Amazing Spider-Man #152. The Shocker

(Cover from January 1976.)

"Shattered by the Shocker!"

Words by Len Wein.

Art by Ross Andru/Mike Esposito/Frank Giacoia.

Lettering by John Costanza.

Colours by Glynis Wein.

Popeye. What was it with him? He'd spend nearly all a cartoon getting knocked about by Bluto and then, at the last moment, take a can of spinach and turn himself into Superman. All of which posed the obvious question of why he didn't eat the stupid stuff at the start of the fight?

A similar question arises whenever Spider-Man faces off against the Shocker. How does our hero defeat our villain in this tale? Easy. He does it the same way he always does, by webbing up his thumbs so he can't control his blasters. In that case, why does it take him so long to defeat the villain? All he has to do is web Shockie's thumbs the moment he sees him and that's that.

I really don't have a lot else to say about this tale. It's solidly drawn, as always, by Ross Andru, though not one of his stand out-issues. It's solidly written by Len Wein, though not one of his stand-out issues. It sort of comes and goes without making any great impact on your consciousness. Due to its noticeable lack of twists and turns, it also feels very short.

So, there you have it, not an issue to turn you off Spider-Man if you're a first time reader but not one to get you hooked either. There aren't even any new developments in the private life of Peter Parker, apart from MJ not speaking to him which is hardly a ground-breaking development and, here, mostly played for fun.

More interesting than the Shocker storyline is the subplot featuring a mysterious street bum fleeing an unseen figure.

Who is it?

How does it impact on our hero?

Only time will tell.

Amazing Spider-Man #151. The Shocker

(Cover from December 1975.)

"Skirmish Beneath The Streets!"

Words by Len Wein.

Art by Ross Andru/John Romita.

Lettering by John Costanza.

Colours by Glynis Wein.

Symbolism. You can find it everywhere. Spider-Man flings his clone into an incinerator, and the last trace of the Jackal storyline's consigned to history. Despatched too with that deed is the Gerry Conway era that spawned it because, after thirty nine issues, the writer's gone for good.

And he'll be missed.

He had many flaws; a total disregard for anything that resembled logic, a love of ludicrous plot developments and a tendency to change his cast's characterisation to suit his story's whims, but he also captured a sense of those characters as real flesh and blood people, as well as pushing the strip in new directions, introducing a harder, more modern edge and revitalising it with the aftermath of Gwen Stacy's death.

It's amazing to think that, at this point in the title's history, a full thirteen years after Spider-Man's creation, the odd guest slot aside, the strip had had just two writers. Maybe that explains its surprising level of consistency and readability over such a long period. Or maybe it was just something inherent in the character and the set-up.

Regardless, right from the start of this tale, we're promised a new era, with Len Wein in charge.

And how have things changed in this new era?

Well, not a lot. In fact, it's a month for the return of familiar faces, with John Romita helping Ross Andru on the art chores, Harry Osborn back from the sanitorium and the the Shocker zapping things for no good reason. Not only that but we get the return of a familiar trope as Peter Parker can't go to a party without having to sneak away to deal with trouble. It seems like Wein was determined to make the "new era" as reassuringly familiar as he could - or maybe he just wanted to have fun playing with as much of the established train set he'd just inherited as he could. Either way, it's not yet a new era. It's business as usual and, bearing in mind the mostly classic status of what's gone before, who's really going to complain about that?

Despite the return of the Shocker - who happens to be one of my favourite villains despite never quite making the major leagues - centrepiece of the tale is actually J Jonah Jameson and his attempts to play host to Ned and Betty's engagement party. Needless to say, it's a task he's completely unsuited for as he orders his guests to drink nothing but Dr Pepper's and bans them from playing his records - and even sitting down. The other standout moment is Peter Parker changing into Spider-Man while hanging from a helicopter. Both are reminders that, even in a super-hero book, a scene doesn't have to be about action to grab you.

Amazing Spider-Man #72, The Shocker's back

(Cover from May 1969.)

"Rocked By The Shocker!"

Written by Stan Lee
Art by John Buscema, John Romita and Jim Mooney
Lettering by Sam Rosen

So, it's back to the many-chefs-make-light-work approach when it comes to the pictures, with Big John Buscema hopping on board to help out. Even at a glance, it's pretty obvious what his contribution is. Even though Buscema always claimed to have copied his layout style slavishly from Jack Kirby, his character poses are instantly recognisable as being his and no one else's.

Of course, that still leaves the question of just what Romita's and Mooney's contributions to the art are. I'm not even going to guess. I'm assuming the inking's by Mooney, which leaves the small matter of how much of the pencilling is Mooney and how much Romita. Like I say, I'm not even going there. Umpteen issues of various hands having a finger in the artistic pie have left me far too confused by it all to even speculate.

Anyway, it doesn't matter because, as you'd expect with that combination of talent, the thing looks great and, in the end, that's all that counts, as The Shocker announces his return by smashing into George Stacy's living room and zapping him with his vibro-blaster. The ex-cop out of the way, the villain turns his attention to what he came for, the priceless stone tablet. Apparently Captain Stacy has let it become common knowledge that he has the tablet, even letting the newspapers know. Frankly, you'd have expected an ex-police captain to have a bit more sense than that and you'd have expected the tablet's rightful owners - whoever they are- to have more sense than to let him keep it.

Drawn by the noise, Gwen bursts in to see the Shocker purloining the artifact. And then he's gone, leaving Stacy senior with no more than a sore head.

The captain isn't the only one with a headache because, when he tries to fence the supposedly priceless tablet, The Shocker can't get shut of it. It seems the entire criminal underworld's too scared to touch it in case Spider-Man comes for them. Oh yeah? Well The Shocker's not scared of Spider-Man.

He gets an early chance to prove it as Spidey catches up with him on a rooftop. Cue the statutory fight. As it's only halfway through the story, cue the villain's escape. But not before Spider-Man plants a tracer on him. To The Shocker it might be goodbye but to Spider-man it's no more than au revoir.

Back to day-to-day reality as, an unspecified time later, Peter Parker sees off his Aunt May. She's off to Florida, for a holiday, which is the perfect excuse for the various creators to give us a flashback to Curt Connors and his tendency to become a human reptile.

Peter Parker, meanwhile decides to get all jealous when he sees Gwen and Flash talking. Flash, increasingly grown-up since his draft into the army, isn't impressed by Pete's behaviour, Gwen isn't impressed by his behaviour and, in the end Peter isn't impressed by his behaviour. There are times when he has to accept that he really is his own worst enemy.

But not right now. Right now, that title belongs to The Shocker. Spidey catches up with him. They have another punch-up - and then we get a masterclass in why, powerful as he might be, Shocky just isn't a top class criminal. The last time they met, Spider-Man beat him by firing webbing at his thumbs. This time he does it by firing webbing at his eyes. Unable to see, and with no way of removing the webbing, The Shocker falls easy prey to just one punch from our hero.

If only all of Spider-Man's problems were so easy to solve.

Amazing Spider-Man #46. The Shocker makes his debut

(Steve Ditko's Spider-Man Head logo is replaced by a new version drawn by Romita. Cover from March 1967.)

"The Sinister Shocker!"

Written by Stan Lee.
Drawn and inked by John Romita.
Lettered by Sam Rosen.

This tale gets straight down to business, with Spider-Man shaken loose from a wall when it suddenly starts vibrating. Rushing to see what's going on, he comes across a new super-villain engaged in the usual criminality - the Shocker. Time for a fight. Time for Spidey to get the soundest beating he's received from a foe since his first encounter with the Scorpion and it has to be said that John Romita pulls a blinder in this sequence, with a wonderfully dramatic set of panels, fully capturing the dynamism of the action. It hurts just to look at some of the punches the Shocker throws.

Licking his wounds, Peter Parker makes his way home and bumps into Harry Osborn who tells him his millionaire dad Norman has stumped up the cash to pay for him to live in an apartment of his own. The good news is it has two bedrooms and Harry wants Pete to move in with him. The bad news is two words.

Aunt May.

How's she going to take the news that she's about to be abandoned by her only living relative? There's another concern because it also seems Harry's been seeing a lot of Gwen. This is only a few issues after it was hinted that Flash Thompson was seeing a lot of Gwen and only one issue after it seemed Harry was starting to see a lot of MJ. Clearly everyone but Pete is seeing a lot of everyone. But, no doubt about it, although he no longer seems to find MJ "icky" anymore, it's Gwen that PP digs the most.

Little does he know he has better things to worry about because, when he heads off to The Bugle, to sell the snaps he took of the Shocker, he's spotted by Fred Foswell, still at the offices and still obsessing about how Peter gets those photos of his. Time, Foswell decides, to adopt his guise of patch the stool pigeon and to start tailing Mr P. The whole Foswell-as-Patch thing is a little odd. It seems he adopts the disguise so people won't know who he is and he can thus snoop at will but, as everyone seems to know Patch and that he's a stool pigeon, it's sort of hard to believe anyone's going to say anything in front of him that they don't want to be public knowledge anyway. Clearly this has never occurred to the ex-con and he sets off after Parker.

Meanwhile, back at his lair, the Shocker conveniently reveals his origin to us. He was a safe cracker who used to make so much noise cracking safes that he always got caught. Happily, there was just the right equipment in the prison workshop for him to assemble a super-vibro-weapon that he could use to demolish half the prison and allow his escape. You have to hand it to New York, it clearly doesn't believe in skimping when it comes to equipping its prison workshops.

At the station, Pete meets his Aunt May who's back from her vacation of the last few issues. But it seems he's not the only one with news, because Aunt May tells him she's had an offer. Anna Watson's asked her to move in with her but she's worried how Peter might take it.

Peter of course takes it like all his Christmases have come at once. This is both their problems solved in one fell swoop. At Mrs Watson's, Pete bumps into MJ and she and he head off to the Silver Spoon together, where Peter's still longing for Gwendolyn. Meanwhile, in case we'd forgotten, Patch is still following him.

And this is where our hero's secret's blown - because Patch sees Pete enter a back alley and, seconds later, sees Spider-Man emerge from it. It doesn't take a brick wall to fall on Patch. He suddenly realises that Peter Parker and Spider-Man must be the same person.

Actually, it clearly does take a brick wall to fall on Patch because he's seen Spider-Man with his arm in a sling and he's seen Peter Parker with his arm in a sling and he already knew, from his photographic exploits, that there's an inextricable link between Parker and Spider-Man. You'd have thought it might have occurred to him already that the arm in a sling thing was a mighty big coincidence. But, regardless, the bulb of revelation has now finally lit up above his head.

There's only one problem - Peter's spider-sense. It warns Parker that he's being watched. Peter spots Patch and knows he has to act.

He does.

He ducks back down the alley and starts to talk to himself, to make it sound like there's two people there, then, as he speaks, he whips together a mannequin from webbing, puts it in his spider suit and sets it swinging off up onto a nearby rooftop, to create the impression that he's been in the alley with the strip's titular hero.

Amazingly, this works and Patch/Foswell is completely fooled. No wonder his life of crime was so short-lived, with an intelligence level this low.

Within minutes, his arm now free of its sling, Spider-Man's tracked down the Shocker who's doing everything he can to draw attention to himself by robbing the Federal Reserve Bank as dramatically as is humanly possible. He's clearly learned nothing from all those years of being the world's noisiest safe cracker. Hero and villain fight and, deciding Spider-Man's too much of a nuisance, the Shocker concludes there's only one thing for it.

He's going to have to blast Spidey full force.

He takes aim.

Nothing that lives can survive a full force blast from the Shocker.

It's curtains for Spider-Man.

And then?

Spider-Man shoots his webbing at the Shocker's hands, preventing the villain from lowering his thumbs to press the triggers of his vibrating wrist bands. Without those, the Shocker's just a cheap crook and Spidey flattens him with one punch.

Next morning, Peter's full of beans, waking with a lark and hurrying downstairs to pack his bags and set off for his new apartment. Afer a tearful goodbye from Aunt May, he's off and, in the next panel, he's being introduced to his new home for the first time.

But, yet again, this is Spider-Man and the formula demands its hero can never be happy. And so, for no noticeable reason - this time, even he admits he doesn't know why - the tale ends with Peter Parker stood alone at the centre of his dream home, feeling like his best friend just died.