WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #72 - January 1991

The Reckoning

Credits: Danny Fingeroth (writer), Dave Ross (penciler), Al Milgrom, Keith Williams, & Andy Mushynsky (inks), Rick Parker (letterer), Renee Witterstaetter (colorist)

The Plot: Spider-Man locates the rigged statue in Steele’s hideout and throws it out of the window, seconds before it explodes. Later, Dominic Fortune abandons his partners and locates Steele’s ship. He reconnects with Sabbath, who reveals that she married Steele’s anti-Nazi brother shortly after WWII. After the birth of their daughter Elena, Sabbath’s husband was mysteriously killed. Believing Steele to be reformed, she accepted his support and eventually married him. Unbeknownst to her, Steele took Elena under his wing and trained her to become his loyal agent. Now calling herself Sabbath, Elena is eager to kill her mother. The elderly Sabbath is saved by Spider-Man, who’s followed Silver Sable to the ship. Steele and Elena are placed in custody, and Fortune makes peace with Sabbath.

The Subplots: None.

Review: So, five years after Web #10, the mystery of the young Sabbath is resolved. Revealing that she’s the original Sabbath’s daughter is fairly obvious, but in the world of comics, it’s entirely likely that she could’ve been a clone, shapeshifter, robotic duplicate, or just plain immortal. As little as any of this has to do with Spider-Man, I’m a sucker for dangling plotlines, so I’m glad there was an eventual resolution. Spider-Man’s actual presence in this issue is more than the plot recap would lead you to believe...he helps to save the day, he just isn't particularly involved in any of the issue's big revelations. He saves the heroes from last issue’s death trap, reflects on why Dominic Fortune reminds him of Uncle Ben for a few pages, and saves the elderly Sabbath during the issue’s climax. There’s also an extended sequence that has Dominic Fortune faking a heart attack, and then faking his death while in the hospital. Spider-Man passes a mystery man outside of Fortune’s room and lets him go, even though his spider-sense tingled. The man turns out to be one of Steele’s agents, and he just filled the dummy in Fortune’s bed with bullet holes. Spider-Man believes Fortune is dead for a couple of pages, and predictably, he flashes back to his origin story and beats himself up. It’s obvious that Fingeroth is trying to find some way to make this a Spider-Man story, but there’s only so much you can do. If this were the main story during a regular run, he would be free to check on the supporting cast and advance some subplots. Unfortunately, fill-ins are almost always standalone stories, and this particular story requires Fortune for most of the action, so we’re left with an issue of Dominic Fortune, guest-starring Spider-Man and his ever-reliable guilt complex.

WEB OF SPIDER-MAN #71 - December 1990

Fortune’s Fury!

Credits: Danny Fingeroth (writer), Dave Ross (penciler), Keith Williams & Andy Mushynsky (inks), Rick Parker (letterer), Bob Sharen (colorist)

The Plot: Spider-Man runs across Dominic Fortune, who is still searching for Baron von Lundt, a.k.a. Simon Steele. Silver Sable is also hunting the ex-Nazi, which aligns her with Spider-Man and Fortune. Fortune learns of Steele’s location and charges after him, ignoring Sable’s warning that it could be a trap. Fortune is indeed ambushed by Steele, who also has Fortune’s former love Sabbath and her adult daughter on his side. Steele traps Spider-Man, Fortune, and Silver Sable in his hideout and detonates an explosion after he escapes.

The Subplots: None.

*See _________ For Details: Dominic Fortune’s son briefly took on the identity and was killed by Simon Steele in Iron Man#213. Another footnote points towards Marvel Team-Up #120, Spider-Man’s first meeting with Fortune.

Creative Differences: The letters page says that Gerry Conway will return with issue #76 after a few fill-ins by Danny Fingeroth, John Byrne, and Tony Isabella. The return doesn’t materialize, due to Conway’s commitments on The Father Dowling Mysteries.

Review: You might remember Web of Spider-Man #10, which was clearly intended to be the first part of a storyline centering on Dominic Fortune. You might also remember that the early issues of this series were surrounded by behind-the-scenes turmoil, which likely explains why that storyline was dropped after the first issue and subsequently ignored. Even if he couldn’t finish it during his initial Web run, Danny Fingeroth apparently never forgot about the story. He revived the idea again in an Iron Man fill-in, and five years after the story began in Web, he returns to wrap it up in a filler arc. Iron Man fans complained that this story didn’t exactly belong in that character’s book, and it’s hard not to feel the same way about Spider-Man’s involvement. Fingeroth briefly connects Fortune’s guilt over his son’s death with Spider-Man’s guilt over Uncle Ben’s, and perpetual guest star Silver Sable does show up, but this still feels like a generic story that could’ve starred whichever Marvel hero needed a fill-in that month. Dave Ross did a lot of fill-in work for Marvel during this era, and while not every page is great, I’ve always enjoyed his interpretation of Spider-Man. I first saw it in a Punisher War Journal fill-in, and was impressed with his ability to merge the distorted McFarlane Spider-Man with a more traditional look. I also liked the way he played around with the black area around Spider-Man’s white eyes in order to create the illusion of facial expressions, which doesn’t make any literal sense, but it looks cool.

AVENGERS WEST COAST #101 – December 1993

Genosha, Mon Amour

Credits: Roy Thomas (writer), Dave Ross (penciler), Tim Dzon (inker), Steve Dutro (letterer), Bob Sharen (colorist)

Summary

Hawkeye and the Avengers left in America protest the UN’s decision not to get involved in the Genoshan civil war. In Genosha, Scarlet Witch and Crystal search for Luna while the remaining Avengers fight Exodus. Professor Xavier, Beast, and US Agent discover a tunnel with hundreds of Mutates living in inhumane conditions, overseen by the Magistrate Elite soldiers. The other X-Men continue to fight Cortez’s mutant guards, and learn that Cortez was only speaking through a shapeshifter earlier.

Continuity Notes

Revanche was with the X-Men in the previous chapter but has disappeared. US Agent was shown secretly following Professor Xavier on a dirt road in the previous chapter, and now he’s openly joined him in the tunnels beneath Genosha.

The Genoshan Magistrate Elite soldiers claim to be working for Fabian Cortez, which can't be reconciled with the other chapters in the crossover. Human soldiers working for Cortez kind of goes against the whole "mutant/human civil war" idea.

Review

I can only imagine what a regular Avengers West Coast reader thought of this issue. Of course, the title was being cancelled with the next issue and relaunched as Force Works, so I guess they had lots of wonderful memories ahead of them. This is the weakest chapter of the crossover so far, as the story moves incrementally and the heroes just fight the same villains they fought in the last chapter. Roy Thomas, considered by many to be one of the best Silver Age X-Men writers, doesn’t seem comfortable with the characters for some reason. Beast is shown making a condescending remark about “non-mutants” that requires a scolding from Xavier. Of all the X-Men, Beast would be the least likely to say something like this, especially in the middle of a human/mutant civil war. It’s followed a few pages later with Rogue and Gambit talking about how proudly Southern they are. Uh, okay. It’s a weak comic, but I guess Marvel succeeded in their goal of getting me to buy a series I didn’t normally collect.