Miss the old days when Spidey wore a black suit that was alive and DIDN’T have a super long freaky Larsen tongue? If so, then this annual if right down your alley! Read on, alien-costumer-philes, and let’s see what that crazy extra-terrestrial was doing all those nights it took Peter out while he was asleep.
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Untold tales are hard on my chronological reading list, but often make for great reading – if done correctly. What do I want in an untold tale? I want it to deepen the mythos without changing what is already established.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Story Title: “Ties That Bind”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Garry Brown
Colorist: Lee Loughridge
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramanga
Cover Artist: Aco and Marcelo Maiolo
Designer: Anthony Gambino
Editor: Mark Basso
Published: September 19, 2018
Remedial ASM 101
During Secret Wars, Spider-Man was in need of a costume. Due to Thor being rather unhelpful, Spidey gets more than he bargained for. Wait – you know all this! If you want specifics, just read this older post about the origins and behind the scenes information dealing with the black suit.
The Story – Pay Attention, This Will Be on the Test
The symbiote is lonely until one day, it makes a friend. Our friendly neighbor Spider-Man, to be exact. Spidey brings his new symbiote chum back with him to earth thinking he just has an amazing bit of haberdashery. The suit loves Peter’s life at night with Black Cat as they romantically beat up Hammerhead’s goons. It bothers the suit that Peter has such stress in life with the Daily Bugle and that old bat of an aunt, so, in an effort to be helpful, it takes the sleeping Peter Parker out at night to do more Spider-Man stuff and keeps him dreaming about saving Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy. The suit doesn’t have much restraint until it finds a young man who, realizing that this isn’t the typical FNSM, teaches it about holding back. This young man, though, runs afoul of the tough minded gangster Hammerhead and gets kidnapped, causing the suit to beat the living tar out of him. Realizing that he is not dealing with the real Spider-Man, Hammerhead gives up. Eventually Peter, worried that he is sleeping all day and still feeling tired, goes to Reed Richards and gets separated from the suit, leaving the symbiote feeling betrayed.
What Passed
The colorist. Wow! Loughridge uses a technique that plays homage to the old dotted coloring from comics of old. It was a nice touch.
OOTI (Onomatopoeia of the Issue)
On a scale of 1 (POW) to 10 (BLRKBQRKPQRBLNB), this rates a 10. Are those Ms or Ws at the beginning or just made up squiggles? I don’t know! Bonus points to anyone who tries to shout out this sound right now wherever you happen to be reading this!
What Failed
The faces. On a whole, the artist does a nice job on the book. The problem comes when we have to see faces. Peter and others are unrecognizable on their own. It does, however, have a very Web of Spider-Man feel to me. I’ve juxtaposed two panels here to show how the artist does pull away shots to cover not being able to nail close ups on faces.
Analysis
This is my first time seeing writer Saladin Ahmed in action. He is going to be the new writer of Miles Morales and I’m very impressed with him. This issue does everything an untold tale should do – it adds more depth to the story without changing anything (like say, making Gwen awake and conscious at the time of her death). It was already established that the suit took Peter out at night while he slept, but we never really got much about that since the main focus was Peter and how he dealt with it.
The suit’s perspective of how these events happen is intriguing. The focus on wanting to belong and the feeling of betrayal fits right in with the narrative of the time without contradicting how the suit has grown as a character in modern Venom mythology (at least I didn’t feel that way, but not being a symbiote fan and avid reader of all things symbiote, I welcome other people’s interpretation).
On top of that, Ahmed nails the Spider-Man/Black Cat and Peter/Mary Jane relationships as they were depicted during that time.
I also like how both some random kid and Hammerhead notice that this isn’t Spider-Man, a point that always bothered me in Superior Spider-Man.
At $4.99, was it worth more than…
…a Grow a Girlfriend kit? Yeah, I think it probably was. You can feel free to post which member of the Crawlspace probably has one of these in the comments section. It still bugs me, though, to pay a dollar more than regular price for an annual. While we are at it, I’m sick of re-numbering annuals. I wish they just used the year it came out. which leads us to the extra credit.
Extra Credit
How many annual #1s are there?
Final Grade
I’m flip flopping between two grades. The art took me out of it at times, but the story was very well done. It wasn’t high stakes. It wasn’t part of a longer arc. It didn’t have lots of back up stories that made me feel like I was paying for stories they couldn’t sell otherwise. Since it felt so much like the period it was written in, I’ll go with the higher grade:
A-
Your Turn
What grade do YOU give it?
See you next week guys for the new Spencer arc with Boomerang!
‘Nuff Said!
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“This is my first time seeing writer Saladin Ahmed in action. He is going to be the new writer of Miles Morales and I’m very impressed with him. This issue does everything an untold tale should do – it adds more depth to the story without changing anything (like say, making Gwen awake and conscious at the time of her death). It was already established that the suit took Peter out at night while he slept, but we never really got much about that since the main focus was Peter and how he dealt with it… On top of that, Ahmed nails the Spider-Man/Black Cat and Peter/Mary Jane relationships as they were depicted during that time.”
Wow…not gonna lie ‘other Al’…this is totally wrong.
Let me count for you all the ways just off the top of my head this story absolutely changes stuff:
– Aunt May and Peter were NOT talking to one another at this point in time but they are in this annual
– Black Cat is creeped out by the black costume when in literally her first encounter with it she liked it and even after he ditched it SHE was the one who made him the cloth version he continued to wear for years afterwards
– The annual actively changes the sequence of events of how Peter learns the costume is alive
– The annual has Reed Richards aware Peter is Spider-Man. He is unmasked in front of Reed when it was a VITAL PLOT POINT that he didn’t know. THAT is where the Amazing Bag Man gag originates. From Peter needing a mask to hide himself from Reed but not having one to hand and making do
– Black Cat is chill with checking in on Peter as he sleeps and Peter in turn is only vaguely creeped out by this. In the original Alien Costume Saga Felicia barely ever wanted to spend time in Peter’s company instead of Spider-Man’s and Peter didn’t want her randomly dropping by due to it potentially exposing his identity.
– The symbiote goes all lethal protector when it shouldn’t have been doing that. the symbiote was influenced towards being violent via rejection from Peter and exposure to Brock (or Deadpool). At this point in time those things hadn’t happened so why is the symbiote violent at all? It’s trying to be like Spider-Man it knows his intimate secrets it’s tapped into his mind so why is it so unaware of his no kill policy?
There is other stuff but I’ll leave it there.
What makes this all worse is that 90% of the above would’ve been stuff that the creative team would’ve known about if they’d read ONE issue, ASM #258 the wrap up to the Alien Costume Saga. Not only is it the conclusion to the story they are directly referencing but more than that it’s a historically vital Spider-Man issue.
Its the issue where we get follow up to MJ revealing she knows Peter’s identity, learn she has issues about running away, Black Cat’s first meeting with MJ, the Amazing Bag-Man debut (which has appeared in other media) AND it’s the issue which established the alien costume was a living organism in the first place as well as it’s weaknesses of fire and sonics! Its also the place where we get the iconic dream sequence battle between the red and blue costume and the black and white one, something adapted into two different TV shows and evoked on the posters for Spider-Man 3!
Hell ASM #258 is the first time any Spider-Man comic book even mentioned the word symbiote!
I also don’t see how this adds any depth at all. The symbiote made a friend with…some kid….okay?
The annual is also just baffling in points. Everyone seems to know black costume Spider-Man is Spider-Man…except this kid. Who doesn’t even think he is Spider-Man even after Hammerhead directly tells him it is.
Then you have the contrivance of Spider-Man outright murdering people and NOBODY knows about it. The kid shuts up. Hammerhead shuts up. Apparently everyone he brutalized shut up. That woman he saved from at the start shut up?
Really?
Notorious public menace Spider-Man who’s been accused of murder multiple times before kills people right in front of witnesses and they all just decide to shut up? Hammerhead didn’t even have a reason. What? Was he embarrassed to be beaten by the guy who’s beaten him before?
On top of all that this idea isn’t even new. Every decade it seems someone decides to do an untol tale set during one of the costume’s sleepwalking escapades.
Sean McKeever did a way better one in Spider-Man Family (vol 2) #1 in 2007.
And believe it or not in his very first official Spider-Man story Dan Slott himself did the very first untold symbiote tale in Venom Super Special 1995 where he also retconned that Jean DeWolff only loved Peter as a brother.
So we have an annual that didn’t add anything new, actively contradicted loads of stuff and did it all whilst blatently having not bothered reading the mere 7 issue story arc it was referencing, not even the conclusion which is one of the most important Spider-Man issues of all time.
“I also like how both some random kid and Hammerhead notice that this isn’t Spider-Man, a point that always bothered me in Superior Spider-Man.”
Actually Hammerhead does notice it’s Spider-Man, hence he abducts the kid in the fist place. The kid has no realistic reason to not think it’s Spider-Man. Spider-Man not killing is an iffy subject in NYC given Jameson’s smear campaign and his history of being accused of murder even if he has been exonerated more than once.
But the kid doesn’t know that and has just seen a guy who looks like Spider-Man and moves like him clearly murder people. Why is this kid more aware this isn’t Spider-Man than Hammerhead who knows him better or that random woman from the costume’s first night on the town?
@William Sinclair
What happened in Superior was shitty writing
@Old Guy – Ha! Yes, that makes me feel much better!
If it makes you feel any better, there is only one Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2.
to Willaim Sinclair and Old Guy
@William Sinclair – Yeah, Spider-Man putting surveillance bots everywhere and commandeering an island base doesn’t garner any attention? And in here, he doesn’t talk so Hammerhead immediately knows it’s not Spidey!
@Old Guy – Thanks! That’s a lot of #1s! I wish they just put the year for the annual or didn’t re-number it with the volume.
Five
counting the dual numbered 1/35 and this one.
I love people in the MU being able to tell that someone isn’t the real Spider-Man because of totally out of character actions, but it makes me wonder even more just what the hell happened in Superior Spider-Man. At this rate, I’m expecting it to be ret-conned that Doc Ock had some device that was making everyone in the city stupider!