Marvel Age: Spider-Man #19

Background

I was thinking whether I should ease up a bit on these stories, not be so hard on them because they're aimed at young kids. But then I remembered that Marvel keep boasting about how these Marvel Age stories are for 'all ages' so why should I ease up on a story that should entertain me as well as a seven- year-old? So I decided I'm just going to review this title the same way I would review The Amazing Spider-Man, for example (I don't actually review that title, but I just said it for example's sake.) Okay, on we go to meet the Scorpion!

Story 'The Coming of The Scorpion!'

A person is following Peter home and is getting Peter all nervous. When night falls, and the follower leaves, we find out he's working for J. Jonah Jameson, following Peter to see how he gets all the great Spider-Man shots that he does. Jameson wonders, did Peter follow Spider-Man back to his lair? Yeh, The Spider-Cave! And the Spider-Mobile with a little kid called Web-Lad waiting for him! Well, no, but that would be funny (actually the Spider-Mobile is a real thing!). We then find out that Jameson wants to turn his little stalker friend (Mac Gargan) into a super-powered muscleman whose abilities would surpass Spider-Man's! This with a little help from Dr. Stillwell, who still hasn't done human testing. So Mac, the good little guinea pig that he is, goes through with the experiment, and becomes super-strong! Mac will have to go out in a special suit for a while that will harness his body's new strength. So the Scorpion is born!

Later, J. Jonah Jameson just needs to get Spider-Man close enough to him for the Scorpion to attack. He tries to draw Spider-Man in by asking him to sit down for an interview, but Spidey's spider-sense goes off, and he gets attacked by Scorpion! They fight, with Scorpion at first having the upper hand because of his suit's special tail, Spidey tries to web up Scorpion's eyes, but Scorpy just easily rips it off! Then, while in his office watching the battle, J. Jonah Jameson gets interrupted by Dr. Stillwell running in and saying that dangerous side effects have appeared: Mac's brain is disintergrating! He needs to inject Scorpion with a special serum to stall the process, so that he can cure him. Back on the rooftop, Spidey is down on the floor, tired from the beating he just suffered. Dr. Stillwell rushes up and tells Scorpion to stop. But Scorpion doesn't like the idea of losing all this power, and knocks the syringe out of Dr. Stillwell's hand! Spider-Man luckily gets up, grabs the syringe, and tries to inject the Scorpion. He eventually does with the help of a lot of webbing, and the Scorpion eventually faints. Dr. Stillwell says he'll try his best to cure the Scorpion! And with that, Spidey swings off! The End!

General Comments

This story is nothing brillant but not necessarily bad either. It was a good fight scene between Spider-Man and Scorpion, and I guess for little kids it looked like Spider-Man was really going to lose! But I have one problem with the writing of this issue: Scorpion only seems like a menace to Spider-Man, not the whole city like he did in the original. In the original ASM #20, after defeating Spider-Man, the Scorpion went on a crime rampage throughout the city, and J. Jonah Jameson actually felt guilty about the monster he created! In this one, Jonah doesn't feel that way at all--he just wants Spider-Man dead! J.J.J. seemed much more human in the original, and Scorpion seemed a bit more menacing to the whole city, not just Spider-Man. But besides that, Mike Raicht did an alright scripting job.

And Valentine DeLandro did a good job on the pencils. Maybe the mouths on the characters looked a bit strange at times (that is a weird criticism, I know) but his fight scenes were really good. I said last issue that the colours were really good; I don't think they were on top form this issue. But that's just a little quibble.

Overall Rating

Average Issue. Average Rating. Three Webs.