Nobody likes playing Tag with Spider-Man.
Spidey Super Stories #7
Marvel Comics/The Electric Company (April, 1975)
WRITER: Jean Thomas PENCILER: Winslow Mortimer INKERS: Mike Esposito & Tony Mortellario ART DIRECTOR: John Romita EDITOR: A. J. Hays
In the Electric Company crossover story, “The Vanisher Shows Up!”, a title that says it all. The Vanisher shows up…to steal all of the book in the library. (Maybe he plans to rule Eternia or something.) As usual it’s the Electric Company characters and not Spider-Man who saves the day when Valerie and Easy Reader go looking for answers in the card catalog. Folks, I worked in a library and visited it often before and after. Everything is on computer now but I’m pretty sure the card catalog wouldn’t tell you what book you need to defeat him and why you’d have a spell in a spell book that sent you to jail and stopped you from vanishing for one year I’ll never know. I just couldn’t dig this adventure, sorry Easy.
If you want to know if The Electric Company writer Tom Whedon is a bit off you haven’t watched the above video. Yes, the Thumper of “Spidey Jumps The Thumper” is a spoiled girl who never got a pony on her eighth birthday, so after the ice cream and cake she turned to crime, dressed as Napoleon to hit people with a boxing glove. This exists in the world, people. And it’s not even the craziest villain this show produced, but it certainly ranks high enough. The adaptation has the wrong EC actress portraying the Thumper so she ends up a white woman and she’s shown having knocked out a lot more people. She also gets a happier ending when Spidey webs her up near-mummy style (instead of the net used often on the show) and has her sit on a yellow rocking horse until the web melts. This is my kind of crazy. Who knows, maybe the Wizard will put her on the Frightful Four someday?
“Lizard On The Loose” won’t be too enjoyable to the average Spider-Fan but for little kids new to the character (and in the show’s target age group), it serves as a fair introduction. When a sick lizard at a zoo needs rare plants to get better, Peter offers to help Dr. Connors find it. He’s worried that if Connors will go into the swamp he’ll become the Lizard again, which he does. Apparently now the swamp makes Curt change the way a full moon does werewolves or something. After the Lizard knocks our hero down, Spidey tosses one of his spider-tracers (which we’re introduced to in the shorts) onto him and follows him back to his old lab, where Spidey is able to make the good potion (that’s honestly what they call it) and cure the good doctor, who remembers nothing. Like I said, not much for Spider-Fans but good enough for the target age group.
This is at least better than the last issue, but it requires really dipping into your inner child or nostalgia to get any enjoyment out of it. Otherwise only pick up out of curiosity
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