Spectacular Spider-Man #98, Marvel Comics, January 1985
We were discussing the Undervalued Spotlight at the shop yesterday and I was floating around a few of the books I had in mind for this week’s installment. Thankfully our resident comic book whiz Dylan broke the silence and stares of bewilderment with a great suggestion of his own.
This week’s Undervalued Spotlight shines on Spectacular Spider-Man #98 featuring Dylan’s favorite Spidey villain The Spot!
Though we will be featuring #98 I encourage you pick up a copy of #97 (featuring The Spot’s alter ego Dr. Jonathan Ohnn’s 1st appearance) and a copy of #99 and #100, each with ridiculously cool Spot covers.
First I’d like to say something about the much maligned Spectacular Spider-Man title. This title ran from 1976 through to 1998 and it gave us a lot of great comics, more than one would suspect. We get the highly collected #1, the great Miller Daredevil issues #27 and #28, Cloak and Dagger’s #64, Tombstone in #138, the Maximum Carnage issues above #200 and a whack more I didn’t mention.
Forget trying to collect the Amazing Spider-Man run; it’s an impossible task in this day and age. If you want to collect for the sheer fun of building a complete run and you’re a Spidey fan then gun for those 263 issues of Spectacular Spider-Man. Years of fun await.
Dr. John Ohnn was a scientist working for the Kingpin who somehow created a black circular inter-dimensional portal. After jumping into this portal Ohnn re-emerged cover with black spots all over his body. These were portals which he was able to jump through into other dimensions and then jump back.
Don’t shrug this issue off. I’ll have you know that the past few years have seen the rise and rise of many similar comic book creations. Basically this is a very cool villain, one they can obviously have a lot more fun with and…he’s Dylan’s favorite Spidey villain.
The 45th Overstreet price breaks for this book is $6 in the 9.2 grade split.
Strengths that make this comic a good long-term investment are:
- Intro The Spot
- Too cheap as of this post, lots of room for appreciation
- Founding member of the Spider-Man Revenge Squad (Legion of Losers)
- Dylan’s favorite Spidey villain
Love a book like this getting some love…I know it didn’t start for a while, but I also think the entire DeMatteis/Sal Buscema run is greatly undervalued/underappreciated…
Walt, this is a decent pick, but certainly not for Spot, undoubtedly one of the lamest villains ever (sorry, Dylan). His powers aren’t all that terrible: he opens inter-dimensional rifts and teleports his body, or parts of it, short distances away, enabling him to strike at Spidey from various directions virtually at once. But in a visual medium such as comic books, a “polka-dot” villain simply cannot look cool.
Al Milgrom was never Spec’s best writer, but this issue is still significant because it further develops, or pretty much ends, the Spidey/Black Cat romance — all-too-often ignored since it was mostly a storyline of PPTSM, and only mentioned occasionally in ASM. Theirs was an interesting pairing (much more so than Peter-Gwen or Peter-MJ ever have been, for the most part), because of 1) their clashes over morality and its grey areas; 2) Cat’s attempts to gain superpowers (via Kingpin’s scientists, such as the goof who becomes Spot) so she could “keep up” with Spidey / not get killed by his enemies; and 3) Cat’s disdain for his real life & identity (she loved Spider-Man, but thought Peter Parker was pretty much a boring loser. A little like Lois/Clark way back when, except in this case the Cat actually knew Peter was Spidey),
Other PPTSSM picks: #60 (retelling of origin), #83 (Punisher on trial issue…one of, if not THE earliest version of Frank Castle’s origin, if I remember), and a few issues in and around the #70-80 range (Silvermane, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Octopus / Owl gang war, Black Cat almost gets killed, etc.). And of course the Sin Eater /Death of Jean DeWolff issues, #107-109. A long time ago, didn’t you have a Spotlight on #85? (Hobgoblin gets Norman Osborn’s super-strength serum). If not, add that one.
Good fleshing out of the arc for us, thanks Odinson,
You can’t decide for Dylan that the Spot is lame though – he loves the Spot and that makes the Spot cool.