Is He a Good Guy or a Bad Guy?

 

cover art by Bob Budiansky

Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #2 (1980) is hardly a perfect comic book. There are pacing issues; a page panel during a fight scene that is ridiculously dialogue-heavy; and the new character introduced in the issue fails to make any sort of significant splash in the Marvel universe.

But, heck, it's still fun to read.  So I'll forgive its weaknesses. Writer Ralph Macchio and artist Jim Mooney rack up more positives than negatives before the story comes to an end.

It starts with Spidey and a new vigilante called the Rapier stopping a heist at the docks. The Rapier thanks Spidey for the help, then walks away into the night without giving any information about himself. That's fair enough--Rapier himself points out that Spider-Man doesn't give out personal information either. 

Well, there's more going on at the docks than one botched robbery. There's a crime wave going on and, the next day, Peter and Ned Leeds are threatened by thugs when they try to investigate. When Peter returns to the Daily Bugle, he finds yet more thugs. The mob boss Silvermane is there as well, threatening J. Jonah Jameson over crime exposé articles that the Bugle is running. 

One of the strong points of the story is that Macchio remembers an important aspect of J.J.J.'s character. He might be a greedy jerk much of the time and he might have a hang-up about Spider-Man, but he is a determined journalist who doesn't back down from threats. He WILL print the truth. Later, Jonah is obviously affected when Robbie Robertson--perhaps his only real friend--is roughed up. But he still goes ahead with the exposés.

Spider-Man visits Silvermane and, after a nifty fight against the mob boss's goons, threatens Silvermane and tells him to lay off the Bugle. In the meantime, we learn more about the Rapier. He's not a crimefighter looking to help the innocent. Rather, he's a former partner of Silvermane who was double-crossed and left for dead. His goal is to kill his former partner.

Rapier arranges to meet Silvermane at the Met Cloisters--a monastery-turned-museum that is indeed a visually cool place to have a superhero fight. 

Silvermane, of course, tries to cheat by bringing some henchmen along.  Rapier takes them out, reveals his identity to Silvermane and zaps him with an electrified sword. He's about to finish off the mobster when Spider-Man (who had earlier planted a Spidey Tracer on one of Silvermane's men) shows up.

Rapier slashes off Spidey's webshooters and tosses him a sword. What follows is yet another nifty fight, though this is were the dialogue-heavy panel comes in. Even taking into account that Marvel Comics has always cheated a little in how many quips it's possible to make during a fight scene, Spidey delivers an absurdly-long philosophical treatise about the differences between himself and Rapier.

Rapier's girlfriend has arrived and, worried about the man she loves, bashes Spidey over the head. But this just annoys Rapier. Everything has to happen on his terms and Clarissa has spoiled it all. Now he has to start over. He can't finish off Spider-Man. He can't finish off Silvermane. It's all been spoiled.

It's spoiled even more when Silvermane shoots him in the back while he's leaving. Though badly wounded, he does still manage to get away.

That's pretty much it. Introducing Rapier in an annual might indicate that there were hopes the character could make more of a splash, but he pretty much disappears from continuity until he's unceremonously killed off a few years later.  

There is too much dialogue overall and the pacing is therefore too slow in places. But Jim Mooney's fight scenes are all fun and the issue does tell a well-constructed story within the parameters of Aristotelian storytelling conventions. It's an advantage that comic books have over many other storytelling mediums: though great artwork might make us pause to dwell on a particular page or panel, comic books are overall a quick read. As long as there is something good, this allows us to overlook faults. 

Next week, we'll visit with Sgt. Rock.