spidey is a criminal because he's been hired by Silver Sable to catch a millionaire who has been laundering money for the Maggia. Spidey's strategy is taken from a Sherlock Holmes story (he says so himself), which is the first time I can remember him using Sherlock Holmes to come up with a plan. Conway may have had Father Dowling Mysteries on the brain, but I guess there's a chance that young Peter read Sherlock Holmes novels. Post-high school Peter seems more likely to base his strategy on a film than novel. Anyway, a bunch of Spidey's C-list and D-list friends try to get to the bottom of his criminal actions. There's a bunch of confusion amongst the heroes and they end up fighting in classic superhero fashion. Puma becomes a major figure in Spidey's life from this point on until Conway's departure. The fun parts are the Jonah book-ends where he goes from being in seventh heaven after receiving photos of Spidey committing a crime to being kidnapped by the Chameleon, who assumes his identity, the cameo from the Joker, who finishes the joke from The Killing Joke, and Aunt May walking in on Pete and Mary Jane's nookie. Issue #51 is where Conway starts flexing his Chris Claremont muscle as he starts working subplots like a DJ mixing records. It's a fill-in issue by Mark Bagley, but Conway doesn't care because he has story to tell. Every now and again, you'd get an issue of X-Men like that where it was all subplots. The difference is that Conway was a lot tidier at tying up his stories. I like the Web version of Mary Jane. She acknowledges being kidnapped by a stalker, and is pro-active in trying to find a new apartment, help her modeling mentor who has become a drug addict, and doesn't just sit around worrying if Peter will come home or not. Peter psycho-analyses his wife a bit when they visit the drug addict friend in the hospital, and is a bit of a dick in thought balloons considering that he screws up on the regular, but it's more interesting than the typical Mary Jane/Peter scenes. Issue #52 is one of my favorite issues from Conway's return to Marvel and has a great cover. It's illustrated by Frank Springer and John Romita Sr. and is a great story about Jonah trying to escape from being held captive while having flashbacks to his days as a young newspaper reporter. I can't remember how much of Jonah's past had been explored prior to this issue, but I found it riveting. Not only the flashbacks to a young Jonah fighting against a corrupt "hero" cop, but the struggle to escape from being a prisoner of the Chameleon, and the cinematic transitions between the present and past. There are probably holes in the story, and in some ways it was Conway's attempt to explain why Jonah hates Spidey, but I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the ending was fantastic as well. Conway had given us a few moments of Peter backstory -- the weird Coney Island crab story and another story from Peter's youth where he attacked some bullies and become even more fearsome than they were -- and had psycho-analyzed Mary Jane, but this Jonah backstory felt like a solid attempt to add to Spidey-lore (outside of Robbie and Tombstone, I should add.) I don't think it stuck, but it taught me that I would not be angry about learning more about young Jonah.

I'm still making my way though Denny O'Neil's Iron Man. It's a struggle, but I'm determined to finish it. I've reached the point where Stark has rejoined his friends and they've moved out West. There's a bunch of tension between Starks and Rhodes, which causes Rhodes to act like a jerk and mess up a bunch. We haven't gotten to the root cause of his headaches yet, but hopefully there's some explanation for his behavior other than insecurity and jealousy. In many ways, O'Neil's flawed superhero feels like Silver Age Marvel turned up to 11. It made sense when Rhodes was still learning how to use the suit, but it gets redundant when he's constantly making mistakes and Tony is the one figuring out how defeat the bad guy. Just give Tony back the suit already. The villains themselves are uninspiring. O'Neil was great at writing street level characters, but with Iron Man you have to constantly come up with villains that use gizmos and gadgets, and the tech stuff is generic. I'll give O'Neil credit for trying to create new villains instead of recycling past adversaries, especially since Marvel's West Coast supervillain scene was always fairly weak compared to New York City, but Vibro and the Termite don't really cut it. Tony's time on the streets, though melodramatic at times, was the highpoint of the run for me. That and the eye-catching covers.

I forgot about Conway's bizarre narration of a splash page in issue #47 where he retells a story from Peter's youth while he's fighting demonic debris: "Once when he was very young, Peter Parker went to the beach at Coney Island with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. It was a sunny summer day, with the kind of once-in-a-lifetime weather that seems to only brighten childhood. Young Peter swam in the sea, ate ice cream on the boardwalk, and built castles in the sand with his uncle. In many ways, it was the happiest day of his life. He still remembers the shock he felt when something black and ugly pushed up through the sand, wrecking the castle and bringing a scream of horror to his lips. It was just an ugly black crab looking for the light. But to Peter, at that moment, it was nothing less than a monster. Since that day, he's met real monsters, and known true horror. But he'll always remember the thing in the sand, and how it spoiled his summer day at the beach." I'm pretty sure modern writers could get an entire arc out of that crab. Possibly more.

Web of Spider-Man #47-48 (1988) Despite the fact that Web of Spider-Man replaced the long running Marvel Team-Up, and debut with an absolutely killer cover and fantastic logo, Web of Spider-Man never found its own identity. There was a period when Jim Owsley was Spider-Man editor where they tried to have traditional adventures in Amazing, gritty street level stories in Spectacular, and more exotic adventures in Web that saw Peter travel further afield while on assignment for NOW magazine. That didn't last particularly long, and Web struggled to nail down a regular creative team, relying mostly on fill-in issues and inventory for much of its existence. Conway was supposed to take over the book when he returned from DC, then for some reason they had Peter David and Conway switch books. David produced one storyline then left. Finally, they decided to have Conway write both Spectacular and Web, but before he fully took over he was something of a pinch hitter for these Inferno issues. Web of Spider-Man only had two Inferno tie-in issues, perhaps because of the drama of finding a permanent writer, and they mostly followed the storyline of Hobgoblin's transformation and new powers, but there was a lot going on in these two issues. Whatever you think of Conway as a writer, it was rare that you came away from an issue of his Spidey comics without a ton of new developments. He was very good at juggling storylines. He also knew how to pace an issue so that the reader didn't get bored. Admittedly, some of it is recognizing foreshadowing, such as Mary Jane and Peter visiting Aunt May's boarding house and Peter thinking to himself that he wouldn't want to live there, or the Kingpin warning the Arranger not to disappoint him. However, there are some gems too, such as Jonah waxing lyrically about Inferno being doomsday or the Kingpin punching out a demon and make it vaporize. I didn't like the way Conway wrote the Kingpin in Spectacular, and I didn't care for the way Sal drew him either, but this was up there with Shocker and Electro fighting or Hammerhead boxing. Another interesting aspect is how pro-active Mary Jane is. She listens to Peter's crime fighting stories, offers advice, and even gets involved in fights. Some of her fashion choices are questionable, but it seems like Conway was trying to write a much more outgoing Mary Jane at the beginning of his run and then editorial told him to make her whiny. Heck, even his Aunt May is gung-ho. I mean, Aunt May was always pretty gung-ho, but Conway has her ready to enter the heart of darkness in Manhattan because she hasn't heard from Peter. The other interesting thing about these stories is the art. Alex Saviuk is a very good Spider-Man artist. There is no doubt in my mind that if Marvel had followed the traditional route that Saviuk would have been the natural successor to Frenz. I love Sal's Spidey, but Saviuk's Spider-Man is your flagship model Spidey. I feel that he's unlucky in a sense since after McFarlane and Larsen, Bagley became the main Spidey artist, and I'm not sure that he was better than Saviuk. Saviuk deserves to be recognized as one of the better Spider-Man artists, or at least in the same conversation as other 80s artists who worked on the character. Conway takes a break with issue #49 but returns for the main part of his run starting with issue #50.

Web of Spider-Man #35-36 (1988) I liked Conway's run on Spectacular Spider-Man well enough that I decided to read his run on Web of Spider-Man as well. I'm gonna be honest, I've never given a crap about Web of Spider-Man. Literally, the only issues I've read have been because of Kraven's Last Hunt and Life in the Mad Dog Ward. It doesn't appear that Web had a regular creative team at this point. It appeared to be cycling through a series of fill-in issues, including one by former Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. Conway was supposed to take over this book, but switched to Spectacular and took his subplots with him. It's interesting because in these two issues alone we're introduced to the new Tarantula, the Persuader, and the Tombstone/Robbie saga in the same type of interludes he used in Spectacular. The main plot sees Peter return to his old high school to fill-in as a substitute teacher. Conway states that it's only been six years since he graduated, but apparently the student base have become cyber punks in the intervening years. God bless 80s comics and their punk representation. Punk made a comeback in the 80s, and it sure as hell took the comic book world by storm. Conway creates a "modern day" parallel to Pete, Flash Thompson an Liz Allen, which causes Peter to reflect on his high school life. It's actually a decent story idea, especially when Peter tries to mentor the younger version of himself and completely blows it, but Conway can't help but turn young Parker stand-in into a villain and after that it loses its appeal. Aside from Conway bringing back an old Ditko villain -- The Living Brain -- the most interesting thing about the fight scenes is that the villain kidnaps Mary Jane and she is incredibly pro-active in inspiring Spider-Man to save the day. Apparently, this had been one of the first times since the wedding that she had been actively involved in the stories. She's arguably a bigger factor in Peter winning the battle than Peter is himself. That's definitely not the case moving forward. I could do without the newly wed foreplay shit, but the writers loved teasing that stuff post-marriage. I guess they figured kids weren't reading anymore. Some of us were, though probably not Web of Spider-Man unless it was by accident. The artist on these issues was Alex Saviuk. That name might not mean a lot to folks, but Saviuk moved from DC to Marvel in the mid-80s and had the longest run on a Marvel book that you knew about. If you knew he penciled Web (with breaks) from issue #35-116, then I tip my hat to you. He was classically trained and a talented artist, but how he survived the early 90s trends I am yet to discover.