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Adventures Of Spider-Man #2
Marvel (May, 1996)
“When The Hammer Strikes” WRITER: Nel Yomtov PENCILER: Alex Saviuk INKER: Rob Stull COLORIST: Kevin Tinsley LETTERER: Steve Dutro EDITORS: Sarra Mossoff & Mark Powers
With Jameson out of town, Robbie runs a piece on mobsters running a protection racket at the Coliseum. Hammerhead, the guy running the racket, threatens Robbie if he continues with the story, but Peter talks him into running it, which gets Robbie put in the hospital. Blaming himself (thanks to Jonah), Spider-Man confronts Hammerhead, and has to protect Jonah while he does. While Spidey manages to shut the operation down and the vendors agree to testify, Hammerhead gets away. Also, Peter broke the faucet at home while practicing while Aunt May is also out of town, which serves as a subplot.
What they got right: Hammerhead would get his own introduction in the show, although unlike Superman Adventures yesterday I don’t think they care about the cartoon anymore. Thus any changes are ignorable as the story itself is pretty decent. I think Peter talked Robbie into ignoring Hammerhead’s threats because Robbie wanted to run the piece anyway. It shows how much Robbie respects Peter as a peer, unlike JJ.
What they got wrong: I have no complaints about the story, but sometimes the word balloons point to the wrong people. It happens more than once, which means the editors missed it, and Dutro is better than that so I have to wonder what happened.
Recommendation: A decent Spider-Man adventure. Worth picking up and better than what was happening in the title at the time, especially the art.
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