We recently discussed Josh, an obscure “Amazing Spider-Man” character who Greg Weisman revived in his Flash Thompson backup story from “Amazing Spider-Man” issue 622. As I said then, Josh wasn’t the only obscure character brought back. I thought it would be fun to take a look at the rest of them.
You can see Flash saying hello to Jason and Tiny in the above picture. I was originally going to spotlight Jason and Tiny together but while preparing the slideshow, I decided Jason had so much story that he deserved his own spotlight.
Who is this Jason?
His name is Jason Ionello and he was a character created for Kurt Busiek’s “Untold Tales of Spider-Man” series. In the series, Kurt took background characters from Midtown High and fleshed them out. Jason was a member of Flash’s gang who was always trying to take the spotlight from Thomson. He tried pranking Peter, but even Flash would admit that Jason took things too far at times. He couldn’t catch a break. He and Sally Avril had various schemes such as trying to figure out Spider-Man’s secret identity, becoming action news photographers and even setting up a superhero identity for Sally.
Eventually Sally was killed during one of these schemes in a car crash. Jason was the driver and he had no license. His character took a very dark turn until Flash helped him in the issue 24 of “Untold Tales of Spider-Man”. “Tales” ended an issue later. Jason was not seen in the final issue or any book since. Now he has made a cameo in “Amazing Spider-Man” issue 622.
Check out the slideshow to see the rise and fall of Jason Ionello.
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Don’t know how regular It’ll be. I plan on doing the characters from this story and we’ll see beyond that. I already have a few 100 podcasts to edit and a Gwen series I gotta wrap up.
This artwork is the most satisfactory I’ve seen in years…the characters all look visibly older and, dare I say it, EXACTLY how they should look in their mid-30s, not the psudo-thirty year old irresponsible teenagers waltzing around in BND
-MJ smiling at the reader (or Peter, since I think I temporarily mistook Jason for him) in the background is a nice touch too, she knows Peter busted his ass for this
A big thanks to Bertone for posting this. I find it incredibly interesting because even my spider-knowledge forgot about Jason.
Incidentally, MJ’s hair’s colored all wrong in the background in case anyone didn’t notice.
I remember Jason and Tiny. Peter had some dealings with both in “Untold Tales of Spider-Man” both diametrically opposite to one another. I wonder if van Lente will take notice of Weizman’s use of these two. How do we know if Jason’s grievances over Sally’s death still haunt him? And what’s Tiny been up to besides adding the spare tire?
This is a really cool post Bertone, do you plan to have this as a recurring CS feature (like the Spider-memories)? if so, are you taking suggestions for forgotten characters? b/c i’d like to add a few…keep up the good work, i love these continuity pieces…and Weisman just moved up a couple of notches in my book, using the Untold Tales?! keep this guy on ASM!
Didn’t forget Tiny…just decided to give Tiny his own spotlight and slideshow later. Sha Shan and the Thomson family will be getting the same treatment.
You forgot to mention that “Tiny McKeever” was ignored too until Weisman revived him here
Weisman sure has an affection for Busiek’s “Untold Tales” title